We’ve all seen more and more of the software we use everyday migrate to ‘the cloud’. Spreadsheets, Word Processing, Desktop publishing and even whole entire operating systems are available to use via high bandwidth connections. But who would have thought the day would come so soon that we start seeing high specification computer games played via ‘the cloud’?  That time is now – well actually it was back in September 2011.

What exactly is ‘The Cloud’? Well, this post is about ‘Cloud gaming’ specifically so I don’t want to get too bogged down with technical nonsense – put simply ‘the cloud’ is everything your PC was previously required to process in order to achieve the same end result. But instead of your PC having to do all the leg work a super powerful server in another location does the number crunching. All your computer has to do is display the information received by the server. ‘The cloud’ also refers to data storage where all of the important numbers are saved away from your computers hard drive and backed up multiple times on remote servers. All of this wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the constant increases in speed and bandwidth from the frequently pushed internet service providers.

So what inspired me want to write this blog post? It was a thought I had in the bath the other day while playing Dirt 3 on my HTC Sensation XE – ‘this is going to revolutionise the entire computer games market’. I realise that’s a fairly bold statement and I don’t take it lightly. To put things into perspective; according to Wikipedia:

…a survey conducted by market watch firm Jon Peddie Research,[28] Nvidia shipped an estimated 33.00 million graphics chips in the first quarter of 2010, for a market share of 31.5%. AMD and Intel shipped an estimated 25.15 million units (24.0% market share) and an estimated 45.49 million units (43.5% market share) respectively. Nvidia’s year-to-year growth was 41.9%.

In August 2011, Nvidia predicted the growth of its revenues would be 4% to 6%, instead of 4%, as analysts said.[29]

In September 2011, Nvidia forecast strong sales for 2013 in the region of $4.75bn to $5bn, which surpasses analysts expectations of $4.45bn.

Keep this in mind, a HUGE amount of high end computers are purchased and built for the majority reason of playing the latest computer games. These figures are from Nvidia alone – that does not include AMD or Intel. And that’s just graphics cards, not to mention the amount spent on high end CPU’s, super fast RAM, high spec motherboards…so on, so on. Imagine this – you can play the latest games in full quality, at high definition resolution, anytime, from (almost literally) any location and on any device. Not only that but your save games are stored on ‘the cloud’ too. You dont need a £300 graphics card or a high spec (high cost) CPU. You dont need any more than 2gb of RAM (in fact, minimum specifications do not even list minimum RAM so you could even get away with less).

Of course, a fairly healthy sized portion of the graphics card market will be on graphics cards required for local video acceleration for professional application such as the Nvidia QUADRO and AMD FirePro range of desktop acceleration devices. Video editing, 3D animation, graphic design, music production all require serious number crunching ability at the source. But who is to say this cant also be available on ‘the cloud’ at some point? (that post is for another day!)

So putting the professional market to the side for a minute and talking only about the consumer market – what happens to this massive requirement for high spec hardware? It all goes to the cloud too?! Computers will need only basic computing power to be able to play the latest games – local graphics cards and video acceleration will become redundant and unnecessary. As long as your PC can display a video stream from OnLive (or similar cloud’ gaming site) you’re good to go!

Consumers will no longer need to buy high end hardware to play the latest games, instead they can save their pennies and redirect that cash into buying more games to play via ‘the cloud’. Games they’ll be able to play on all of their devices – Desktop computers, laptops, smart phones, tablets and even TV’s (with TV’s coming preloaded with the OnLive service software ‘ready to go’).

Nvidia and AMD will have to rethink their products and branding – calling for a new approach in consumer components. They’ll be selling truck loads of super powerful hardware to cloud services like OnLive. But for consumers local video hardware acceleration will be unessential.

Exciting times are ahead, OnLive is incredible and works really REALLY well. And with the announcement of Adobe making some of their powerful professional software like Photoshop and Lightroom available on ‘the cloud’ – soon an internet blackout will mean our desktop computers are left utterly useless.

These are just my thoughts anyhow, but with a valuation of $1.8 Billion (OnLive alone!) I would say ‘Cloud gaming’ is well worth investing in – both time and money.

There’s an issue that effects millions of us everyday.

