OnLive for application software?

[Bootstrap Bill]

Could OnLive be used for Windows applications like MS Office or the Adobe CS4 suite?

If so, their service could make the desktop PC obsolete. A <$100 box with broadband Internet service may be all the computer most people need.

[rasmasyean]

Could OnLive be used for Windows applications like MS Office or the Adobe CS4 suite?

If so, their service could make the desktop PC obsolete. A <$100 box with broadband Internet service may be all the computer most people need.

Yes, but that's not their business. That's like Microsoft type of companies. It's one of the future business models projected for cloud computers. You would "subscribe" to applications and store all your data online and access it anywhere. Some large firms will likely implement their own clouds as well. You can sort of do that with Google Docs. And a "premium" version is Office Live, but you need MS Office. I think MS is going to make a free version for the web soon though.

[Bootstrap Bill]

Yes, but that's not their business. That's like Microsoft type of companies. It's one of the future business models projected for cloud computers. You would "subscribe" to applications and store all your data online and access it anywhere. Some large firms will likely implement their own clouds as well. You can sort of do that with Google Docs. And a "premium" version is Office Live, but you need MS Office. I think MS is going to make a free version for the web soon though.

OnLive turns the internet into a giant video cable. All the processing is done on their servers.

Cloud computing doesn't work this way. It's browser based. Some of the processing takes place on each users system.

I want to see a service like OnLive for general purpose computing, not just gaming. If OnLive isn't interested, perhaps they could license their technology to someone who is.

[rasmasyean]

OnLive turns the internet into a giant video cable. All the processing is done on their servers.

Cloud computing doesn't work this way. It's browser based. Some of the processing takes place on each users system.

I want to see a service like OnLive for general purpose computing, not just gaming. If OnLive isn't interested, perhaps they could license their technology to someone who is.

Check the other thead here on Gaikai and OTOY. These are competing companies in gaming clouds along with onlive. OTOY uses an AMD supercomputer class cloud system. I guess we can argue about what a "cloud" is as that definition is still up in the air even with the pros. But that would be pointless. ;)

[Aph0ticShield]

I would like to see live TV through OnLive, similar to a cable subscription:rolleyes:, of course it will cost extra though.

[Bootstrap Bill]

I would like to see live TV through OnLive, similar to a cable subscription:rolleyes:, of course it will cost extra though.

Great idea! OnLive could potentially replace cable TV service.

In addition to live TV, I'd also like to be able to connect to services like NetFlix (they have a library of about 12,000 movies you can watch on demand for the cost of your NetFlix service) and YouTube.

This service has the potential to change everything.

[Jimex]

I don't like the idea of general applications being used over the OnLive service, for the simple fact that often the work I do in office and other programs is confidential and important. I don't want someone elses system running it for me with the possibility of someone else being able to see it and the system possibly crashing/go offline. Playing games on OnLive I don't particually mind if someone watches or it crashes as its of no great importance, work is.

[B1553r]

No thanks, I quit using google docs because... from time to time... stuff would turn up missing. A save game, I don't mind that as much, although it might be annoying. But applications with important/sensitive data in the cloud??? not so much for me.

[Outlawed Toker]

I don't know if onlive is going to allow you to actually have your own personal desktop, but something like this is in the works.

About a year ago, google started working on a new way for pcs, very similar to the onlive service. You would get a very cheap pc/laptop that all it pretty much was, was a keyboard, mouse, screen, and wifi, no actuall hard drive or graphics card or anything like that in it. And so you use it to log onto a pc/mac on the google servers and its just like any other pc, probably faster.

[rasmasyean]

I don't know if onlive is going to allow you to actually have your own personal desktop, but something like this is in the works.

About a year ago, google started working on a new way for pcs, very similar to the onlive service. You would get a very cheap pc/laptop that all it pretty much was, was a keyboard, mouse, screen, and wifi, no actuall hard drive or graphics card or anything like that in it. And so you use it to log onto a pc/mac on the google servers and its just like any other pc, probably faster.

No one buys that carap. They've had quite a few "dumb terminal" companies come out with these types of units an the recent past. The problem is that PC's drop in price so fast that it's not long before their price advantage is negligible. It got to a point where they just get one big PC and virtualize treminals with multiple monitors and keyboards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Vista even allows multiple simultaneous logins to a machine. Not sure what the details of this are though, but with Quad Cores and RAM being so cheap...

[Outlawed Toker]

No one buys that carap. They've had quite a few "dumb terminal" companies come out with these types of units an the recent past. The problem is that PC's drop in price so fast that it's not long before their price advantage is negligible. It got to a point where they just get one big PC and virtualize treminals with multiple monitors and keyboards. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Vista even allows multiple simultaneous logins to a machine. Not sure what the details of this are though, but with Quad Cores and RAM being so cheap...

I am not sure about the multiple users on vista, but I agree. I never liked this idea in the first place, gaming system is cool, because I will never have to upgrade and its just a gaming system. As for a computer, that machine is going to have my complete personal stuff on it, so I want the actual computer and all of its components sitting right next to me, not 500 miles away.

