conferences

SAN FRANCISCO--If you could play high-end, 3D games in your browser at the same speed as on a console, would you? Here at the annual Game Developers Conference, the maker of Firefox revealed a plan to get you to do just that.

Mozilla's current holy grail is getting the mix of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS that powers the modern Web to run apps at speeds that rival native code, the operating system-dependent languages underpinning apps on iOS, Android, Windows 8, and other proprietary systems.

The not-so-secret weapon in Mozilla's plan is something called ASM.js, said Director of Engineering Vladimir Vukicevic. "It's a dialect of JavaScript that can optimize [code] much better. It's around two times as fast," he said.… Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The value at stake for the "Internet of Everything" is $14.4 trillion that businesses and customers can capture in the next decade, according to Cisco.

In other terms, Cisco is projecting that the Internet of Everything has the potential to grow global corporate profits by 21 percent in aggregate by 2022.

"The opportunity here -- and the challenge -- is the next level of scale," said Rob Lloyd, president of sales and development at Cisco, while speaking at Cisco's second annual Editors Conference at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters here … Read more

Facebook has revealed details about Mobile DevCon 2013, a trio of events this spring, in three of the largest cities on the planet, that's intended to connect Facebook engineers, product managers, and "like-minded mobile developers."

The Mobile Developer Conference series will kick off in New York City on April 18, followed by a stop in London on May 2, and then concluding in Seoul on May 7.

Noting that there are more than 680 million active users on mobile, Facebook reasserted that it has been focused on improving mobile offerings over the last year, citing improvements across … Read more

Ever thought a smartphone could detect what was in your urine? Well, now it can. A new iPhone app, developed by MIT entrepreneur Myshkin Ingawale and unveiled at the TED conference this week, lets people take urine samples with their mobile device.

Obviously, pee and electronics don't mix, so this app instead uses the smartphone's camera to determine what's in urine. Dubbed Uchek, the app involves the user peeing into a cup, putting a color-coded urinalysis strip into the cup, taking of photo of the results, and then letting the app work its magic.… Read more

Editor's note: It's official. Microsoft has announced the future of Xbox (and the next console) will be revealed at an event in Redmond, Washington on May 21.

Press events are a tricky beast. No one ever said they were easy to pull off. But with Sony casting the first stone in the next-generation console gaming war, Microsoft can learn a lot from what worked and what didn't.

When the lights went up, Sony execs were shaking hands and congratulating each other. But the packed house at … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- A what, where, and why primer on the Game Developer's Conference from guests Meggan Scavio and Simon Carless.

- The 15th annual Independent Games Festival opens its Audience Award voting window, now through March 1.

- Nominations open for 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards.

- Unity Engine coming to BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Consumer electronics giant LG focused its attention on the home and living room with a series of home entertainment and appliance announcements.

Chief among them was the pricing and dating of its much-awaited 55-inch OLED TV, which first debuted at last year's CES, though was delayed. The company today said it would begin selling in the U.S. in March for about $12,000. It also promised two new sizes of its 4K resolution television sets, 65-inch and 55-inch versions to join the 84" model.

LG spent much of its presentation touting its smartening up of various … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- LG's flagship OLED television set will arrive in the U.S. this March, the company announced here today.

The model will cost "about" $12,000 LG's U.S. marketing chief James Fishler said at the company's press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show.

The 55-inch TV set design first debuted at last year's CES and won CNET's highest honor, but was delayed, due to what was rumored to be issues manufacturing the set.

Last week LG said its 55-inch OLED TV model (55EM9700) would arrive in South Korea next month … Read more

Videos from Microsoft's Build Conference, an annual event for developers, are now online for anyone to check out.

Posted over the weekend to Microsoft's Channel 9 page, the videos deliver a great deal of coverage of Microsoft's four-day event, including CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote and sessions on developing programs for the company's new Windows 8. Microsoft has also posted videos of its Windows Phone 8-related sessions.

Ballmer's keynote was one of the more newsworthy highlights from last week's event. During his discussion, he noted that his company has sold 4 million Windows 8 … Read more