Leaked Document Hints At Augmented Reality Glasses For Future Xbox

An anonymous reader writes "A 56-page leaked document details Microsoft's plans to build a Project Glass competitor. Kinect Glasses is marked as a 2014 project designed to connect to a future Xbox 720 console. The document also includes potential pricing for the next Xbox — $299 with a Kinect 2."

Comments

Competitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Glass *IS MICROSOFT'S*. Why would they develop a competitor to their own competitor to the WiiU?

Re:Competitor?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Project Glass *IS MICROSOFT'S*. Why would they develop a competitor to their own competitor to the WiiU?

Nope. They're leading innovation again - from the tail of the pack. In this case following Google's er - pre-factual imitation.

Re:Competitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's all a trick by Google. Google isn't going to build something so silly, the just want Microsoft to waste a load of money on it.

Re:Competitor?

[Runaway1956]

Can't we just be grateful that Microsoft shills continue to post on /. so that we can all have something to bitch about? Next headline should be along the lines of, "Micorosoft saves the world - read the details here!"

Re:Competitor?

[Haxagon]

Actually, these documents are years old-- before Project Glass was ever revealed. You should RTFPowerpoint before thinking this is some kind of knee-jerk reaction to Google.

Re:Competitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confused, AC.

Re:Competitor?

[TimmyRt]

Project Glass != Smart Glass

Re:Competitor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Google started on this project back in 2007 as part of google's automated car solution with 2005 DARPA, but hey, if you claim that MS had it first, I am sure that you are correct. After all, you are not a MS lobbyists or a Windows developer. Right? I mean if I go through your many other postings, we will not see a continual trend of your supporting and lying for MS. Right?

Re:Competitor?

[joocemann]

Not only will they lead from the back, they won't learn from the frontrunners and will fuck it up like everthing else microsoft.

Microsoft, still, has no idea what a "good user experience" should feel like.

Hint: clarity, stability, simple implementation.

M$ has none of those. OneNote is the only microsoft product I vouch for. I don't eve vouch for the windows 7 OS it runs on

Re:Competitor?

[exomondo]

Can't we just be grateful that Microsoft shills continue to post on /. so that we can all have something to bitch about?

Microsoft shills? Wow, now even someone confusing Smart Glass with Project Glass is called a Microsoft shill...getting a bit ridiculous now aren't we?

anyone know of a good virus cleaner?

[million_monkeys]

Somehow I managed to get a virus on my computer. I'd take it to the professionals, but recently they've all inexplicably committed suicide. I'm deeply depressed and all my possessions are broken because I've been throwing them against the wall. It's only a matter of time before I start abusing those around me. Can anyone help me please???

Re:anyone know of a good virus cleaner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of abusing those around you, you could abuse yourself or use 'mycleanpc' - I hear they're excellent Since using it, I haven't abused myself at all!

Re:anyone know of a good virus cleaner?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure, but I bet GameMaker can help you. Either that or some frosty piss from nigger cock.

Re:anyone know of a good virus cleaner?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Tableaux right here on Slashdot. Bravo!

Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

With their current financial woes, Sony can't possibly compete on price with deep-pocketed Microsoft and their loss-leader strategy. The PS4 will probably start off at $500-$600.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

But how much will Microcrap charge per month for Xbox live?

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

How many months was Xbox Live inactive for? How much personal information did Microsoft make available to malicious parties?

Is Xbox Live mandatory or an optional extra?

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Runaway1956]

"Loss leader" sounds a lot like "monopoly abuse" to me.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Being a loss leader doesn't require a monopoly, only lots of money.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[black3d]

Xbox Live is free. Maybe you're thinking of Gold Live - the service which provides extra non-essentials for those who really want it. The live service, match-making, all online gaming, is free.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty certain you can't play online without Gold

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Nursie]

If you count "playing games online" as an extra, then sure.

Oh wait, you think you can play online with silver. Nah, you can't. Not that it's something I care for, but you can't.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Runaway1956]

True enough, I suppose. While the two terms aren't exactly synonymous, they do have similarities. In this case, Microsoft is most assuredly a monopoly. Coming out with a "loss leader" may very well be "monopoly abuse". IMO, there is little if any difference. It's remotely possible that if I liked Microsoft, I might view this similarity in a different light. Since I despise Microsoft, I'll choose the light in which I view the matter, thank you.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

Of the PS3, 360 and Wii, only the Wii was sold at a profit initially, the others were subsidized by the game sales. There's a history of this going back decades at this point. It's only a monopoly abuse when it harms the competition, normally it's just a business strategy and it counts on there being enough quality games that they make up the difference on royalties.

