science

LiquidSky

LiquidSky is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand LiquidSky rather than just read about it. In short: LiquidSky was a New York City–based provider of cloud visualization, acquired by Walmart in 2018. The company's flagship product was a cloud gaming service of the same name, launched on March 24, 2017, and shut down in 2018.

Key takeaways

LiquidSky belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect LiquidSky to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of LiquidSky from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

LiquidSky was a New York City–based provider of cloud visualization, acquired by Walmart in 2018. The company's flagship product was a cloud gaming service of the same name, launched on March 24, 2017, and shut down in 2018. Announced at Consumer Electronics Show 2017, the service aimed to tackle issues that other providers struggle with, including latency and input lag. Its major competitors include Sony's PlayStation Now and NVIDIA's GeForce Now for PC and Mac.

History

The company was founded in 2014 by Ian McLoughlin and Scott Johnston as LiquidSky Software Inc. Prior to founding LiquidSky, McLoughlin had expressed displeasure of how existing cloud gaming solutions handled latency and input lag, particularly OnLive. Ian stated that his goal when founding LiquidSky was to offer a service with minimal latency and input lag, thus offering a cleaner experience for gamers. Testing began sometime around late 2014, with the company quietly bringing in waves of testers to try out the service. The company found success, raising almost $12 million in funding for the service. At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, after roughly two years of testing, McLoughlin and the company announced that the service would be launching in Q1 2017, with an ad-supported plan, upgraded datacenter hardware, and a redesigned client. Other shown off included concepts for standalone hardware and demo footage of Battlefield 1 running at 60 FPS. Originally slated for release on March 14, 2017, it was delayed to March 24, 2017, due to server issues and launched with support for Microsoft Windows. On July 11, 2017, LiquidSky updated their Android client to reflect the launch of the service. The company stated that support for macOS was in development. LiquidSky shut down their service on December 17, 2018, while they focus their efforts on building a new streaming platform. As of 2018, LiquidSky was acquired by Walmart and now focusing on other projects.

Features Among the features stated for LiquidSky were low latency, fast intranet speeds, up-to-date hardware, and different storage plans. The service had 6 datacenters worldwide, including:

San Jose, California Dallas, Texas Washington, DC London, England Frankfurt, Germany Hong Kong Datacenters in Madras, India; Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Sydney, Australia; and Mexico were available at launch, but were discontinued due to lack of user adoption compared to more developed countries. Additionally, the platform lacked local language translation, faced VAT taxes, and payment processing fees for the centers.

Reception LiquidSky has received attention from various online news outlets, including Engadget, VentureBeat, Time, IGN, PCGamer, and PCGamesN, with many claiming that the service succeeded where previous services such as OnLive failed.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with LiquidSky

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what LiquidSky claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to LiquidSky before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about LiquidSky ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of LiquidSky

In research: LiquidSky appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses LiquidSky in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: LiquidSky is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2014 establishments in New York City, American companies established in 2014, Cloud gaming, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for LiquidSky outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study LiquidSky in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what LiquidSky means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain LiquidSky out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is LiquidSky in simple terms?

Why does LiquidSky matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study LiquidSky?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on LiquidSky.