Posts tagged Microsoft
Is ‘cloud computing’ the future of video games?
Jun 16th
Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Playing high-profile video games quickly from portable devices such as your iPad might get easier after this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo.
While the E-3 “game changer” tag has been reserved largely for innovations such as 3-D and motion-sensor systems, several companies hope using cloud computing to store games will be the real shift by letting gamers play high-end titles anywhere, on almost any machine.
If fully realized, they say, cloud gaming could be a console killer.
Gaming company OnLive announced Tuesday that it will make 23 popular console games, including “Assassin’s Creed II,” “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Mass Effect 2,” available through an online subscription service.
“Today we’re taking the first step toward a future where video game content is increasingly free from the restrictions of device and location, while showcasing the ability to instantly play the latest, most advanced games at the touch of a button,” said OnLive founder and CEO Steve Perlman.
Cloud gaming uses rapid data compression to let users store their games “in the cloud” — on Web servers — and then pull them down and play them using a regular Web browser. It’s the same concept as storing photos on a site such as Flickr or music videos on a MySpace page.
The user doesn’t actually have those files on any one particular computer but can access them from anywhere.
OnLive has partnerships with gaming companies such as Electronic Arts, UbiSoft and Warner Bros. Interactive and announced several new ones, including Sega, on Tuesday. More titles were expected to be available as they are released.
OnLive’s service, which launches Thursday, will offer free subscription for a year, with an announced price of $4.95 a month for an additional year. Individual games will, of course, cost extra.
OnLive isn’t the only one in the cloud-gaming business though. Rival Gaikai announced this year it had raised $10 million for a streaming game service that will let users sample games before buying them.
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How Does Office Web Apps Compare to Google Docs?
Jun 11th
Microsoft rolled out its free Office Web Apps earlier this week, introducing a free, basic Office suite for the web. How does it compare to Google’s own Docs offering? Here’s a rundown of each webapp’s strengths and weaknesses.
Where Office Web Apps Excels
Yeah, yeah, that’s a pretty bad pun. But it’s actually the first descriptor that came to mind.
Microsoft Office Compatibility
As you’d probably expect, when it comes to uploading a complex Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to the web, and having it look the same there as it does on your desktop, Web Apps takes the cake. Until our little test, though, we didn’t realize by just how much.
We uploaded a few different Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files to both suites, and relied on our past experience with Docs. To show you the difference, here’s a heavily formatted corporate-style newsletter-pictures, sub-headings, margins, you name it. We opened it in TextEdit on a Mac, and placed it next to both Google Docs and Office Web Apps.
First, here’s how it looks in Google Docs, compared to the original in TextEdit. (Click the image for a larger view):
Source of image (LifeHacker)
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Microsoft – Cloud Computing and the entrepreneurs (Video)
Jun 11th
