Xbox Second Screen Announced

kodiaktau writes "Microsoft has announced a feature called SmartGlass that provides a new set of features when viewing media on mobile or PC devices. Sources say that it will provide context focused advertising/product placement as well as metadata about the media you are currently viewing. Additionally the interface allows you to store viewing data and share between your desktop and mobile devices to continue viewing content between devices. From the article: 'SmartGlass also allows you to view the web on an Xbox 360 using Internet Explorer. The tablet or phone becomes the keyboard and you can easily browse web pages without having a physical keyboard in the living room.'"

Comments

batting 1000

[rullywowr]

So let me get this straight. The XBOX360 console, which is more than capable of surfing the web by itself, needs an ad-fueled tablet or other controlling device to enable web functionality. WTH is wrong with the keypad they already have?

Wow. Steve Ballmer batting 1000 lately.

Re:Yay, something I don't need and don't want

[Samantha Wright]

To be fair, the summary is extremely harsh and implies the feature is primarily for advertising. The article gives an example of displaying a map depicting where all the action is happening during a TV show—a little like how the game Supreme Commander delegates additional resources to dedicated tasks (like a monitor just for a strategic view) rather than simply virtualising them all together as one big viewport.

Wait, What Are We Doing Wrong?!

[eldavojohn]

How about you work on a next gen console, and stop adding useless crap to your tired console from 2005?

But but but, we can help you find products that you want to spend money on! Don't you want that? Don't you want to spend money? Don't you want to see the new shinies that are coming out on the expensive game system you paid moneys for? Are you some communist that is against buying stuff? And we can build a WEB SERVICE with the RIAA that helps you make sure that you're playing a REAL copy of your favorite movie or album and will make sure you're not some victim using victimizing bittorrent, horrible handbrake and the dangerous PS3MediaServer to enjoy your game system. We just want to give you more purchasing power and help you manage your digital rights. Don't you want power and rights? Huh?

Giving the people what they want.

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Finally, Microsoft has listened to it's customers and fanbase! People have been clamouring for years to have context focused advertising/product placement on their Xboxen and now these long years have loyalty have been rewarded. Bravo, Microsoft. Bravo.

Re:Giving the people what they want.

[CanHasDIY]

Ads have pushed me away from the 360. Advertisements are literally among my most loathed concepts.

What, you think just because you spent several hundred dollars on hardware, and continue to pay a subscription fee to access online content, you shouldn't be bombarded with advertisements every time you turn the thing on? How else are they supposed to make money???

I swear, the selfishness of today's consumer...




.../sarc

Re:Giving the people what they want.

[EdIII]

This is why the marketers need to be dragged out in the street and gutted like pigs :)

You know that an engineer came up with the idea of SmartGlass, and it was really cool... in the lab. The awesomeness was then taken as a prototype to a bunch of executives who cooed and went gaga over their new money maker... and then the marketers came in and fucked the whole thing up by "giving" customers exactly what they don't want.

Good Job, Marketers, Hip Hip Hooray! :)

Re:Giving the people what they want.

[subreality]

It reminds me of Netscape Constellation. Netscape invented a pretty cool system where you could have a network-portable desktop - you could log into any computer anywhere, and all your stuff (programs, documents, desktop, everything) would come up for you. Think Chromebook, but more app-oriented, and in 1997.

One TINY feature of this was push content. Then the Netscape marketing department got wind of it and said "You mean we can use this to PUSH ADS?"

Then all the other stuff was ripped out, and the push content part of it got released as Netcaster, part of the Communicator suite.... And then was promptly ignored by everyone, because the only people interested in pushing content to you were advertisers.

Re:Yay, something I don't need and don't want

[Missing.Matter]

At the keynote they said it will work with Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. Now to what degree of "works" is yet to be specified. I imagine iOS and Android apps might have access to a subset of features, but it's nice to see some attempts at cross platform functionality.

Re:"...using Internet Explorer"

[Billly Gates]

It is IE 9, not IE 6 or the crappy dumb phone nefront on the PS 3

Typical Slashdot bullshit

[mystikkman]

Interesting. If they work only on the XBox 720 and abandon the 360, the typical Slashdot comment will be "OMG THEY WANT TO FORCE YOU TO BUY A NEW CONSOLE THAT YOU DON'T NEED TO GET NEW SOFTWARE FEATURES LIKE A BROWSER".

If you bought a XBox 360, all this is amazing value lasting years (minus RRoD issues which they fixed at their cost) and you can still use all the new features like using your existing iDevice or Android device with the new games.

Why is this a bad thing again, isn't it just more value for your money? They're not even charging the 5, 10 or 20 bucks for the big software upgrades that Apple used to charge for the iPod Touch upgrades.

Why is the summary so lame and talks mostly about ads? I don't even see the "Sources say... ads" line in the article... where did it come from? Now we're going to see that picked up in the comments and without even a proper source.

Again, since when is adding features to something you already bought a bad thing? And no, I am not new here. So I guess it's because we're talking about 'M$' on the Slashdot circle jerk inborn retardation channel. The saner people have left in disgust and the inmates run the asylum, right from the submitters to the commenters to the moderators, perhaps editors too.

Re:Yay, something I don't need and don't want

[gstoddart]

Why not graduate from consoles and move into PC gaming?

Because not everybody is interested in PC gaming?

It's just another machine to buy and keep up to date, and it is probably more effort than most people are willing to invest.

I don't play games often enough to want to do anything other than pop in the disk, play the game a while, and turn off the console.

I'd be willing to bet most people who play on consoles don't want to have a PC gaming rig, or they'd have done so. I for one have no interest in getting into the "which super awesome video card do I need now". A console is more like an appliance, plug it in and go, which is precisely what I want it to be.

Re:Allready copying Nintendo

[gstoddart]

the second and third guy to do something is usually the successful one because historically the entrepreneur is stubborn and sticks to his narrow vision

Except that nowadays the first guy patents it, and demands shake-down money from everybody else because somehow the patent office granted a patent on either an idea, or something which reads as "something well known, but with a computer".

Somehow, we call this innovation.

Re:"...using Internet Explorer"

[gweihir]

Microsoft products. When "sucks way less" is the replacement for "good".