ONLIVE MIGHT BRING AN END TO CONSOLE BASED GAMING

A new online video game distribution network ,OnLive to be launched at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, aims to let players stream on-demand games at the highest quality level ,hopes to revolutionise the way people play games and re-write the economics of the industry.The service could signal the end for Playstation, Xbox, and the Wii.

According to Onlive founder Steve Perlman,"No high-end hardware, no upgrades, no endless downloads, no discs, no recalls, no obsolescence. With OnLive, your video game experience is always state-of-the-art".He also added"OnLive is the most powerful game system in the world".

Onlive boasts of having a data compression technology that allows games to be powered on remote servers rather than on game consoles.Users download games instantly through the OnLive MicroConsole or straight onto a PC or Mac. The MicroConsole also connects to any TV. All that is required is a high speed connection.

Gamers will be able to select from an on-demand catalogue of video titles stored on these data servers.Dont worry,you can play all the latest games(all high end games at the highest resolution) and not just the cheap online games.To support Onlive's cause,Gaming giants like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, THQ and Atari Interactive have all signed up with onlive,giving it much credibility and some serious sleepless nihts for console giants like Sony,Microsoft and Nintendo.

BRACE YOURSELF FOR 150 MBPS OF BROADBAND SPEED FROM VIRGIN MEDIA

Currently,Virgin Media is offering broadband upto speeds of 50 Mbps while rival BT is pledging 40 to 60Mbps.BT has said its fibre network will hit the first crop of UK cities by early 2010 and will be complete by 2012.

According to Virgin Media's chief executive Neil Berkett,the cabinet (FTTC) network was capable of supporting up to 200Mbps but roll out of higher speeds was a "function of timing",and looking at the market situation righ now,he has eyes on speeds upto 150 mbps.

Mt.Beckett added,"As we work with application providers, and content providers... there will be a natural point where we upgrade from 10, 20 and 50Mbps to something more.If BT were to meet the time frame they have suggested - of finishing by 2012 - I would see us as having much, much faster upstream speed, running at a minimum of 100Mbps downstream and possibly more. You can see a real opportunity there."

BT has said it will deploy FTTC technology at 29 exchanges across the UK in the coming 9 to 12 months.The network will offer speeds of up to 40Mbps - and potentially 60Mbps - to 500,000 homes and businesses.Areas of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Greater Manchester will be able to access the fibre network, which will be opened up on a wholesale basis to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who can then offer various broadband packages to customers.Virgin Media says its network reaches half of all homes in the UK. The technology has a theoretical limit of 200Mbps downsteam speeds.

Lets have a comparison between various broadband providers

ENTROPIA UNIVERSE ONLINE GAME GETS BANKING LICENCE

Entropia Universe - an online game which calls itself "the first virtual universe with a real cash economy',has been granted a licence to be a bank.Issued by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, the licence means the game can be more closely tied to the real world finances of players.

Mindark, the developers of the game, said it aimed to launch a fully-functioning in-game bank within the next 12 months.At current exchange rates, 10 PED (Project Entropia Dollars) are worth one US dollar. Unlike many other online games, which charge a monthly subscription fee, the software for Project Entropia is free to download and install.

However, players pay real money to get at in-game items, such as guns, armour and other gear, and the micro-payment system pays for Entropia's running costs.The licence will make it easier for players to convert real world cash into PEDs and sustain their characters in the game, said Mindark in a statement.

Jan Welter Timkrans, boss of Mindark,"We will be in a position to offer real bank services to the inhabitants of our virtual universe" . The in-game banking system plans to offer players interest-bearing accounts,depositting their salaries and pay bills or lending cash. The licence also means that each account is backed by deposit insurance to the value of $60,000 (£42,000).Regulators will get oversight of financial transactions carried out in the game world, so they can spot if criminals are using it to launder money.Mindark claims that more than 800,000 people have registered to play the game and 80-100,000 are regular players. About $420m of player-to-player transactions were carried out during 2008, according to Mindark figures.