Now, if they're using profits from elsewhere or jacking up the prices when the competition is out of the picture that would be an antitrust violation.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales worldwide:

Wii - 96 Million
360 - 67 Million
PS3 - 64 Million

67/227 = 29.5% of the current gen home console market. Not even close to monopoly abuse.

FWIW, Sony also sold their console at a loss for a while in a bid to increase installed base. Are there two console monopolies? Nintendo are the only one of the 3 current console manufacturers that doesn't sell hardware at a loss.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Haxagon]

Huh, I didn't know that.

I guess they're kind of in an Apple-type situation: their marketshare isn't fantastic, but they dominate the mindshare in that field. I had always just assumed Xbox was the majority. You know what they say about assuming, though.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Verunks]

xbox live is mandatory if you want to play games online, you know these games that you already paid 60€ to play, psn is mandatory as well if you want to play online, so not much difference except that xbox live isn't free

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like playing online. Fuck online, I want to play split-screen with my friends. A close friend at EA has told me that split-screen is being phased out of new titles because online is more profitable - it helps kill the 2nd hand game market, which is one of EA's strategic goals.

My bad:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html

Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends.

Violators:
Grand Theft Auto IV, MotorStorm, Shadowrun, etc.

Quick, tell us what the following games all have in common. We'll give you a hint, one thing is that they were all among the top 10 most popular games of 2007:

Wii Sports
Wii Play
Guitar Hero III
Super Mario Galaxy
Madden NFL 08
Guitar Hero II
Mario Party 8

But what else? If you answered, "None of them contain male frontal nudity" then, well, you haven't gotten the 122nd star in Mario Galaxy. If you said that these games all have multiplayer that's intended to be played with friends in the same room, you're right.

Likewise, what's at the top of sales in 2008? Smash Bros. Brawl.

The advantage that consoles have over, say, PCs, is that you can play from your comfy sofa. The reason the sofa is considered the pinnacle of furniture technology is because there's room for other people on it.

Yet, here's Grand Theft Auto IV, boasting about its robust multiplayer, and if you think "multiplayer" means inviting the gang over to play, get drunk, laugh and high-five each other until the break of dawn, too bad. You can't do that. Want to play with friends, they must be kept at arm's length, faceless at the other end of a broadband connection. Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer is a world without hugs.

They'll say that GTA IV's vast open world makes split-screen impossible. OK, what about MotorStorm? It's a goddamned racing game, and they won't let you play a real-life friend on a split screen. A racing game.

Sorry, you know damned well that technical limitations aren't the reason everyone is dropping split screen. Every previous generation had it, in times with much less powerful systems and few widescreen TVs.

You're dropping it because four players on a split screen are playing off one $60 copy of the game. Four players playing online need four copies ($240).

And these are the same people who're baffled about how the Nintendo Wii was able to depants the whole industry with its cheap, underpowered little machine. Hey, maybe it's because they're the one company that still seems to realize humans need interaction with other humans. Real interaction, not trash talking over a headset behind fake names.

By the way, some of you are scratching your heads about having the obviously single-player Mario Galaxy up there on the list. Well, it turns out Nintendo included an option so that at any moment, a friend can pick up the second controller and, with the pointer, help the first player collect items and shoot at enemies. It's a small thing, but it means a guy can get his girlfriend in on the action and cut off her complaints that his gaming is taking away from his time with her.

So when she comes over, do you think he's going to put on his GTA IV headset, or pop in Mario Galaxy? Here's a hint: The second choice gets him closer to touching boob.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Microsoft is not a monopoly and neither is Intel. Both companies enjoy competitors with products at generally lower costs that are perfect substitutes for their products.

A monopoly exists when a customer has NO other reasonable choice or the monopolist is able to completely control their market and their competitors profitability.

I frankly think of Microsoft as a one trick pony whose pony is about to expire, quite the opposite of a monopoly.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

It gets stupider. A huge percentage of households have no video game consoles at all, or an older console like a playstation 2, an original xbox or some other, and a lot of households have more than one. We have three 360's, a ps3 and two wii's. My sons three best friends have one wii between their three households. Guess whose house they spend all day at...

So calculating a real dominant market share analysis is a tad more complicated than doing some simple division.

