Project Delorean

Picture of the Delorean from the Back to the Future Trilogy

                             
     With the advent of the internet, the world is ever more reliant on the power of the cloud. Quickly everything that was once process locally on a computer is now being processed in the cloud. The cloud is internet-based computing in which large groups of remote servers are networked to allow the centralized data storage, and online access to computer services or resources.  
              

Cloud Servers.  Not an accurate representation.

      However, there have been many barriers to taking advantage of this emerging technology.  One of the main culprits that is holding cloud computing back is latency.  Latency is the time between an end users input and the result from a server to return to the end user.  Application that are time sensitive and require immediate feedback have been difficult to offload to the cloud. One such example is cloud gaming. This is clearly the future of gaming evident by the Xbox One's focus on the cloud and the new Playstation Now cloud gaming service. Unfortunately, latency is preventing modern games from being processed in the cloud without lag. This is especially a problem for those who live far away from a server farm or have low bandwidth. When the time delay between a player and what appears on the screen is too long, the game is unplayable.
     Recently, Microsoft's research team has developed a new technology to deal with latency in cloud gaming.  It is called Project Delorean.  This system predicts what a player is going to do.  This can cover up to 250ms of latency. It does this by processing multiple actions a player may choose before the player make a choice.  It then sends all of the possible options to the player's console early.  Then when a player chooses an action, the console would choose the correct option out of the multiple options that were processed.

Advertisement for the Cloud Powered AI in Forza Motorsport 5.

                      

   This invention indicates that we are very close to the age of cloud gaming.  Certainly, this new technology will make its way into Microsoft's PC and Xbox video games.  However, this technology might even translate into other programs and applications that are cloud based. Any application can benefit from the same system.  Even non-time sensitive applications can benefit by completely eliminating latency.   The benefits of the cloud will only continue to grow as similar systems to Project Delorean are implemented.  The potential uses are limitless.  With the power of the cloud, the sky is the limit.