Crysis 2, the mega-visual FPS, is the first of the two installments to be released on consoles. A lot of people said Crysis 2 would never stack up to the PC versions, and that the PS3 version was underwhelming, but I had a hands-on look at Crysis 2 during the GDC in San Francisco, and didn't have a single complaint about the visuals, especially not the Passive 3D engine. A new multiplayer demo is now available on the PlayStation Network, so if you are one of the 41 million people that owns a PS3, you really can't miss out on this.

PlayStation Blog interviewed Nathan Camarillo, the Executive Producer of Crysis 2, who shared many insights on the upcoming game. As I had written before, one of the greatest things about Crysis 2 is the lack of 3D gimmickry in the game design, as Camarillo clearly states in the interview:

Much like the article we posted yesterday about Capcom, SEGA is donating to the Red Cross all of its proceeds from its Sonic iOS titles and the Football Manager Handheld game starting yesterday and continuing all throughout the week.

Like the Street Fighter IV iOS download, SEGA is reducing their prices for the following games, all available on the App Store. The prices and links are below:

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 - 1.99

The reccent and tragic events of the 8.9 Japanese Earthquake hit very close to home for revered gaming giant Capcom. Though they have offices in bth Tokyo and Osaka, Capcom reported today that their employees are "safe and well", and that they very much appreciated all of the kind wishes and support in the aftermath of Japan's largest earthquake on record:

You hear that people? Download Street Fighter IV RIGHT NOW, not only do you get a great-priced fighting game on your iPhone, you're doing a good thing. Tell your friends, tell your family. You can always delete the app later. Every bit counts though.

AMD did not impress their fans by denying warranty if the performance "OC" bios switch was used on their Radeon HD 6990, but XFX have stepped up to the plate and are now saying that they will be fulfilling their warranty even if AMD won't.

XFX told Kitguru that they'd be offering it, with a statement saying:

The first wave of AMD's FX-series processors based on a Bulldozer micro-architecture will include four different models with eight, six or four cores and a TDP of either 95W or 125W. The first batch of AMD FX8000, FX6000 and FX4000 chips currently known as codename Zacate will completely support all of the advantages that the Bulldozer architecture has to offer.

This includes the new Flex FP floating point processing unit. The new chips (including the eight-core) are projected - by AMD's internal documents - to offer roughly 50-percent performance improvement over the Phenom II-series of microprocessors in multimedia applications.

The main family of AMD FX-series CPUs will feature two eight-core models, a single six-core model as well as a quad-core model. The FX-series chips will support dual-channel DDR3 1866MHz memory, it will also support Turbo Core dynamic acceleration technology and will come in AM3+ form-factor which will have a 95 and 125W TDP.

Microsoft just released the "final" version of Internet Explorer 9, the Browser That Started It All. Sort of.

Though there are bound to be bugs nonetheless, Microsoft is touting some pretty impressive features. Though the browser comparison on their website is a bit outdated, here are some of the options that a user just won't be able to find in Firefox 4 or Chrome 9 (Betas):

- Full hardware acceleration for text, graphics, and video provided by default

The first video of Samsungs upcoming iPad 2 competition, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is out and is titled "One day with The New Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1," has been posted on YouTube. It's 12 minutes of hands-on footage and is bought to you by AndroidHD. This is not an official video, with that being discovered subtly by the video's description.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 features a 10.1-inch WXGA TFT LCD display with a 1280x800 resolution, 1GHz dual-core processor, weighs in at 1.23 pounds (599 grams), features a SIM slot, 3.5mm jack, BlueTooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11. It uses Samsung's proprietary charging cable and doesn't have a USB or HDMI port. Galaxy Tab 10.1 does however feature dual surround-sound speakers, an 8MP rear-racing camera with Auto Focus which is capable of capturing 1080p video, a 2MP front-facing camera and is set to become available in 16 and 32GB versions.

One of the biggest features of the Android-powered tablet is that it ships with Flash 10.1 support. As for the video's description, I have it listed below.

Wimbledon, Heathrow, Chelsea and Thames - these are the codenames of AMD's next-generation mobile GPUs. The 28nm-based GPUs are expected to be released over next 12 months or so with the first three, Heathrow, Chelsea and Thames set for production starting Q4 2011 with a release of November 2011. Wimbledon behind them with a release sometime in Q2, 2012.