Sony already learned a lesson on building a $500+ console...nobody buys it because the wii is 1/4 the price and the xbox without hard drive or kinect isnt much more expensive than that. However, Sony management is filled with idiots who will always make mistakes and repeat errors, and hold the sanctity of their content at a point where regardless of the impact to the customer, they'll always shoot for 100% content protection even if it means making the product unusable by the customer. Ask your friends at Bestbuy or Fry's how much fun they had with customers returning gazoodles of blu-ray players and "defective" disks because they changed codes and implemented new protections and all of the customers who didn't know how to update firmware or who didn't have a network and network attached player were stuck with a non playing movie. I won't even delve into the sony ps3 network fiasco that resulted in my daily netflix box (the ps3) ending up in a closet for 3 months, replaced by a roku player. I'll always remember that fondly, Sony.

I think nintendo got lucky with the Wii. Really, really lucky. I dont think the wii U is going to bring them the same sort of luck. If the ps4 is over $400-450 and doesn't have some absolutely killer feature, it'll sell badly until they drop the price, just like the ps3 did.

In looking at the 720 and its persistent allegations of cranking up the content protection and finding ways to resist used games a la Sony...well...if thats the case then I don't want it at any price. I'm not really willing to pay $50 or even $35 for new release games. I'm into paying $10-15 for a used game. Since the used games need a $5-10 code to play online or use important DLC, they're now worth $5-10 less to me, as are the new games because the publisher already stole part of the resale value right up front.

At some point the industry has to figure out a way to profitably connect game and content publishers to the public without all of the electronic 'protections' that never work anyhow. While not simple, I've looked at all the stuff you can do to hack consoles to play games and watch movies for free. Anyone that wants to can do it. So they're just inflicting a huge hassle on the 98% of people who would never bother, while concurrently screwing up people who cant afford high priced new release games.

Sometimes the only way to win the game is not to play. I think I'll just keep buying old used games for the 360 from the pre DLC era and let these guys faces hit the pavement a few times, see how it goes after that.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the most boring, inane post I've read in quite some time.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was quite interesting.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[exomondo]

In this case, Microsoft is most assuredly a monopoly.

No, a monopoly isn't a term with which you label a company, it's related to their position in a particular market. Microsoft has a monopoly position in particular market.

Coming out with a "loss leader" may very well be "monopoly abuse".

Not in a market in which they have no position. Many companies use anti-competitive tactics, for example Microsoft was chastized by the DoJ for their use of private APIs in their software giving them a competitive advantage on their platform, Apple has a similar usage of private APIs for their software on iOS that they prevent developers from using. It's legally valid in Apple's case because they don't have a monopoly, the behavior is the same though.

Since I despise Microsoft, I'll choose the light in which I view the matter, thank you.

As in i'll incorrectly apply the term 'monopoly' in such a way that it enables me to make my point. Terms don't just mean whatever you want them to mean, and in this case 'monopoly' most certainly doesn't mean what you think it means.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Runaway1956]

You may stick with strict interpretations of law. I'm looking at a larger picture, one which the DOJ should be looking at, instead of narrow and strict interpretations.

Microsoft OS's run on more than 90% of consumer computers. More than 90% of school age children for the past 15 years has been exposed to a Microsoft environment. In fact, most "computer science" classes have nothing to do with "science", instead being nothing more than learning how to navigate a Windows-centric business environment.

The monopoly is far more pervasive than the DOJ has ever stated - and it's not going away in the next year or two. Give it another decade, I think. Everything that Microsoft did in it's first ten years was intentionally designed to give them this monopolistic position today. It's slipping, and eventually, they will lose the position. But, not for years, yet.

Anytime a corporation has billions of dollars with which to leverage itself into a "new market", you are seeing abuse of monopoly. Walmart has done it again, and again, and again. Same thing with Microsoft.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[exomondo]

You may stick with strict interpretations of law. I'm looking at a larger picture, one which the DOJ should be looking at, instead of narrow and strict interpretations.

No, it's the basic definition of the word.

Microsoft OS's run on more than 90% of consumer computers. More than 90% of school age children for the past 15 years has been exposed to a Microsoft environment. In fact, most "computer science" classes have nothing to do with "science", instead being nothing more than learning how to navigate a Windows-centric business environment.

So they have a monopoly on desktop/laptop computers, that doesn't give them a monopoly in all other markets they choose to enter, as defined by the term 'monopoly'.

Anytime a corporation has billions of dollars with which to leverage itself into a "new market", you are seeing abuse of monopoly.

Wrong, that's not a monopoly in any way, shape or form, and is clearly not what the word monopoly means.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[Runaway1956]

Let's suppose that I'm a rich kid. My Daddy owns the town. He owns more than half the real estate, he owns 3/4 of the businesses, he owns the bank. And, he happens to have leveraged all that into becoming the mayor. I have everything going for me.

I graduate from high school and/or college, and decide to go into business. One of my classmates wants to compete against me.

