Microsoft Launches XBOX TV Platform Can Responding To Motion

Microsoft will push out an update to Xbox gaming the console Perdorues - That one allows you to navigate throughs music, movies, TV shows and games with the wave of your hand or the sound of your voice. Designed to get consumers to turn on the device every time they flip on their televisions, not just when they want to play games.


The newest iteration of Xbox software, which Microsoft first unveiled at E3 this spring, is set up similarly to Microsoft Corp.’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system with a series of large panes showing content options. The interface in which users scrolled up and down to hubs such as Video Marketplace or My Xbox.

Xbox owners with the Kinect motion controller can swipe through screens by waving their hand in the air. Xbox also lets users search for content using Bing with their voice. It also responds to direct voice commands, and incorporates Microsoft’s search engine, Bing. That includes the TV show as well as, for example, the album, "Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock" by George Thorogood & The Destroyers.

The interface will be available to Xbox users connected to the Internet via a download on Tuesday. To watch an episode of "30 Rock," for example, users can say, "Xbox. Bing. 30 Rock," and the console will display all of the available programming with "30 Rock" in the title

The latest iteration of the Xbox interface isn't perfect, and much of the content also requires being a gold member of Xbox Live, a connected Internet service that costs $60 a year.

Microsoft is partnering with 40 content providers from around the globe to significantly increase the amount of live and on-demand content available on Xbox. Microsoft expects to have pay TV channel partners, including those supplied by Verizon FiOS. There will be no broadcast partners, so fans of the ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox networks, the real significance of the update is how boldly the software giant is putting itself at the core of the TV entertainment experience

Next year, HBO Go and Comcast's Xfinity on Demand will come to U.S. customers. Many of the apps from partners are only available to customers who purchase an Xbox Live Gold Membership. Microsoft says there have been 57 million Xbox units sold around the world and there are more than 35 million users who have logged on to its Xbox Live service at least once in the last three months.