At the same time, if anyone could pull it off, it would be a company like google, so we will see what happens.

[B1553r]

There is a reason this service works for Games and not desktops.

I can host my own desktop operating system on my computer for no monthly payment. What I can't do on my computer is always have the uberest video card... Unless I want to pay a couple of grand a year buying new video cards...

Also, I can't game at a LAN party each and every time I game. I don't need that latency for... Working on a term paper, or even encoding a vacation movie.

[rasmasyean]

I am not sure about the multiple users on vista, but I agree. I never liked this idea in the first place, gaming system is cool, because I will never have to upgrade and its just a gaming system. As for a computer, that machine is going to have my complete personal stuff on it, so I want the actual computer and all of its components sitting right next to me, not 500 miles away.

At the same time, if anyone could pull it off, it would be a company like google, so we will see what happens.

They solved some of those issues. I think there is a recent defense spring-off (probably apocalyptic scenario planning like the internet's origins) that liscenses "distributed storage" technology. Your data is split into like 20 parts and scattered all over the place. But you only need like 7 random parts to reconstruct it and decrypt it. Those aren't exact numbers, but just a simple illustration.

As for one potential advantage of the cloud regarding applications, you can potentially use high petra-flop resources to perform your space suttle re-entry applications and stuff like that. But more down-to-earth, you can imagine that the current work in Natural Language Processing, might make it too slow for your computer to access tremendous databases and compute what you "want". Like there may be 100 ways to ask your computer for the weather forecast but instead of having to say "Start Listening Computer: <beep> Weather Forcast <beep...Today's forcast is blah...Master>. You can just talk naturally to your computer and the "cloud" will process your query with a supercomputer and try to give you what you want...and even remeber your habits and try to remind you to take medicine, etc.

[B1553r]

Hmmm, yeah... Like I said, I quit trusting Google Docs as a storage service because they were losing my stuff. Also, I posted a picture of money up several times to see if my suspicions were correct, and Google editors deleted it without telling me each and every time.

So until Google quits that practice, I um, and not putting anything there that I wouldn't post on my MySpace page.... And I don't have a MySpace page;)

[BeteNoire]

There is a reason this service works for Games and not desktops.

I can host my own desktop operating system on my computer for no monthly payment. What I can't do on my computer is always have the uberest video card... Unless I want to pay a couple of grand a year buying new video cards...

Also, I can't game at a LAN party each and every time I game. I don't need that latency for... Working on a term paper, or even encoding a vacation movie.

This is true; however, some desktop applications like Photoshop require a good bit of system memory.

[Bootstrap Bill]

I don't like the idea of general applications being used over the OnLive service, for the simple fact that often the work I do in office and other programs is confidential and important. I don't want someone elses system running it for me with the possibility of someone else being able to see it and the system possibly crashing/go offline. Playing games on OnLive I don't particually mind if someone watches or it crashes as its of no great importance, work is.

I think the privacy issues can be dealt with. It's no worse than sending documents through email.

[Bootstrap Bill]

This is true; however, some desktop applications like Photoshop require a good bit of system memory.

Photoshop requires a high end system, especially if you use the new 3D features in CS4.

OnLive for Applications would give me the ability to use software like this without having to spend a couple thousand dollars to upgrade my computer, or the $2500 or so that it costs to get the entire CS4 package.

[Bootstrap Bill]

At the very least, I'd like to see OnLive have a web browser. Maybe Fire Fox or Google's Chrome.

Maybe applications can come later, after they work out the security issues.

[rasmasyean]

Photoshop requires a high end system, especially if you use the new 3D features in CS4.

OnLive for Applications would give me the ability to use software like this without having to spend a couple thousand dollars to upgrade my computer, or the $2500 or so that it costs to get the entire CS4 package.

I'm sure there are companies that are working on these things, but as for PS work at that level, you need like 1600p or higher prolly and super color rendition, etc. Maybe you can ship some "rendering" off to a cloud, but I think for some time, you will still need to do most of the work on your desktop.

[B1553r]

I'm sure there are companies that are working on these things, but as for PS work at that level, you need like 1600p or higher prolly and super color rendition, etc. Maybe you can ship some "rendering" off to a cloud, but I think for some time, you will still need to do most of the work on your desktop.

Windows Azure and Amazon EC have processing units that you can buy. I don't think the Google app toolkit has that level of integration yet. But yeah... Not so much for static images, but I can see that sort of technology being used to render videos and perhaps static images. Probably for processing techniques that we don't realize are possible, because that type of power has not been available to end users yet. Maybe video processors that look through all your videos and tag the people and places that are in each video so you can text search your videos? Or perhaps a video processor that watches a series fo videos and it construsts a 3d model of what it "sees".

[Aph0ticShield]

I can imagine that developers would love to develop their games directly on an OnLive console. I mean, those things probably have uber amounts of ram. Compiling code would be near instantaneous;).

[Omar]

Could OnLive be used for Windows applications like MS Office or the Adobe CS4 suite?

If so, their service could make the desktop PC obsolete. A <$100 box with broadband Internet service may be all the computer most people need.

There is something like that in the works. Check it
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343511,00.asp