Gaming at the next level: share your charactors/model

There are games today which allow you to play your music. You can also plaster the pictures of your choice onto the character(s) in your game.

Forza Motorsport 2 on Xbox 360 has a new feature called Auction House where you can sell and trade your customized cars.

The next step would be to allow users to model new cars (using 3D tools like blender) along with, say, some web site checker which will certify the model before it can be imported into the game. This way, a true customization can be made possible by users and will enrich the gaming experience. What this allows would be to make all cars user contributed rather than brand name cars. And then remove all brand cars (so they would no longer have to pay for license/copyright fees). This way, it'll force the car makers to pay for the privilege of getting on the game (like they do in Second Life, today).

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.

Virtualization Versioning

We have configuration management for dealing with static items like source code and compiled binaries and even PDF documents.

However, there is, as far as I can tell, no version control for dynamic execution environment. In the days of virtualization (today), it is now possible to selectively specify the exact versions of kernel, dynamic libraries (DDL for Windows people) which are the ideal for a specific version of an application. This way, the application developer can specific the exact versions that will work with a given program. And then the user can mix and match newer or older versions of libraries and appropriate patches to ensure a reliable run-time of the application. The user can also control for variation of libraries for optimum memory usage or run-time performance or run-time stability.

Virtualization Run-Time Configuration Management (VRTCM or virtchim?) is what I have in mind.

Note that this would be a simple control of the various kernel and libraries out there that can be safely linked into a given app.

The next level would allow for virtualization of the kernel/library interfaces so that mismatched interfaces can be made to work dynamically (force incompatible versions to run together, in case one needs a newer/older library which is more secure or more reliable but not supported by the user's application).

Another level of virtualization would be to allow for user defined (for those roll-your-own hackers) patches to run in place of the official binaries available. I suppose those patches available online can be used by others as well. By using virtualized environment, the risks of virus and corruption can be much easier to control and be contained.

Copyright 2007, DannyHSDad, All Rights Reserved.