It’s way possible now.

The technology that will eventually allow you to play Warcraft on your new iPhone is called Interactive 3D Streaming, being developed by Comverse and Intel, which takes out the CPU burden from the mobile device and just streams the good stuff to it.

The hurdle is that MMORPGs like WoW and Second Life require lots of horsepower and number crunching from the CPU and the graphics chips to do what they do. The new technology does all the heavy lifting on their backend server, and then just streams it to the gamer via WiMax or 3G via a gateway designed by Comverse. (Aren’t you glad iPhones do 3G now?)

Can’t wait.

More on Comverse 3D Streaming here.

Next up is Airport Base Station Update 2008-002, which

includes general fixes and compatibility updates for the following applications:

- AirPort Utility
- AirPort Base Station Agent”

As to what these fixes and compatibility updates actually are, we certainly won’t know from Software Update. It doesn’t even link to a Knowledge Base article on the Apple website. (We’ll look it up for you.)

The update will fix what’s pertinent to your system. In the Doodler’s case it just updated Airport Utility to Version 5.3.2, a 10.5mb download.

Two more fresh updates available on Software Update, which show up after you update Quicktime to yesterday’s 7.5 release.

One is iDVD 7.0.2, a 21.9mb download on Leopard 10.5.3. (Your mileage could vary.) Apple’s ever-helpful notes tell us what this update is for:

This update supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.”

The other one is iMovie 7.1.2, a 19.3mb download. Apple also talks about this one:

This update supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.”

Gee, thanks for the info.

After the Zinio freebie deal for the iPhone, there’s even mo’ better reading available for Mac users.

The NY Times released the beta version of the Times Reader for the Mac a few days ago. It’s a good standalone offline reader, and I get mileage out of it on the occasions when that sneaky wifi signal is hiding from me. I can now just read the newspaper, so to speak.

The Times Reader is an app that runs well on its own without the help of a browser, downloading and formatting the day’s issue in a clickable faux newspaper layout. Being a beta, it has its quirks. Mine has the irritating habit of zapping back to the first page of an article when you try to read beyond the first page. It’s an intermittent glitch though. Another niggle I find is that you can toggle a 7-day archive of past issues, but of the four days of downloads I’ve had so far, I can only access the current newspaper; the past few days just seem to disappear. (Maybe I’m just doing something wrong.)

The sections of the paper are aligned on top for quick access. So you don’t get lost wandering in all the verbiage, it helpfully grays out articles that you’ve already read, and if you’ve ever tried reading the New York Times, that’s an awful lot of text indeed, and a gray-out feature like that is really useful.

The only part that doesn’t sit well with me is that it insists on installing Silverlight, Microsoft’s plug-in that is its version of Flash or Quicktime. I try to keep as much Microsoft off my Mac as possible (with the exception of Office, which I can’t seem to wean myself from no matter what I do.)

No offense to my mothership, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, but this newspaper is worth a daily look. All you need is the Times Reader app beta, internet access and a NYTimes account (which is free). Heck, you can even do the daily crossword puzzles.

One of the most anticipated things later this year (aside from the obvious new iPhone iteration announcement), is the flood of new apps borne of the release of the SDK, to be made available through the iTunes Store. A lot of these new apps likely were first discussed in iPhoneDevCamp.

Last year, the iPhoneDevCamp was a hotbed of new and innovative ideas, and this year the madness continues with iPhoneDevCamp 2. The gathering is meant to encourage development and stimulate creativitity and ideas for app creation and development for the iPhone and iPod Touch using the SDK and web standards in a non-profit, collegiate atmosphere. Think camp for geeks.

iPhoneDevCamp 2 this year will be held August 1-3 in San Francisco at the Adobe Systems Headquarters, for those of you curious, or want to somehow participate. For regular updates, follow iphonedevcamp on Twitter.