Future Lab: Cloud Gaming

February 28th, 2011 | Deirdre Kennedy

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Gaming fans are eagerly awaiting the arrival of “cloud gaming,” with its promise of mobile, low-end devices running intense, realistic graphics at amazing speeds. Technological developments from leading scientists, combined with newsmaking marketplace competition (well-covered by Dean Takahashi), are bringing intense graphics and computationally demanding games to devices like Apple’s iPad.

Games like “Assassin’s Creed II,” “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Mass Effect 2″ have been available through online subscriptions, sparking debate over whether the trend could be a “console killer.”

The technology behind the advances is driven by cloud-based ray tracing, and Intel’s Daniel Pohl, along with John Owens, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis, and Wanda Meloni, founder of M2 Research, discuss the keys to understanding both the science behind the technology, and the implications for users and investors.

Daniel Pohl, Research Scientist, Intel Labs
John Owens, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UC Davis
WandaÂ Meloni, Founder, M2 Research

Publications:
Daniel Pohl: Light It Up, Quake Wars Gets Ray Traced

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