An issue that most of us are unaware is even going on

You might not know about it yet but you too might suffer from the effects of this distressing problem…

Voice over by Chris Bailey http://theboyinthecorner.co.uk/

Concept & Written by Luke Williams http://twitter.com/alukeonlife

Filmed & Produced by James Williams http://manychefsbroth.co.uk/

Shot on Canon 600D w/ EF-S 18-135mm IS.

Stills

I’m going to start this post by saying it isn’t important to understand the nitty gritty or the ‘in’s and out’s’ of SOPA or PIPA. However it is important to understand how it affects you.

We face a very real chance of losing a lot of our own communication liberties.

Personally I feel it is important to understand that governments and organisations are not happy with how information and intellectual property is easily and often freely distributed. The restrictions to TV and radio broadcasting exist for a simple reason; controlling the flow of information.

It just so happens that with the invention of the internet people have taken that control back. We decide what we watch and when – and for some of us WE control what we produce, upload and make available for others to watch. The governmental systems have very little control over what we say or what we do on the open internet.

This will change; by the means of SOPA, PIPA or something else in the future. People can only fight for so long before the systems in place apply smarter laws. Laws we might even be told will do us some good.

SOPA and PIPA even make it almost impossible to use I.P content under fair use.

Keep vigilant about your own views and liberties.

We’ll tell our children stories of open, free and uncensored communication and they’ll think we’re making it up.

If it’s not SOPA or PIPA it’ll be something else that reverts power and control over communication away from people and back to governments and organisations.

If you’d like to know more about SOPA or PIPA the guardian have compiled a great article which you can find here: http://bit.ly/w6OHBE

Monday 18th July 2011 22:50

TheSun.co.uk hacked by LulzSec?

I’m not certain of the cause but I managed to grab a screen capture just before the whole site was taken down (403).

Full image below

A full version of the Hacked website can be viewed here: http://twitpic.com/5s9xee

Update 18th July 2011 23:15 – (Lulz Security® (LulzSec), the world’s leaders in high-quality entertainment at your expense are admitting responsibility for the attack on TheSun.co.uk.

LulzSec Twitter feed states:

This is just as fun on the inside. We are battling with The Sun admins right now – I think they are losing. The boat has landed… >:]

TheSun.co.uk now redirects to our twitter feed. Hello, everyone that wanted to visit The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good!

Update 19th July 2011 00:19

LulzSec are saying they have also hacked News International’s website following a press released posted – this was quickly taken down and redirected to their twitter.

LulzSec:

11:39 18/07/11: Oh, we forgot to mention that we sailed over to News International and wrecked them too. Nearing 300,000 followers… full steam ahead!

11:37 18/07/11: So News International released this AMAZING statement on The Sun: http://t.co/0J4qLZU We improved it for them though!

People also stating on #hackgate that http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ has also been under attack – website is currently down but no confirmation from LulzSec.

Update 19th July 2011 00:43

LulzSec thank followers for the attention they received following the hacking of The Sun and News International Websites and state they quit:

00:41 19/07/11: Thank you for the love tonight. I know we quit, but we couldn’t sit by with our wine watching this walnut-faced Murdoch clowning around.

Following the relentless attacks from the hacking group LulzSec – News International servers have all failed and the company has been forced to shut them down. DNS lookup confirms this - http://www.just-dnslookup.com/index.php?vh=thesun.co.uk&c=&s=dns+lookup%21

Here’s my review and ‘How to’ on Google’s exciting new product ‘Gmail Motion’

EEEERRRR … SSSHHHHHHHHH…BEEEP…INCOMING TRANSMISSION.

New video is up on our infant YouTube channel. If the video made you smile, please support us by hitting thumbs up and subscribing to our channel. BEEEEEEEP!

Lyrics:

I am a ROHBET
I am a ROHBET
I am a ROHBET
RO OH BET
What the fuck you look-
Look at my colander Hat
Tea
MMMMMMMMMMMM
Look at my colander Hat
Tea
MMMMMMMMMMMM
ROHBET’s
They Store their rubbish in their socks
ROHBETS
What the fuck you looking at?
Go Make some ROHBET TEA
Two Sugars Please
MMMMMMMMMMMMM
ROHBET’s
They Store their rubbish in their socks
ROHBETS
They Store their rubbish
Tea

Me and a few other enthusiastic chums have decided to come together and focus our energies on something we’ve all wanted to do for a long time. Build a YouTube channel with decent, regular content.