APU's have changed the market and thus, the releases feel this love. The 28nm product lineup shows a redefinition of the categories - "Value" is gone. In its place will be the mainstream/performance GPU, Thames. Thames uses a 128-bit memory bus and has twice the performance of the 2011-based "Seymour" mobile GPU (which is the Radeon HD 6400M). The thermal envelope on Thames will be 15 - 25W which is quite a bit higher than the 10W associated with previous entry-level mobile GPUs.

The difference between mainstream and performance GPUs is now blurred - TDPs and even performance will be close between Thames and Chelsea. The Gamer/Enthusiast chip is where the fun will be. Heathrow will sport a 128-bit or 192-bit memory but and will use a TDP above 35W.

Five years ago this week, what would be the very successful Social Media site Twitter blossomed into existence. March 21, 2006 saw the world's first tweet.

You only get one!

To commemorate Twitter's fifth birthday (5 years in this social media ecosystem is an eternity), Twitter posted a plethora of interesting stats regarding then and now:

This morning, Hasbro (King of Toys) and Jagex, creators of RuneScape, announced a strategic development agreement on releasing a Transformers massivley-multiplayer-online-game.

CEO of Jagex Games Studio Mark Gerhard said in a press release,

Thought the iPad 2 lines/delays were a travesty? Quit whining, you knew it was going to happen anyway. Instead, imagine for a moment that you had pre-ordered one of the most acclaimed fighting game's amazing sequel back in January and had still not received it by mid-to-late February? Wouldn't you expect that benevolent game-making enterprise to give you something for your troubles?

Despite initial shipping issues back in February, Capcom has been very generous in its apologies (check out the 3rd entry down in that last link), according to recent Capcom blog post:

SXSW just had its first game dev competition, offering a $50,000 Grand Prize (It's no Seumas McNally, but still nothing to sneeze at) sponsored by the online and independent gaming development community, indiePub, who is in turn sponsored by Zoo Entertainment Inc.

Feel free to check out the press release below, but you might want to know that ALL OF THE WINNINg GAMES ARE PLAYABLE at indiepub.com

Google have had a great time with YouTube and have said that 2010 has been a great year for YouTube. The results of this success are leading YouTube to hiring more staff to allow YouTube to grow. The plan is to expand its staff by 30-percent which makes it the largest hiring year in the history of YouTube.

Right now, YouTube has between 600 and 700 staff, a 30-percent increase would create 200 new jobs. YouTube launched on February 14, 2005 and has enjoyed rocketing success since. YouTube sees 35 hours of video uploaded for every minute that passes and well in excess of 2 billion views per day!

"It's been amazing to watch an idea become a platform that turned into a stage for hundreds of millions of people to express themselves," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "We now have aspiring filmmakers and musicians building their careers on YouTube, activists opening our eyes to global issues and individuals telling their stories in ways that only video can capture. And because we believe that technology and platforms like YouTube are giving rise to the most diverse set of faces and voices ever seen or heard in human history, us YouTubers really enjoy and feel proud to work here."

From a March 10th press release, Nintendo announced that they would be mounting a cross-country major city Nintendo 3DS promotional campaign in which "Pods" would be showcased in metropolitan areas around the United States (and Canada). Living in one of those major cities, I moseyed over to San Francisco's Pier 39 to check out what was going on.

The Pod has 8 play-testing spots with different games at each one. The games at the SF location included AR Games, Face Raiders, Street Fighter IV, Madden, Pilotwings, Steel Diver, and the much anticipated Nintendogs + cats. The latter is a Tamigotchi-style virtual pet raising game, in which you can pet your pets with a cursor, feed them, take pictures of them, post them to various social netoworks and even hold in the palm of your hand (thanks to an AR Card). Nintendo is also providing a Mii-maker kiosk adjoining the Pod, where you can make a Mii based on a couple default settings and an intuitive process that adds features based on a self-photograph. As you could post this to Facebook or send this to up to 3 email addresses, many people were enjoying this feature, including Mii. I mean, me.

Most popular game to demo was a three-way tie between Face Raiders, AR Games and Nintendogs + Cats. All of these games have AR elements or are entirely AR based, so this bodes very well for Portable AR experiences in the near future.

Endgadget's editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky is no longer a part of the AOL-owned Tech Blog. Though the story broke on Kara Swisher's All Things D around 3:00 PM PST, Topolsky followed up with his own (and maybe last?) Endadget post (with the following photo as well):

"It's hard to believe that I'm currently writing the words I seem to be writing, though a casual stock-taking of my senses dictates that it must be true. Here I am, at my computer, typing letters one by one into a plain text document, rolling along through one of the strangest posts I've ever penned for this site. Okay, probably the strangest ever.