How much competition within the community do you really think there is going to be? My Daddy isn't going to do business with someone outside the family. Meaning, I have every business and property that he owns sewed up, my "competitor" can't touch any of that. The only "competition" is going to be for all those other people.

Things will be much much worse for my classmate, if Daddy decides that he wants to invest some money into my own venture. He can pay for advertising that I might not be able to afford. He can pay for the best tools and equipment. He can offer higher wages to anyone thinking of working for my classmate.

But - you wouldn't think of this situation as a "monopoly", would you? What exactly would you call it?

Re:Bye bye Sony

[exomondo]

So what you're saying is that you believe a monopoly to be a case where one party has a competitive advantage of some kind? Well firstly that's not correct and moreover certainly not the case here, for example in the tablet market Apple has far more marketshare and more money than Microsoft anyway.
Just because you can afford to do a loss leader product doesn't mean you have a monopoly or are abusing a monopoly position. It isn't illegal to have a competitive advantage, in fact virtually every market in existence you'll find one party has a competitive advantage over others.

Things will be much much worse for my classmate, if Daddy decides that he wants to invest some money into my own venture. He can pay for advertising that I might not be able to afford. He can pay for the best tools and equipment. He can offer higher wages to anyone thinking of working for my classmate.

But - you wouldn't think of this situation as a "monopoly", would you? What exactly would you call it?

No, of course not, because it isn't a monopoly, it's reality. You think you have some entitlement to a completely level playing field? That all your competitors should be forced stoop to your level so they don't have any kind of advantage over you? Do you not understand the very basic concept of a free market economy?
In any case how is your situation in any way analogous to the situation with Microsoft? It's not even relatable. The tablet market is well established and Microsoft isn't a part of it. Apple has all of the advantage with marketshare and cash, no other tablet model even comes close to touching the iPad's dominance in the tablet space and even then it's not a monopoly.

Re:Bye bye Sony

[uninformedLuddite]

You should keep those sorts of opinions tight these days. I see forcible reeducation in your future. You need to learn to share, smile, do the carbon-free dance, bond with Gaia, and most importantly give 99% of your money to the unworthy.

Old Product Roadmap?

[mister2au]

Seems interesting but worth remembering this is on old product roadmap from August 2010 which broadly outlines: 2011 - TV App for Xbox 360 2012 - Pay TV App for Xbox 360 2013 - Xbox 720 & Kinect V2 2014 - Glasses (WiFi / Living Room) 2015 - Glasses (Mobile) Seems like a useful product for gaming input, potentially 3D display in glasses & maybe augmented reality for say PvP in room rather then on-screen. The mobile glasses concept seems a bit ambitious but it was a 5-yr roadmap I'd read this as a head-mounted display, mic & headphones etc .. interesting but not revolutionary ... And may be completely out of date too ????

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[mister2au]

Try again with formatting !

Seems interesting but worth remembering this is on old product roadmap from August 2010 which broadly outlines:
2011 - TV App for Xbox 360
2012 - Pay TV App for Xbox 360
2013 - Xbox 720 & Kinect V2
2014 - Glasses (WiFi / Living Room)
2015 - Glasses (Mobile)

Seems like a useful product for gaming input, potentially 3D display in glasses & maybe augmented reality for say PvP in room rather then on-screen. The mobile glasses concept seems a bit ambitious but it was a 5-yr roadmap

I'd read this as a head-mounted display, mic & headphones etc .. interesting but not revolutionary ... And may be completely out of date too ????

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Pax681]

Try again with formatting !

Seems interesting but worth remembering this is on old product roadmap from August 2010 which broadly outlines: 2011 - TV App for Xbox 360 2012 - Pay TV App for Xbox 360 2013 - Xbox 720 & Kinect V2 2014 - Glasses (WiFi / Living Room) 2015 - Glasses (Mobile)

Seems like a useful product for gaming input, potentially 3D display in glasses & maybe augmented reality for say PvP in room rather then on-screen. The mobile glasses concept seems a bit ambitious but it was a 5-yr roadmap

I'd read this as a head-mounted display, mic & headphones etc .. interesting but not revolutionary ... And may be completely out of date too ????

NOW I KNOW WHY JESUS WEPT! can no-one tell then difference between "then" and "than" any more??
I know I am going to sound like a grammar nazi but for goodness sake this is so simple and fundamental it beggars belief!

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the guy who doesn't capitalize Nazi and maybe a comma before but would be nice.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[mister2au]

Really dude? Typo or grammar - what do you think?

