OnLive beta program is on, live

Want to try playing a game here that's actually running over there? OnLive has announced today that it's opening a public beta of its impossible-sounding game streaming service. Users who have signed up on the website (and, the announcement suggests, users who do so soon) will be asked for "general information about your ISP, your computer configuration and your location" so OnLive can build "test groups" of users working under various conditions.

Should you make the cut, you'll receive an invitation, which requires a Performance Test. If your settings make the cut (the "cut" being whatever configuration OnLive is looking to test), you'll become part of a Test Group at some unspecified time, at which point the (hopefully) awesome part begins: the part in which you play games. It'll be buggy, and you'll probably have to fill out reports about the experience, but video games.

It may not have been an "official" beta, and it may have been under carefully orchestrated conditions, but our own experience with OnLive was a positive one. We'll see how the public beta compares.