The new CryEngine 3

Crytek showcases their new engine, CryEngine 3 which at first glance looks very similar if not identical to the old engine. Overall, it is the same thing with maybe a few updates in physics and such, but that is not the main idea behind it. Its basis lies in the fact that it can now be used in most consoles such as the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and of course the PC. It also has scalable computation and graphics so that all major upcoming platforms can utilize it as well.

Here is a video showcasing the new engine:

Windows 7 Release Candidate May Release

The Windows 7 beta is indeed getting quite old now and even Microsoft did a good job at keeping people interested in this release for quite some time but the numerous changes announced on the Engineering 7 blog got people quite hungry for the next Win7 release; more precisely, the first RC. Now thanks to some good lad at Microsoft, we were able to get a leaked date a few days back and it sounds quite promising. After a fortunate slip-up on Microsoft's side when the RC download page accidentaly appereade on Microsoft's TechNet webpage, we were able to get enough information on the RC to give us an idea of where this is all going. Planned to be released sometime in May and to run until it's expiration in June 2010, this new release on Windows 7 will have an unlimited number of keys given out in order to avoid what happened during the last release when the servers fell under the pressure.
Both 32 and 64 bit versions will be available and you can be sure that we will grab one and review it for you revealing all the changes and possibly make it easier for you to decide if it's worth wasting your bandwith and time or not.

Intel to ship it's new Core i7 in early April

Intel's new Bloomfield 975 processor seems to be coming to the market sooner than we had expected. Various websites such as this one seem to already have the new processor listed. Although quite unofficial yet, these dates are a leap considering this model was not supposed to come out until the end of May. Nonetheless, this new chip from Intel showed some big improvements from its predecessors as the leaked version was able to go up to an amazing 5,239MHz. Costing around $999USD and featuring 3.33GHz, support for LGA 1366 sockets, 1MB of L2 cache and 8MB of L3 cache and a whopping TDP of 130W, it will soon be the new extreme for hardcore gamers and power users.
Another chip Intel will be releasing shortly is the Core i7 950 which will be clocked at 3.06GHz and will replace the 940 for a more decent price of $562USD. Check back regularly for more news on these processor's releases.

AT&T to sell contract-free Iphones for soaring prices

Previous rumours have been confirmed by AT&T as they announced that starting Thursday, March26th, they will begin selling contract-free Iphone 3Gs. Sounds good right? Wait until you hear the rest. In order to buy one of these units, you will have to already be an AT&T customer and have $599 to throw out for the 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB one. When compared to the existing $199/$299 contract deals, it doesn't sound so good , does it? However, for those of you who have the cash to burn on these unlocked Iphones, it's quite a good deal considering you don't have to sell your life for two years to a greedy wireless carrier.

Gmail now has a message undo button

Have you ever sent an email to someone and upon hitting the send button regretted it because you either misspelled something or you just sent it to your mother when it was supposed to go to your best friend? Well, Gmail now has a new feature that lets you take back emails 5 seconds after you've sent them. Just enable it in the Labs settings on your Gmail account and start having some peace of mind when composing your emails. Kudos to Google for this great little feature that will save a lot of people's behinds from being fired, mocked or given long moral talks from their parents. As a word of advice to all those who sighed upon reading this post, go make a Gmail account as soon as possible and avoid this kind of mishap.

NZXT's new all aluminum Panzer box

NZXT never ceases to amaze me with their great cases. Recently, they have released a new mid-tower to the market that has the potential to run against Antec's 900 gaming case and possibly come out on top. Named the Panzerbox, this case is made out of welded aluminum and has tons and tons of features for its small size. Weighing in at around 6KGS, it supports ATX, Micro-ATX and Baby AT motherboards, has 7 expansion slots, 4 internal 3.5" drive bays and 3 external 5.25" drive bays, 3 fans - two 190mm and one 120mm fans as well as USB/Audio/ESATA ports on its top. One feature however that is often neglected or ommited when designing cases is a removable motherboard tray. Well, the Panzerbox has it which means that building your rig as well as upgrading it and cleaning it just got easier. Also, if you are thinking of overclocking and running a liquid cooling system, this case has great support for 2 radiators, while still leaving enough space for today's huge graphics cards and large heatsinks and fans. The price is also quite catchy and affordable; $120 for all these great features and performance boasts so if you are a hardcore gamer and in need of a new, completely redesigned rig or if you're just looking for a new case make sure you put this one at the top of your list. After all, it's rather small and portable with amazing airflow and bound to be a looker at any LAN party. If that doesn't have you hooked, then nothing will.

EVGA's New Classified X58 Motherboard

EVGA never ceases to impress us with it's high tech, cutting edge hardware. The new Classified motherboard has features that will make gamers and power users go completely nuts. With support for Core i7 processors, RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, 6 DIMMS, support for 2-way or 3-way SLI (or CrossFireX) with an additional PhysX card, this piece of hardware right here is sure to make the top of every gamer's wish list. The price of $449.99 might make you second guess yourself but by all means, if you have the extra cash burn it on this motherboard. You will not be dissapointed.

Here is a link to EVGA where you can take a look at and munch over all the spicy details.

Android app for remote torrenting

For all you pirated material lovers out there, torrenting has gotten even easier. After Androidandme launched it's "Android Bounty" which is a "contest" that gives people incentive to build torrent apps in order to collect bounties from people, Alec Holmes came up with Torrent Droid, an app that scans UPCs with the built-in cam of an Android phone, finds the torrent on a major torrent host site and automatically starts downloading it on your home computer. Pretty impressive eh?
Only downside is that it only works on the Android platform of G1 phones but will hopefully be ported soon enough to Windows Mobile and the Iphone. The app has not yet been released to the public but Alec said that it will only take another month at the most to finalize this project. To get an idea of what this app is all about take a look at the video below.

Ski-jump (dump) bathroom stall

I love how Japanese people always come up with intriguing ideas that are certain to get people hooked. This is a bathroom stall meant to be a Coca-Cola ad at a ski resort in Japan and the idea behind it is both thrilling and dangerous at the same time. Thrilling because it looks like a real ski jump and dangerous because, captured by its realism, you might find that you're throwing yourself off the seat only to notice that you were not completely finished, if you know what I mean. Nonetheless, props to whoever thought this up. It's sure to get quite some attention and profit both to the ski resort and to Coca-Cola

EVGA implements Loaner Program

So the guys over at EVGA thought it would be practical or just good for advertising to start out a "loaner program" that works somewhat similar to the well known software trial idea. This Loaner Program as they called it gives people the chance to sign up and randomly get selected by EVGA to receive products for reviewing and testing. Like the "random" part won't get people skeptical enough, they thought it was a good idea to impose a rather harsh time limit on the loan. To be more precise, you only have two weeks before you have to send your product to ther participants chosen by evga. Also, at the moment they only have two programs available: one for their new X58 Classified motherboard (which I will talk about in a separate article pretty soon) and one for a Samsung 22-inch 120Hz LCD monitor with Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision glasses. The motherboard sounds like a rather delicious hookup but only if either you already have all the X58 setup parts but haven't decided on the motherboard or if you are just not satisfied with your current motherboard. Nonetheless, this sounds like a good deal for reviewers or for people who enjoy playing with the latest in technology for free. Don't lose this opportunity as you might be amongst the first ones to review the new Classified motherboard.

To sign up or get more information, click here