Cloud-streamed games let you click and play

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Cloud-streamed games let you click and playaming

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

Services like Spotify and YouTube make sharing music or videos as simple as sending someone a link, but telling your friends to play your new favourite game normally involves waiting for a hefty download and install process. Now California-based cloud computing firm Numecent and its gaming spin-off Approxy are hoping to let gamers instantly start playing by streaming games to their PC, tablet or smartphone.

Numecent uses what it calls "cloudpaging" to stream any application, not just games, to your PC. It works by analysing the code of a piece of software to discover the most-used elements and only delivering those to your PC. For large applications such as Photoshop, users normally only need around 5 per cent of the code to start using the program and the rest can be streamed in later. "We detect which bits that you really need and only bring those down," says Numecent CEO Osman Kent.

The software shows up in the Windows Start Menu as if it were installed locally, but disappears when you disconnect - though applications can also be stored in a cache and used offline if your software license allows it. Kent showed New Scientist "cloudified" versions of Microsoft Office and Photoshop that appeared just as fast as the real thing, even though he was downloading from Numecent's servers by tethering his PC to his iPhone's 3G connection.