@PopularMechanics _ March 2019 15N THE OCTOBER 2018 ISSUE, I tested
a bunch of big, expensive gaming
PCs. These are the tools of mil-
lionaire Twitch stars and eSports
champions, and they were power-
ful and cool. They were also the size
of a dorm refrigerator, and as loud.
There’s no other way to fit the board,
graphics card, and cooling systems
required for all that processing power.
Since then, I’ve been playing the
same games on an Nvidia Shield, a box
the size of a paperback. It has USB ports
for my keyboard and mouse, and HDMI
for a monitor. Through an app called
GeForce Now, the Shield connects to a
distant warehouse of computers that
do the work of those big gaming PCs.
It feeds the graphics and sounds over
the internet, giving me the illusion of
having a massive gaming PC under my
desk. Every mouse drag, click, and key-
board stroke is replicated so quickly thatI’m the one to blame when I die early in whatever
battle-royale game the kids tell me I should be playing.
Using the internet to fake a device’s capabilities isn’t
new. In 2011, Chromebooks let you write a text docu-
ment that felt like you had a Word file stored on your
hard drive, when everything you typed was actually
in a faraway Google data center. But faking hardware
like those huge gaming PCs is a leap. Playing a modern
video game is about the most processor-intensive task
you can ask of a consumer-grade computer or phone.
Now, Google is following Nvidia with a trial called
Project Stream, in which testers can play Assassin’s
Creed: Odyssey with nothing but a Chrome browser and
a strong internet connection. Next year, Microsoft will
roll out Project xCloud, which lets you play full-on Xbox
games on a smartphone. We’ve hit an era when even
small devices can convincingly replicate almost any
task a civilian user has ever wanted from technolog y.
In the near future, I expect to see more of this indus-
try-sanctioned fakery.
For decades, program-
mers have built free
emulators, software
that lets you play classic
console games like Super
Mario Bros. on a com-
puter for free. Since
last summer, Nintendo
has been suing emula-
tor creators for the same
reasons that musicians
and record companies
went after Napster years ago. And if Napster eventually
led us to Spotify and Apple Music, then those emulators
got us to these new streaming products from Nvidia,
Google, and Microsoft. The infra-
structure that makes GeForce Now,
Project Stream, and xCloud possi-
ble will only get faster, especially
when the next generation of mobile
connectivity (5G) really arrives.
Whatever screen you use will be able
to pretend to be any thing as long as
you have a strong connection.
With caution, I’ll agree with Elon
Musk: The next era of technology
will require us to think outside the
boundaries of our existing (clumsy)
user interfaces—touch screens,
VR, or even voice. I can’t be certain
that his company Neuralink will
solve that with its version of “brain–
machine interface.” But same as me
getting beaten by 12-year-olds in
Call of Duty, pretty soon, the hard-
ware won’t be to blame. —A.G.When Your
Gadgets
Deceive You
Your devices are
behaving like some-
thing they’re not. That’s
a very good thing.I
ANY SCREEN
YOU USE WILL
BE ABLE TO
PRETEND TO BE
ANYTHING—IF YOU
HAVE A STRONG
CONNECTION.
How to Use
Computer
Fakery Now- RUN WINDOWS
ON A MAC
Got a game that only
runs on Windows? Does
your school use Win-
dows-only software?
The easiest method is
an application like Paral-
lels ($80), which runs a
fully functional Windows
operating system on
your Mac like any other
app. To sound cool, use
the technical term for
this: virtual machine. - LIE FOR
CHEAPER HOTELS
Virtual private networks
(VPNs) are apps that
route your internet con-
nection so that sites
think you’re somewhere
you’re not. I pay $40 a
year for Private Internet
Access’s VPN. Hotel- and
flight-booking services
are known to change
prices according to a
customer’s location.
Compare prices with the
VPN set to the origin and
the destination. When
you’re ready to buy, use
a browser in Private or
Incognito Mode. Go into
Preferences and delete
all cookies, then search.
Cookies store bits of
browsing history, and if
a booking site sees that
you’ve checked multiple
times, some arbitrarily
raise the prices to pres-
sure you to buy. - FAKE YOUR
VITAL INFORMATION
Reliable news of security
breaches at places like
Facebook and Google
are the reason I give out
minimal information for
online services. But that
can get annoying when,
say, I’m at a red light,
tapping Google Maps
or Waze to navigate
me home. For both, I
have my “Home” saved
as a pizza joint a few
blocks from my actual
house. I still get accurate
directions and traffic
intelligence, but a Waze
hack won’t give up my
billing address.
The Nvidia Shield is the size
of a small book. Thanks to
an app, it has the power of
agaming computer.