Fortnite, Call of Duty are winners of coronavirus debacle
It has been hard to find silver linings in light of this week’s decimation of life as we know it. Publishers of online games Fortnite and Call of Duty, Epic and Activision, are enjoying surging demand for the game titles. Telecom Italia has reported a surge in network traffic as people stay home from school and work and rely on internet connections for gaming, video consumption, and online classes. CNET
dis-rup-shun: Streaming video services, likewise, will be fully exercised as people stay home during the global sports and concert blackout. Virtual live concerts and sporting events will resemble pay-per-view boxing matches, and may create new entertainment formats that are less reliant on live audiences.
Visual One makes web cameras very smart
Web cameras have become very popular, but motion-based alerts can be some common that people begin to ignore them. Visual One is a company using machine learning and a low cost Wyse Camera to identify types of motion that may interest you — like someone taking a package off the front porch, or a dog jumping on the couch. Being able to select which of these events are worthy of an alert makes a web camera far more useful. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: Today’s smart home is a misnomer when we realize how smart products are getting ready to become, and the boost in utility they will provide. Such intelligence, of course, will continue to sound ethics alarms when your webcam is able to send alerts like “Suzy’s boyfriend came through the back gate at 10:48.”
Shadow cloud gaming service comes to U.S.
Another cloud based gaming service is revising its offer for the U.S. market. Blade, a French company offers a monthly fee of $11.99 for a more powerful gaming experience. The service provides a full Windows 10 instance, meaning that for the monthly fee, you essentially have full use of a powerful Nvidia-charged PC, that will run any Windows app you choose — remotely. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: An objection to cloud gaming is latency. With a more powerful processor in the cloud, latencies will be reduced to those in the network, not the data center. Shadow’s offering may make Chromebooks or tablets more feasible, providing all the tools one needs to perform specialized tasks, but from a light weight, low-powered device. 5G will further improve this latest twist on cloud computing.
Foreign made drones to be banned from U.S. Defense purchases
Trump’s administration is preparing an executive order to ban the purchase and use of non-U.S. made drones in military and government applications. The order cites the potential for compromises of national security that could result from sensitive data being transferred to foreign nations. The drone market is expected to be worth $15 billion by the end of the current decade. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: On the heels of the release of detailed accounts of the massive Equifax data breach, sensitivity toward cyber attacks is high. About 70% of the market is controlled by China-based DJI. The majority of the DoD’s fleet is made up of China-based manufacturers. Old films of East Berlin or Russia during the Cold War showed odd looking Trabant cars, made locally in East Germany. The perils of closed markets are very apparent.