So I was downloading another game off Steam recently (Steam's weekend deals are the high points of my weekends) when I really got to thinking about how we've advanced in terms of digital technology. Anyone remember the old days, when owning a CD player made you popular? The good PS1 games came on 2, 3, 4 discs, and every computer game was on a CD? Now, I'm sitting here listening to music I've downloaded en masse while running full-fledged computer games without a thought of a CD.
Now, computer games (seriously, who buys standard edition computer games at a store anymore) come loaded on DVDs. Musical CDs still sell, but many people just resort to a service like iTunes. More and more, we have no need for portable storage. Sure, we have flash drives that most of us carry around, but a lot of us are able to store files on our phones, or in a program like Drop Box to access on any other computer.
Sure, you can say, "but m'lord, the size of common flash drives double every year! And the engineers are close to perfecting Purple-Ray!" Purple-Ray, you say? Purple-Ray is the newest invented technology for disc storage. It is the next step above Blu-Ray: boasting a 100gb storage space and the ability to fill that space in 25 minutes. This can be expanded to 400gb, and they say that the speed can rival today's fastest hard drives. But, what's the use?
Enter: The Cloud. Cloud-based computing is relatively new to the public, but many of us use it already. The Cloud is an area of the internet that our devices connect to. We are free to read and write whatever we want to the cloud, so we may access later on the same device or another device. Many people use this now-a-days instead of portable storage. It sounds great, but that' only for personal storage, right?
Wrong. It may be the future of console gaming as well. OnLive is a fairly new console that many gamers have not heard of yet. It consists of a small box (shown in the picture) that connects to the internet. It connects to the OnLive cloud, and with your OnLive account, you can purchase games and stream them directly to your TV. What makes the idea so powerful? All of the processing and everything that a console normally does happens cloud-side - the console itself merely transmits the images of the game. The console itself has no NEED to upgrade. While OnLive doesn't have a very big library right now, it can still make deals with other game companies to get bigger hits available. I believe this service has potential.
What does this all mean? Now, onto my point. Everything we know and love is becoming digital. Everything is becoming a part of the internet, the cloud, everything. More and more of our lives are becoming automated as well. We merely click, and everything we want to happen happens.
Taking a step back, at a glance, the internet looks just like a big mesh of data. If one could harness the internet, they could do powerful things. We saw in the novel Daemon what happens when a computer mastermind writes one program. Anyone could do the same thing. But I digress... what else could lurk on the internet? I have an idea...
That's right. The internet is a huge place. We can't keep the whole place in check by ourselves. Like our own world, what if there's myths and legends about the internet? I honestly wouldn't doubt if there is an actual digital world out there somewhere. With the mass of unused IP grids the government owns, it could exist somewhere. Then again, isn't Digimon just an MMO that the kids in the series got sucked into? Perhaps there are thousands of Digital worlds out there already... Azeroth, Thedas, Middle Earth, Hyboria. What if we ourselves are in a digital world? Damn, our graphics are good, then.
I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility... but if a rift opened between our world and digital Azeroth, I'd gladly grab my Digivice and go digital.
Fare well,
Kyle
Ganrokh
I've made the transition to the cloud for nearly all of my school work. All the assignments and lecture Powerpoints are online for most of my classes. I also takes notes using Google Docs, so I can access it from anywhere (I actually take notes with my HP touchpad and save it to G-Docs).
ReplyDeleteMost of the xbox game can be bought through the cloud nowadays as well, don't even need the disc; I do prefer the disc however. I've completely transitioned to the cloud for movies and TV shows, as I'm sure many others have done the same.
The only thing that I refuse to transition to the cloud is books. I like to think of myself as a book collector, and I prefer reading the physical copy of a story, nothing is better than the smell of a new book.
Yeah, I use Dropbox often when I need to get a program or file from one computer or another. Pretty much 90% of the games I get now are through Steam. I'm going to start using G-docs soon too, my Business Comm. teacher highly suggests it for her class.
ReplyDeleteI prefer physical books too. They're just easier to read and just.. better than eBooks.
You got me so excited! I want to visit Middle Earth and Azeroth and Redwall and Harry Potter world!
ReplyDeleteEver watch or read the .Hack series? It'd be awesome if MMOs turned out like that eventually - then we could really explore worlds like that in WoW, Lord of the Rings Online, Pottermore, etc.
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