You might be somewhat familiar with the history of OnLive. The service allowed users to purchase games and then stream them to a device of their choosing. The company had difficulty drumming up interest, however, and basically fell apart. Many assumed that it was down and out for good, but, well, you know what they say about assumptions...
EngadgetThe company is re-opening the lines of communication, announcing two new initiatives in CloudLift and OnLive Go.
The first, CloudLift, takes the cloud-streaming concept of OnLive and applies it to games you already own. By logging in with a Steam account (required, at least for now), games you've got attached will be "unlocked" in the cloud, playable using the OnLive client or Microconsole anywhere else (including save data that syncs between devices).
...A new business unit, dubbed "OnLive Go," takes the company's cloud abilities and applies them toother people's stuff. The first example is "SL Go" (or "Second Life: Go"), a mobile interface for ... you guessed it, Second Life. In this particular example, OnLive's powering cloud support for Second Life on Android.
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Yes... yes... It's OnLive!
Now, there's a few caveats that need to be brought up. That "CloudLift" bit? That only works for 20 or so titles at the moment, and you have to pay a $15/month fee to access it. There also doesn't appear to be any steps here to fix the service's latency problems, one of its largest drawbacks. If you want to keep on using the regular $10/month service, you can keep on keeping on, of course.
What do you think? Will this be enough to breathe new life into the service? Will it be enough to keep the service OnLive support? Or, sometimes, is OnDead bettah?