Monthly Archives: January 2005

Force 3 multipliers

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You’ve just landed in a strange city with loads of time on your hands. You take out your mobile and start playing your favorite games on it. But suddenly that’s no fun. You’ve beaten the computer too many times. You switch to GPS mode and tell the network that you’re “Game”. You immediately see many dots spread over all across the city. They’re mobile gamers who’re “Game” too. That’s when you match your skills in an action-packed game with a total stranger.

After the games are over, you get an SMS that your mobile gaming partner wants to meet you. Now, should you meet her or him? You chuck the danger and raise the stakes. You SMS and challenge your partner to catch you and so begins an exciting chase through the city, which you track on your mobile screen as one dot chasing another. Welcome to the future. This is just one of the possible scenarios that mobile gaming could hold. And it’s not too far away.

If you’ve played board game Scotland Yard, then you’ll see that the hit game can be reenacted in real life with multiple partners. For the uninitiated, in Scotland Yard, five players chase an elusive Mr X throughout London city by train, taxi and bus. If it’s so exciting in the living room, imagine doing that in real life!

3D and 3G

So what does it take to get all the games going on your mobile screen? We asked GPU maker ATI’s Senior Architect Raj Koduri, the man who helps your games get faster, better and more complex. “All you need is 3D graphics, a 3G phone and the right graphics card”, he says matter of factly. Well, 3D graphics are already here and most global networks are switching totally to 3G in 2005, so that shouldn’t be a problem either. And how long will it take a mobile graphics card to support a game like say Doom 3? “One to two years at the latest,” says a confident Koduri. Already, ATI’s Imageon chip helps PDAs and smartphones offer crisp images and streaming video with MPEG4 technology.

Another limiting factor is that games are on only in Java-enabled mobiles, which were pretty expensive. But with the prices of Java handsets falling, more and more people will be able to afford them. And multiplayer gaming will be ready to take off.

How it will take off

So what are the reasons for the growing popularity of mobile gaming? We asked LG, strong backers of mobile gaming, who claim they were the first in the world to bring a cricket game on the handset. Explains Praveen Valecha, product group head (mobile phones), “The mobile is the only tool that’s available with you at all times and at all places. In fact, it was found that in Southeast Asia, 60 per cent of traveling time is spent on the phone.”

So mobile manufacturers are trying to pack more and more into a mobile phone. In fact, gaming is the new cash cow for service providers and it has become even more lucrative globally than downloading ringtones. Datamonitor research has said that in 2005 itself, more than 200 million people (80 percent of wireless phone users) in America and west Europe will play online games with wireless devices. The situation in India is encouraging too. Mobile gaming revenues touched $26 million in 2004, about 5% of the global market, according to Instat-MDR research. The projecting figures for 2009 are a whopping $336 million and everyone wants to get a piece of the pie. There’s money to be made both in downloading and playing the game, as against getting just a flat fee for a game license.

Praveen Valecha says, “Mobile gaming is one of the favorite pastimes of students and teenagers and it is this market that will ensure that mobile gaming becomes a complete industry in itself. And people love team games and strategy games, so multiplayer gaming is the next big thing.”

Mobile gaming is also one of the fastest-growing activities among the tech-savvy in India. The reasons for the current boom are Bluetooth, high-res graphics, connectivity and color screens.

While Ninetendo’s Gameboy (150 million units sold till date) and Sony Playstation are pure gaming devices which are already huge, the future may well belong to mobile cum gaming devices like Nokia’s N-Gage.

Macrospace’s “Fatal Force: Earth Assault” is a multiplayer game where players can join forces in a co-operative mode with nearby friends or play against each other in the more familiar last one standing wins style. Another multiplayer mobile game Everquest has around half-a-million subscriptions in Europe alone.

In India, Nokia is serious about the gaming business. “N-Gage QD Challenge Mobile Gaming Championship” covered 26,000 gaming enthusiasts across 47 cities, in six weeks. The winner walked away with a cool one million rupees. The N-Gage game claims to be the first mobile and connected game deck to feature online high-quality 3D multiplayer gameplay over Bluetooth wireless technology and GPRS.

Nokia and gaming are here to stay. Declared multimedia business director, Gautam Advani, shortly after the championship, “India is a large country with a predominantly young and technology-savvy population which makes it an ideal market for mobile gaming. The N-Gage Arena will be the place where gamers meet and create virtual communities, share their experiences, find new challenges and make friends with players all over the world.”

