If you knew me, then you’d probably know that I’m a proponent of the cloud and cloud computing. I have replaced native, client-side apps when I could. An example of this is the icon of Google Docs, which always stays in the Dock on my MacBook Pro, as I use it in place of Word for Mac or Pages. For spreadsheeting, I use Google Sheets. Except for presentations, which I still feel more at ease editing in my copy of Keynote ‘09.

The reason I simply love cloud computing, is simple. Everyone only needs relatively weak connections, and a broadband connection. Heck, sometimes even something weaker can be utilized. But the point is, you could run something like Google Docs almost as well on a 5-year old computer as you could run it on a Mac Pro.

It also opens up potential for possibly mobile apps. Having something like Google Docs could mean that I could access the Google Docs website online on my iPhone or my BlackBerry (Although my BlackBerry came with DocumentsToGo) without having to download any sort of client-side software, using only the built-in browser. It also is a good thing for developers, as developers do not need to constantly write code for every single differing platform that is existent out there, and do not need to compile their code for different platforms either, but they could stick to what they know with web technologies such as PHP, Ajax, and CSS.

However, it looks like folks from the company OnLive have a new direction for the Cloud – Gaming!! Yes, they’re actually developing cloud apps for gaming. What happens, is that instead of running games on your own computer/games console, all you have to do, is download a 1 megabyte file onto your PC or Mac. Or, alternatively, if you plan on playing it on your TV, you can buy their MicroConsole device, hook it up to a broadband connection, and hook it up to your TV.

What happens then is that all of the computations and processing power needed for the game is housed at a server farm somewhere, and the video is then streamed back to your computer, or your TV. Given the fact that unlike streaming services like YouTube, which only send video from their servers to your machine, OnLive also has to receive commands and instructions from your controller or your keyboard and mouse, I’d be rather concerned about network latency issues. Can it cope? However, they quote that a 1.5Megabit connection is all you need to start playing. thanks to their revolutionary compression technology. Given that 3G speeds on the iPhone 3G itself is already ready up to 3.6Megabits, that means just about any computer will do (sorry, dial-up folks!).

Here’s a video showing Crysis being played on a Dell with INTEGRATED GRAPHICS:

Any takers?

Link: Technology Review.

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