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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Microsoft Shows Us the Future of Entertainment

Have you been looking at your Netflix and Hulu+ subscriptions wondering why nothing ever gets better? Why the selection of instant streaming is so few?

Well, according to Microsoft you may be getting exactly what you asked for (finally, right?).

Microsoft released a good bit of information today revealing how they intend to change the way we watch tv in a radical way. This could mean a lot for their stance in the current tech market, especially the phone market. They announced, today, that "nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers, including Bravo, Comcast, HBO, Syfy, and Verizon FiOS" will begin providing live TV and video-on-demand services via the Xbox 360 in the next couple months.

View a quick demo video here.

This new experience will also be complimented by the new user interface that is being brought to the Xbox 360. This UI is called "Light UI" (Coming Spring 2012) and is heavily based on their Metro UI (found in Windows 8 and Windows Phones). They also strive to completely incorporate the Kinect system wide, which, with the UI changes, should make for a very sleek experience. Along with complete Kinect integration comes complete Windows Phone integration.

Kinect integration will bring system wide motion and voice control. The usual commands appear to apply, but it also looks like Bing will be used to search for content which can be done with a controller, keyboard, or your voice.



With the phone integration, you'll get far more control than you did in the previous Xbox applications. This application will be called the "Xbox Companion App" and serves as a multipurpose media remote for your 360. You can use the phone to find the content you wish to view on your 360. You'll have access to the same, full catalog that the Xbox 360 does. After finding the content you wish to view or download to your Xbox you can find more details about that content. As an example, if it's a movie, you'll get links for the actors that lead to more movies by that actor and so on and so forth. After you have selected what you would like to view you simply hit play and the content is displayed directly on your Xbox 360. The Windows Phone then turns into a media remote with video playback controls.



Xbox Companion App will be a free download for all existing Windows Phone owners and seems like it will be baked into new models. Some of the features can be seen about a minute into the above posted video.

Now all we are waiting for is the rumored Kinect/Windows Phone integration that we saw demoed oh so long ago.

Sources: Xbox 360 Source, Windows Phone Source

Windows Press Release + More Images of "Light UI" HERE

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