Microsoft wants the Xbox 360 to be the portal to everything on your television - games, movies, music and even live TV. Today at E3, the video game industry's annual gathering, it unveiled a new Kinect-powered interface for accessing a variety of media using voice controls. The company also added its Bing search to the console, allowing users to say things like "Xbox Bing Harry Potter" in order to access both Harry Potter games and films.
It's a futuristic vision inspired by Star Trek's ever-present computer, but will it work? Voice commands are still notoriously unreliable, meaning there's no guarantee you'll actually get to watch Harry Potter straight away - the Kinect's microphones can struggle to pick up the current voice commands available on the system.
There's also the question of just how you will access media on the Xbox - will you only be able to watch content bought through the console, or can you also use voice commands to access videos and music stored on your PC? Given Microsoft's closed nature, it seems unlikely that you'll be browsing your iTunes library with Kinect any time soon.
The voice-enabled media-hub wasn't the only new announcement at Microsoft's E3 conference. In addition to a range of Kinect-enabled games, the company revealed a range of features seemingly inspired by the boom in amateur Kinect hacks since the sensor launched. Gamers can now create 3D photos and draw on them using their fingers, and scan their face, clothes or even objects into the system, letting you manipulate digital versions of your real-life possessions.
It's a futuristic vision inspired by Star Trek's ever-present computer, but will it work? Voice commands are still notoriously unreliable, meaning there's no guarantee you'll actually get to watch Harry Potter straight away - the Kinect's microphones can struggle to pick up the current voice commands available on the system.
There's also the question of just how you will access media on the Xbox - will you only be able to watch content bought through the console, or can you also use voice commands to access videos and music stored on your PC? Given Microsoft's closed nature, it seems unlikely that you'll be browsing your iTunes library with Kinect any time soon.
The voice-enabled media-hub wasn't the only new announcement at Microsoft's E3 conference. In addition to a range of Kinect-enabled games, the company revealed a range of features seemingly inspired by the boom in amateur Kinect hacks since the sensor launched. Gamers can now create 3D photos and draw on them using their fingers, and scan their face, clothes or even objects into the system, letting you manipulate digital versions of your real-life possessions.
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