The pancake phone

While the Nokia N-gage has been touted as a gaming device that’s also a phone, its “difficult to phone” features has deterred some people at least. Gaming freak S Sayed, who works in IDC India, chucked his mobile phone and bought the N-Gage. He says, “As a gaming device, it’s one the best devices I have held. Maneuverability and flexibility are great.  There are no complaints there.” But the problem came whenever he tried to make a call. “It’s like holding an elephant. You feel as if there’s a pancake plastered on the side of your face,” he said. He wanted a device that would both be a mobile and a gaming device, but he found it very difficult to make calls. Sayed, since then, has chucked his N-Gage and taken a Nokia 6600, where he “manages to play” some of his favorite games.

Mobile gaming might rank as one of the novelist ways of connecting with anyone at any time on this planet.

(This article appeared in Living Digital magazine in January 2005)

Smart cities are here

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You punch a smart card at the main entrance of your campus, and guess what happens in your home. The electric kettle switches on, and the AC starts chilling the air in the living room. As you take left towards the apartment, the bathtub oodles with soap bubbles and the Hi-Fi media center starts flipping through your favorite playlist. You step on to the welcome mattress outside your home and the fingerprint scanner identifies you and the door opens gently and John Denver welcomes you home with his famous number, “Country roads take me home”. Just that the roads of the country lead you to a super connected home.

Welcome to the world of smart homes and cities. While digital homes are already here, smart cities are not too far away. In India, Dimension Digital Controlls can turn your home smart in just a matter of days. Their SmartHome provides a networked system that can operate all lights, audio/visual systems, all electrical appliances through a single remote, keyboard or touchscreen: the choice is yours. All the systems talk to each other through radio frequency, so there’s no need for messy wires. You can install cameras, store all the visual information for later viewing and keep a tab over your house through the Internet when out of station.

Says Managing Director Padamraj Bagrecha, “We are the only player in India which gives a complete integrated solution and our SmartHome is really catching up in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.” Digital Controlls offers five modules: door access system, light control, surveillance, security and home entertainment. You can pick up just one of these or go for the works.

Digital-home-all

As Wi-Max peaks into the city, the residential and other estates will get connected, as per the plan. The Digital Living Network Alliance or DLNA was formed in June 2003 and recommended Network Media Product Requirements or NMPR specifications. So all you’ll need to have will be a product compatible to NMPR specs and a Digital Media Adapter, or DMA to synchronize all your devices at home, which means viewing pictures stored on a PC on your TV screen without having to lay any cables. Wiliam O Leszinkse, Director of Digital Home Marketing, Intel, speaks highly of the technology-”People will be able to take their content wherever they want to. And the experience will be the same wherever you are.”

Remote is the key

Now the big question. Will this actually happen? Ask Intel and they nod in approval. The keyboard may not be a comfy device to all, but the remote sure is. Post-announcement of the Entertainment PC, which is a PC, TV, home theatre all rolled into one, Intel is confident that the setup will run well on any operating system with a remote. Imagine doing away with the keyboard and mouse and controlling the command center of the house with just a remote. That would appeal to people of all ages and all groups. More than 170 companies have joined the DLNA bandwagon and have started rolling out NMPR compliant gadgets.

And Intel isn’t alone

Intel isn’t alone in their thinking. Microsoft’s new Windows XP Media Center 2005 operating system has new features that help a PC compete with consumer electronics devices in the living room, and that turn a PC into a home server capable of feeding audio and video to multiple devices on a wireless network.

It’s designed to turn the home PC into a complete entertainment center. And the simple on-screen interface is designed for a remote control rather than keyboard and mouse (but it’ll work quite Ok with either). In fact, if you can operate a DVD player, then the Media Center shouldn’t be too difficult for you.

Apart from the global giants, Indian biggie Reliance also has big plans through its Netway. The Netway provides high-speed Ethernet links to homes. If you’re a subscriber, then you’ll get the “all-in-one” of high-speed telephony, a host of television channels, video on demand, jukebox, time shifted TV, audio and video conferencing and even surveillance services. What’s more, even the Netway’s centered on the remote that can also be used as a keyboard, mouse and phone!

Looks like it’s going to be a roller coaster ride for both smart homes and smart cities soon.

(This appeared in the January 2005 edition of Living Digital magazine)