Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Smart Internet Technology Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), a joint venture between Australian universities and the NSW Government, has tested what it claims is the latest in online gaming audio technology. Called Immersive Communications Environment (ICE), the technology is an audio service that offers the ability for groups of people to communicate online naturally.
With communication between people playing a growing role in some of the
world’s most popular games such as World of Warcraft, and
Counter-Strike Source, CRC believes ICE is poised to dramatically
enhance the online gamers’ experience.
Gamers can currently communicate verbally through tools such as text
chat and walkie-talkie style audio solutions. ICE enables players to
communicate realistically with fellow gamers, matching the voices of
other players with their visual cues. For example, someone closer in
the virtual space will sound louder, and whispering will become more
audible on approach, bringing geography and landscape into the
communications tactics.
A major feature of ICE is that it can scale to crowded environments,
such as cities with thousands of players, which are common in online
games such as World of Warcraft. Players can walk into these online
cities and hear the buzz of activity and listen in on conversations in
common areas where people congregate to meet. This can be done over
current consumer broadband connections.
Darrell Williamson, CEO, Smart Internet said, trials conducted by the
CRC showed that gamers prefer ICE enabled games over current
traditional ones and are further willing to pay a premium to play ICE
enabled games. "ICE will provide significant market differentiation for
game developers, publishers and service providers looking to increase
market share and revenues," Mr Williamson said.
The ICE project was developed by the Smart Internet CRC with partners
Telstra Corporation and the University of Wollongong and is now in the
early stages of commercialisation.
ICE will be presented during the 2006 CRC Conference "CRCs making an
impact" to be held May 17 – 19 in Brisbane. More information on the
conference can be found at www.crca.asn.au.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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