If you take a look at some of the details on Xbox One, you’ll notice that a lot of it revolves around content, not gaming. From instantly toggling between programs like IE to Skype to incorporating interactive elements overlayed on live TV, Xbox is still positioning themselves at the center of home entertainment. What’s more is that Microsoft will even be producing their own TV content, beginning with Speilberg’s Halo series in a trend of content providers–think Netflix, Hulu, YouTube–becoming content creators. And yet, despite this programming push, the estimated $400 price tag will be hard to justify for someone not so into gaming.
Tag: microsoft
Ordering Pizza On Xbox? Why Not!
The day you have been waiting for is here. You can now order pizza through Xbox Live alleviating your need to ever leave the couch. The new partnership between Pizza Hut and Xbox brings a dedicated app that lets users build, purchase and share your pizza order using voice commands, gesture control or the controller. While the app may sounds a little odd, it is the first of its kind to enable physical purchases within the platform. Time will tell if Xbox commerce will gain some traction or if people will simply rely on mobile devices.
Hand Recognition Coming To Kinect
With an updated SDK expected in a few weeks, Microsoft’s Kinect will incorporate hand gesture recognition which will allow for more sophisticated interactions like pinch-to-zoom. We’ve seen this functionality with the much-hyped Leap Motion but Kinect is far and away the leader in bringing gesture controls to the mass market.
Facebook Acquires Atlas
Facebook has announced that they are purchasing Microsoft’s Atlas Solutions division for a rumored price of less than $100mm. This brings to a close several months of speculation after details of purchase discussions leaked late last year. Facebook is demonstrating that they’re willing to spend the money and resources that are required to expand their ad stack. While they may never achieve their stated ambition of displacing Windows/iOS as the main method of interacting with a computer, there may come a time when Facebook is the primary interface for a brand to manage a digital advertising campaign.
Kinect 2.0 Specs Leak
Personally i think the biggest improvement I would hope for is better performance in daylight
Microsoft Outlook Attacks Gmail Over Privacy Concerns
Microsoft has been promoting its revamped Outlook email client in continued attacks on Gmail in its “Scroogled” campaign. With the tagline of “Think Google respects your privacy? Think again,” Microsoft systematically explains how Google looks through emails for keywords which translate into personalized ads. Microsoft attempted a similar takedown last year with a full page ad in newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but this time around Microsoft is really pushing its Outlook platform while simultaneously attacking Google, rather than just lashing out at its opponent. But where is the distinction between how Outlook and Gmail tailor their ads? The Wall Street Journal claims that Outlook looks at the subject lines of emails for ad content, while Microsoft claims it doesn’t use email subject lines to target ads at users. Despite how private, or not, Outlook is in relation to Gmail, Microsoft is making privacy a prime selling point, playing on consumer fear that everything they do on the Internet is tracked and recorded.
Microsoft and Huawei to Sell Windows Smartphones in Africa
It will be interesting if they can make the devices low-cost enough to take off in this context.
Tablet Sales Rise as PC Market Stagnates
The world’s going mobile and the PC just can’t keep up. Recent reports indicate that last quarter, the number of tablets shipped was more than half the number of PCs, compared to the 3rd quarter numbers from November, which showed almost 1 in 4 computers sold were tablets. The trend does not show any sign of slowing down, and suggests more than a shift in computing hardware sales. Windows may now be losing its long-lived market dominance. Of all PCs and Tablets shipped in the 4th quarter, a third of them run OSX, iOS, or Android. The definition of “personal computing” is certainly changing. Will Microsoft be able to adapt in time?
NORAD Switches To Bing To Track Santa
NORAD has taken on some new corporate sponsors for their popular Santa Tracker. The most prominent of these new sponsors is Microsoft’s Bing which has also replaced the map layer normally serviced by Google Maps