After nearly four years at Engadget, it's time to make my exit. There are things I'm after and challenges I want to take on that just don't fit with my day-to-day schedule here, so off I go.

UPDATE: The source looked at the picture wrong, I apologise if I got some people excited! The GTX590 will be a dual-slot card, at 297mm in length which is close to the GTX295's length.

The launch of the soon-to-be amazing GeForce GTX 590 dual-Fermi based GPU is about to go live and the closer we get to the release, the more that leaks out about it. NVIDIA has obviously put a lot of green sweat into this puppy and the latest shots show a 21.5mm-thick cooler which would imply that it's a single-slot based cooler.

This would be an amazing achievement if true, but could also come at the cost of your ears. If it is indeed true, NVIDIA have pulled a rabbit from the hat and should get some fairly good press based on the cooler design alone.

According to Mike Lennon of Security Week, the tragedy of last night's earthquake off the coast of Japan wil lead to further proof the human race is full of terrible, terrible people.

He writes, "Today's tragic events of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and resulting Tsunami, as sad as it is, is a dream for scammers and fraudsters around the world. Tragic events are always something scammers use to their advantage, helping them prey on and exploit innocent victims...Scams are already spreading across Facebook, which started in a matter of minutes after the news broke of the earthquake in Japan. As I write this, scammers are hard at work, registering new domains and cranking out templates for their fake donation sites. This will be followed with massive volumes of email spam, Tweets through Twitter, and Facebook posts, as scammers gear up to solicit donations from around the world. Users also need to be aware that cybercriminals also use these events to help spread malware, via malicious links via spam, twitter and other fake Web sites.

Lennon made his prediction based on the numerous and prevalent scams that polluted the Internet amid the Haiti Earthquake Aftermath, including pay-per-use "loved one finders", fraudulent charities and fraudulent entities using handcrafted domain names posing as legitimate charities, like the American Red Cross. And don't forget general phishing scams, MalWare links, and the tried-and-true (and tragically, often successful) Nigerian Prince Con.

LinkedIn, everybody's favorite professional social media networking site unveiled its new "News" feature (still in Beta) today in conjunction with a press conference. "Today" is part of a suite of new features that the already successful startup is rolling out in the near future to further endear themselves to social professionals.

[I hope everyone appreciates the Inception-level of meta-irony here]

"Today" utilizes a LinkedIn user's already existing professional network and the industry in which that person currently works to share relevant and current news. It is yet another information aggregator, but there's not a heavy degree of customization required if you've already a LinkedIn user. And unless your industry is Aeronautical Internet Pancakes, "following" relevant industries is as easy as the click of a button in a conveniently located side bar.

If you haven't had the chance to play SpyParty yet, it's a combination of Metal Gear Solid and that one level that exists in every FPS where you only have a sniper rifle. But more classic.

The IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize runner-up (Minecraft won) was one of the most popular indie destinations at GDC last week, with people lined up to get in on the action. The game itself has a nostalgic arcade feel, but the gameplay is wonderfully and psychologically complex. One player is a Sniper, one is a Spy, and the former has no idea who the latter is. The Spy can blend into an entire dinner party of characters, and must complete a host of secret missions while simultaneously avoiding detection. This is difficult, because the Sniper has been "briefed" (i.e. the instructions to the game) on all of the "tells" a Spy could possibly evince. The Spy has the advantage of being able to see the laser-sight of the Sniper, and thus know where he or she is looking at all times. Catch is: there's a time-limit, so one of you has to make a move at some point.

Game Designer Chris Hecker has succeed in creating a smart, thrilling, psychological game. In fact, it's absurdly addictive, and the inherent violence of the game is described only though the sound of a silenced rifle shot and the screams of the other partygoers. No gore, no blood- nothing overdone. And the environment is so voyeuristic and immersive that you start to panic almost immediately. If you're playing in person, you are almost face to face with your opponent, who is either hunting you or trying to evade you- not a typical video-game experience.

Google have just clicked the GO button on Instant Previews. Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Google Instant Previews is compatible with mobile for Android (2.2 and above) and iOS (4.0 and above) devices.

Similar to the desktop version, Instant Previews allows a user to visually compare search results from a webpage of snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster. In order to use Instant Previews on your Android or iOS-powered device, do a search on Google and tap on the magnifying glass next to any search result.

A side-by-side comparison view of the webpage previews for the first page of search results will appear, once you've found a result you like, tap the preview to go directly to the side.