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Microsoft is said to be working on a new service that streams apps and games to its platforms.
The "Arcadia" project, as it's apparently known, is a new technology that's being developed within Microsoft's Operating Systems Group based on the company's Azure cloud.
Arcadia, incidentally, seems to be another Halo reference, it being the name of an Earth colony within the sci-fi FPS universe.
According to ZDNet, Arcadia will replace the Rio game-streaming service demonstrated by the company in 2013, but will also be capable of streaming apps.
While of course this will be aimed at Windows-based devices, one source claims that Microsoft has at least considered using Arcadia to enable users to stream Android apps and games to their Windows devices. That's one way around the chronic Windows Phone app shortage, we suppose.
Beyond that, job posts for the Arcadia project mention experience on non-Microsoft systems as an advantage, and specifically mention both Android and iOS. Could it be that Arcadia will run on such non-Windows platforms too?
Given Microsoft's cross-platform push in recent months, that idea doesn't sound as ridiculous as it once would have.
It's thought that Arcadia might be too early in development to show its face at Microsoft's January 21 Windows 10 unveiling, so it might turn out to be introduced after the operating system's autumn 2015 release.
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