Gareth Davis, the platform manager in charge of Games at Facebook, delivered his keynote Tuesday morning at the Game Developers Conference. Davis opened the Social & Online Games Summit to a packed room inside the Moscone Center. Davis focused his talk on the changes in social gaming and told ..readmore

Filed under: iPad The iPad , like the iPhone , used the Oscars to make its ad debut . As is typical with an Apple ad, the iPad’s ad featured a montage of different uses for the device, all while set to the backdrop of a catchy tune. In ..readmore

Mozilla’s high-performance TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which was first introduced in 2008, has lost a lot of its luster as competing browser vendors have stepped up their game to deliver superior performance. Firefox now lags behind Safari, Chrome, and Opera in common JavaScript benchmarks. In an effort to bring Firefox ..readmore

Cisco today said that after the close of markets on Tuesday, the company will announce a major acquisition which will “forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments.” We first learned of the news from MarketWatch . Cisco has been rumored to be about to ..readmore

Valve has stopped with the teasing and has officially announced that its online gaming service Steam is coming to the Mac. As a bonus, the company also plans to make the Mac a “tier-1″ platform, promising simultaneous release of games on Mac OS X, Windows, and Xbox 360. Valve ..readmore

Those playing Assassin’s Creed 2 on the PC got a rude reminder of DRM’s pitfalls when the servers that authenticate the game went down. Many complained on the company’s official forum , and tempers ran hot. Remember: the game has to be in contact with Ubisoft’s servers to work; ..readmore

Kratos wants to do one thing: kill Zeus. It’s the only goal that the “Ghost of Sparta” has in the entirety of God of War 3 , and everything from the epic beginning moments to the final credits serves to make that happen. If you haven’t played the first ..readmore

Bizarre Creation’s Blur is shaping up to be a great arcade-style racing game for the PC, PS3, and 360. The game’s multiplayer beta is officially launching today on Xbox Live; we got to spend some time with it this weekend, and it’s a ton of fun to play. The ..readmore

Filed under: TUAW Business , Podcasts It’s the biggest night in show business , but just in case you’re not caught up in the Hollywood horse race (go Hurt Locker !) you’re welcome to join Mike Schramm and I for our Sunday night Talkcast, as we dive into all ..readmore

For many years, I have been famously (or notoriously) anti-Silicon Valley . There’s nothing wrong with the place in iteself; what I detested was the snobbish notion that the Valley is the de facto or “best” place to run a startup or be involved with the tech world. I’m ..readmore

It seems the 17-year-old truant who created Chatroulette has applied for a visa. The youngster, be he lucky or brilliant, has indicated he might want to transition to the American scene at some time in the near future. With all the media attention he and his service have received ..readmore

Filed under: Gaming , Software , iPad We’ve heard from Secret Exit (creators of Zen Bound) a few times about the new version of their game coming soon , but Touch Arcade has some brand new pics and insight about the game itself. Kotaku also has a few preview ..readmore

Making games is expensive. Unfortunately, for independent developers, getting ahold of enough money to actually fund a game can be a daunting task. Enter the Indie Fund . Founded by a who’s who of independent developers, including members of 2D Boy, Capybara Games, and thatgamecompany, the fund is being ..readmore

We recently ran a video for the just-released Borderlands content “The Secret Armory of General Knoxx.” To watch the video, you had to put your birthdate into the window to prove you were old enough to view the M-rated content. We’re sure most of you are familiar with age-gated ..readmore

Activision Blizzard has become an immensely successful company with three large franchises under its belt. So what’s the only thing to do? Begin burning one down! The drama between Activision and Infinity Ward has lead to lawsuits, stories in the press, and rampant speculation about what’s really going on. ..readmore

We’re still not happy with NVIDIA’s failure to publish anything on its site alerting users about the doom that may befall them if they switched to the 196.75 drivers, but the company’s making an effort to get back into our good books with the first official video of its ..readmore

Filed under: iPhone , iPod touch , App Review The iPhone is shaped a little bit like a deck of cards. Like a deck of cards, Apple’s little magic toy device can be used to play any one of a number of different games. Unlike standard cards though, the ..readmore

Filed under: Multimedia , iPhone , App Review I love Flickr (and alliteration, apparently). That is, I love Flickr on my desktop, and often on my Apple TV . I’ve never really been in love with the mobile experience, mostly due to long wait times and cumbersome navigation. When ..readmore

Filed under: Developer , iPhone , iPad One of the biggest barriers to entry for people who want to develop their own iPhone apps is the requirement to actually know how to program in Objective C. Runtime Revolution (AKA RunRev) has been developing and marketing a HyperCard -like development ..readmore

Microsoft hasn’t been the most progressive company when it comes to dealing with gay and lesbian issues on Xbox Live, but the company has just announced a small but important change to its Code of Conduct for the service. You can now describe your relationships with a number of ..readmore