Tag: online

Google chrome

Everyone is discussing it but I still have to mention the fact.Google has just released Google Chrome, a web browser with some interesting features.
For example each tab in the very streamlined interface is a seperate process, quite similar to having several browser windows up at the same time. The effect is that you can free up memory without having to restart the entire application as well as one crashing tab will not crash the rest of the program.

It’s built on apples webkit and is extemely fast. It also has a completely new virtual machine for javascript which should speed up web applications a bunch. Though I haven’t seen that at all so far.

A good friend of mine said this morning: “Google is taking over the world. They’ll launch an OS soon”.
My reply was that he’d already missed it. Google doesn’t need an OS, they’ve already created one through the web using cloud computing.
Soon everyone will have a linux based netbook, the only common ground will be the web. And guess who will rule supreme with their new browser fastest on the net? 🙂

There are a lot of worse rulers mind you…

Web 2.0 and twitter especially

If you’ve missed it by some chance web 2.0 applications are taking over the world. Not only are over a billion people online more or less constantly but more and more people are using web 2.0 apps to do work and day to day tasks.

This is a market that is a lot bigger then the games industry and since it is rapidly becoming the default state of entertainment (190 million users visit youtube each week) more game developers should be aware. Raph Koster is aware of this and is receiving flak and praise from around the internet, his latest discussion that we are loosing ground against flash games can be found here: Koster: “The web is kicking the console industry’s ass”

This might seem extreme to a lot of gamers and game developers but it is really where games were going all along. Games spearheaded the invasion of application for the PC back in the late 80ies early 90ies. Now the same people who saw the benefits of digital offices are moving these applications online. Why shouldn’t games be online as well?

And NO, a 6GB download for an MMO is NOT an online game.

Before flash releases support for 3D acceleration we’re stuck using plug-ins that most people wont download or 2D games that just aren’t as impressive today as in the golden age of NES.

But in the mean time, check out Twitter and Remember The Milk and maybe you’ll get a clue as to what the industry will be doing in 5 years.

I’ll post about games that are already taking the plunge later today.