We’ll be posting short films, animation and video blogs on the channel. Our aim is to have a creative outlet for stuff we produce outside the day to day. We hope you’ll find some enjoyment in these videos and would urge you to support us by subscribing to our channel.

Check out our Pre First video (which is actually our first video, technically. But sshhh)

We’ll be launching our channel with a video blog of us climbing the UK’s second tallest Mountain; Mount Snowdon in the depths of one of the coldest winters to date. Check out the video at the end of the month to see if we made it to the top and/or fell from a great height.

In the mean time, keep it plastic.

http://www.youtube.com/user/manychefsbroth

James

A brief sales call from a polite sales person at http://www.lifeonshow.tv/ inspired me to make this short note.

The sales person claimed that their exclusive online video platform is better for commercial application compared to both YouTube and Vimeo.

This was based on two main claims:

1. Their service has an exclusive codec compression algorithm like no other. Provides video faster and with better quality than other platforms.
2. Due to the ‘FACT’ YouTube own the rights to your content when you upload.

I disagreed with the sales person, making these two key points:

1. H.264 / VP6 – there isn’t anything else available that offers a better lossy quality to file size compression ratio. I think the Moving Pictures Experts Group did a pretty damn good job there. H.264/MP4 is accepted EVERYWHERE. Across all platforms and on all websites. Why would I want spend time RE-ENCODING my video with their codec?
2. YouTube DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO YOUR VIDEO. As stated; Section 8 YouTube Terms of usage. When you upload video to YouTube you are providing YouTube and other YouTube users with the RIGHTS OF USAGE. This includes reproduction, distribution, preparation of derivative works, display, and performance. In simple terms, if you upload it, they can reuse it and so can any other YouTube user. If you delete your video, you then revoke the rights of usage and YouTube cannot use your video. No rights as a content producer and copyright holder have been removed from you. IT IS YOUR VIDEO!

The response to this from the sales person was “that’s not what I’ve heard”…

I think the thing that annoyed me the most was the attempt at a scare tactic. A less knowledgeable business owner might just believe the lady on the end of the phone saying “YouTube own the rights to your video”. Without specifying the legalities of this, who is to know what she means?

Copyright is a hot topic since the internet has made it simple to share others intellectual property. It is a worry for many businesses, but when it comes to YouTube and the video sharing community – discouraging businesses from using YouTube is not fair. For the sake of an open and free internet.

A YouTube should not have its integrity threatened, not for the sake of selling your own product.

YouTube is the biggest online video platform in the world. 17.5 Million unique visitors go to Youtube per month in the UK alone.

Worldwide, YouTube gets over 2 Billion daily views.

If a business had invested in producing a video to show the world how brilliant they are at what they do, why would you want to use any other platform and choke the amount of potential viewers you could have being on YouTube?

Exclusive Video, exclusively on your own exclusive site…complete with an exclusively smaller potential audience than other FREE services.

Where do I sign up?
(Rant over)

Legal Stuff:
7. Content
~ 7.2 You retain all of your ownership rights in your Content, but you are required to grant limited licence rights to YouTube and other users of the Service. These are described in paragraph 8 of these Terms (Rights you licence).

8. Rights you licence
8.1 When you upload or post Content to YouTube, you grant:
to YouTube, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence (with right to sub-licence) to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that Content in connection with the provision of the Service and otherwise in connection with the provision of the Service and YouTube’s business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats [and through any media channels];
to each user of the Service, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such Content to the extent permitted by the functionality of the Service and under these Terms.
8.2 The above licenses granted by you in Content terminate when you remove or delete your Content from the Website. The above licenses granted by you in textual comments you submit as Content are perpetual and irrevocable, but are otherwise without prejudice to your ownerships rights, which are retained by you as set out in paragraph 7.2 above.

http://www.youtube.com/t/terms

Little bit of shameless self promo here. But I think its well deserved. Another string to my bow is motion graphic video production, this short but punchy video I produced under employment of eBusiness Media for the client ‘Pressitt‘. Voice over provided by the very talented Chris Bailey. Check it out