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Microsoft's DeLorean is a cloud gaming system that knows what you'll do next
When it works, cloud streaming video games can feel like a magical experience. Think about it: some remote server is pushing high-quality gameplay directly to your TV -- through the internet! It's a crazy, impressive achievement, but it's still not ready for primetime. Cloud streamed games face latency and control delay issues far too often, and the easy solutions (moving servers nearby or increasing bandwidth) can be expensive. Microsoft proposes another fix: a system that predicts what the player is going to do before they do it. It's called DeLorean, and well, it's ambitious.
Rumor: Microsoft plays with cloud-based gaming, demos Halo 4 on a PC
Microsoft company officials demonstrated a prototype cloud streaming service for games during an internal meeting this week, The Verge reports. Unnamed sources who are close to the event confirmed that officials had a streamed version of Halo 4 up and running on Windows PCs and even a Windows Phone (including Xbox 360 controller support via an attached peripheral). The demonstration reportedly ran smoothly, with latency on a Lumia 520 phone dipping as low as 45ms. Sony purchased Gaikai earlier this year in a bid to establish a streaming service for the PlayStation 4. Microsoft previously announced that it would use cloud computing to leverage additional processing power for games like TitanFall, but has not confirmed plans for a cloud-based streaming service.
Boxee tag teams with Sigma Designs to get its cloud streaming into Smart TVs
Right down to its name, Boxee has always been about the set-top boxes, but now it's teaming with system-on-chip specialist Sigma Designs to get its streaming services inside Smart TVs. According to the pair, that'll give panel makers an easy way to integrate Boxee's cloud-based DVR, Web Servies, TV channels like ABC, NBC, CBS or PBS, social networking and on-screen programming. For its part, Boxee has been playing catchup with the likes of Roku and Google, and after baking its hardware and services into Sigma's UXL SoC, will no doubt be keen to enlist as many TV manufacturers as possible to its flavor of cloud streaming entertainment. It'll be showing the new chip in action later this week at CES 2013 where we'll try to get our hands on it, but meanwhile, check out the PR after the break.
GameStop's cloud streaming will spurn consoles, hang with PCs, tabs and TVs only
When GameStop bought Spawn Labs, it was clear that some sort of cloud-based game streaming was on deck, to compete with the likes of Sony's Gaikai and Onlive (now allied with Ouya). However, the company has just announced that the service will exclude consoles, and work only on tablets, PCs and internet enabled TVs -- a change from the original plan. The decision was made "based on consumer feedback" after a private beta, according to the retailer, who hinted earlier that consoles may be a non-starter on the service. It also cited its "success in selling mobile devices, and the imminent launch of new consoles" to justify the change. The program's launch is still planned for next year, but for now the console streaming path is clear for others.
Crytek's Gface hits beta, wants you to stream your games, life
Facebook games just not doing it for you anymore? Than put on your gameface -- or log into it, rather. Gface is an upcoming social network, powered by Crytek, that seems to be gunning for OnLive (or maybe Gaikai)'s cloud gaming foothold. Yes, streaming's the name of the game here -- Gface is powered by Crytek's new Seed Engine, a cloud technology platform that lets users share context aware game sessions, video seeds and personal media. Details are hazy at the moment, but if the network's new beta subscription page is anything to go by, Gface will allow friends to socialize, share live video feeds and stream casual and high-performance games in both single player and cross-platform multiplayer modes. This real-time sharing setup is designed to be a hardware independent, cross-platform network that runs in your browser, powered by the GFace experience plug-in; imagery on the teaser page suggests you'll be able to seamlessly pick up a game of "Warface" on your PC, smartphone or tablet. There are plenty of questions left to ponder about the budding social network, but one picks our brain: will it run Crytek's Crysis? Hit the source link below to sign up for the beta, and if you get in -- let us know.
Amazon negotiating for Cloud Player music licensing deals after all?
Publically, Amazon wants you to think it doesn't care about licensing the music that it will let you store in the cloud, but privately we're hearing the company is scrambling like mad to work things out with angry music labels as we speak. Specifically, the Wall Street Journal cites a pair of anonymous sources who say Amazon's actually negotiating deals with the four major labels right now -- though Amazon won't confirm such a thing -- which the e-tailer hopes to close in a matter of weeks. What's more, they say Amazon may move to a system that compares users' uploaded songs with a database of those tunes it's managed to licence should the deal go through -- a system much like Sony's Music Unlimited, by the sound of it. It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that the Journal quotes Sony Music chairman Martin Bandier in its final paragraph, who makes his pointed indignation at Amazon's announcement heard: "This is just another land grab. I can't make it any plainer than that. It's really disrespectful, and of course we are considering all of our options." Nothing like a little bit of mainstream media coverage to help pressure a business deal.
Amazon Cloud Player upsets Sony Music over streaming license, Amazon shrugs
In case you missed the news, last night Amazon gave us a little surprise by launching its free Cloud Player service, which lets you stream your music collection from the cloud to your computer or Android device. While this has no doubt put a smile on many faces (American ones only, for now), Sony Music isn't too happy about Amazon jumping the gun over licensing for streaming rights. The record label told Reuters that it's hoping Amazon "will reach a new license deal, but we're keeping all of our legal options open." Yikes. In retaliation, Amazon responded with the following statement to Ars Tehcnica: "Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music. It's like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available. The functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive or even iTunes." Of course, the bigger story here is that Amazon's free Cloud Player is going head-to-head with Sony's Music Unlimited streaming subscription service, which was pushed out last month after plenty of money talk with various record labels. Understandably, Sony isn't willing to let Amazon cut through the red tape here without a fight, and this may also affect similar music locker services like mSpot and MP3Tunes, albeit at a much smaller scale. In fact, Sony's already expressed its discomfort with those particular companies' mode of operation, so you can probably expect to see this tension boiling over to some form of legal action before long. Now that a big shot like Amazon's involved, it's almost inevitable. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple slyly enables background iDisk music streaming in iOS 4
Well, would you look at that? The v1.2 update to MobileMe iDisk that Apple pushed out last month has a secret -- er, did have a secret. One of the concealed new features of the app is background streaming, or as Apple puts it, the ability to "play audio from your iDisk while using another app." For starters, it's pretty fantastic just to have this functionality in-hand for your own garage jams, but what's more is that any licensed music on your iDisk still streams perfectly fine. Only time will tell if any record labels (or that mean, mean RIAA) step forward with a grievance, but this could very well be the beginning of iTunes in the cloud. Or a reason for buying Lala. Or a mysterious combination of the two.