If Jesus wept over a typo, I'd hate to think what he'd make of the impact of 2000 years worth of compounding transcription errors on the biblical texts.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just a grammer nazi, but someone who is inflexible in their thinking.

Language is about communication. It is a living language. Roll with it!

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[drinkypoo]

Really dude? Typo or grammar - what do you think?

If you're typo'ing e for a or a for e then you must have a wild-ass typing style.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Language as about communication. Is it a loving language. Role with at!

All I did was change one letter, but when you change one letter it changes the word meaning and communication is lost.
The words 'than' and 'then' are easy to spell for native British/Irish English speakers but I think that some US (not sure aboot Canada ;) English speakers make a very similar nasal whining sound when they say the 2 words and end up spelling them both 'then'.
 

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Its also about using the proper words so the language doesn't devolve into a bunch of valley-girl speak and text shortcuts.

The front page of my local paper included two perfectly well spelled words that were not accurate in context, both in headlines. Written by an alleged professional writer and reviewed by an alleged professional editor. While I'm quite far from the grammar Nazi, it would be nice to preserve our language. Seeing "candidate hurtles over problems" and stuff like "and walla, its done" is disappointing. The word is 'voila' and its french for 'there is is', by my 9th grade french class recollection.

A little less of a problem with flexibility and a little more concern about devolution of progress when we use the wrong words and pronounce them incorrectly, or even better steal one from another language, spell it wrong, and then continue to devolve its spelling and pronunciation.

But we did operate for 8 years with a president who pronounced the word 'nucular', even though there is an 'e' and the 'l' does come before it, and it contains no 'u'. As I understand it, he knew the correct pronunciation but chose to use the one that the 40-something percent of stupid people use so he could connect better with them. There must be at least 4 possible discussion threads on how ridiculously wrong all of that is.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[hajus]

They're only 2 keys apart on dvorak keyboard.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work at a major newspaper and this issue comes up with readers like you. Not saying your wrong, but headline writing is an art form that is not bound by AP style or traditional grammar rules. It's one of the more creative departments of the newspaper. Not saying they're all winners, but a well-written headline is one of my favorite things to read.

Re:Old Product Roadmap?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you never learned the differences between your and you're?

Or vagina

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaked Document Hints At Augmented Reality Glasses For Future Xbox or Vagina

"A 56-page leaked document details Microsoft's plans to build a Project Glass competitor or vagina. Kinect Glasses is marked as a 2014 project designed to connect to a future Xbox 720 console or vagina. The document also includes potential pricing for the next Xbox — $299 with a Kinect 2 or vagina."

Re:Or vagina

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

Now see, I'd pay extra for that feature. No, not the glasses. I often say that some expensive item would only be worth it if I could fark it.

noice

[Anonymous Coward]

they should presented that at e3 instaed of their watch-what's-on-your-cellphone-from-your-tv-in-your-refridgerator crap

Re:noice

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Why? It won't laumch for over a year, why give their competitors time to catch up?

Had this gameplay as a kid

[houghi]

As a kid, we already had Augmented Reality in game-play.

We played soldiers, cowboys and Indians and any other game.
OK, instead of a 17 button game console controller, we used a stick and instead of Augmented Reality Glasses we used our imagination, but still.

Now get of my lawn.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is why many kids are sloth. They're no worse than the guys of the greatest generation except they have phones in their pockets and pixelated monsters to contend with instead of enemy fascists.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[F34nor]

Booya

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is most of you end up in the bushes bumming each other sucking each other off.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Is this really the thread for a comment like this to be +5? Seriously, in the 80's I watched an episode of Webster where his grandad convinced him that Westerns were better than Star Wars because they didn't need no stinkin 'special effects'.

(What's funny is that they meant 'visual fx'... 'special effects' are in-camera things like squibs from bulllet hits.... which Westerns did rely on...)

Old argument, not worth spending mod-points on.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[c]

> We played soldiers, cowboys and Indians and any other game.
> OK, instead of a 17 button game console controller, we used a stick and
> instead of Augmented Reality Glasses we used our imagination

Ah. So you're augmented reality didn't have your opponents calling you a "gay noobz" and killing you with nasty 8-button combos.

Lame.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Anonymous Coward]

Each generation thinks the way they did things was the best way. JJ Abrams has a good TED talk that addresses this line of thinking, but to sum it up the imagination of each proceeding generation is only going to get better with technology.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Verunks]

but games aren't just for kid, actually a lot of games are targeted for >= 15 years old, I really can't imagine some 30 years old playing with stick and a cowboy hat, but they can sure play with a videogame

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what Webster's grandad would have said about the Star Wars prequels ...

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[YttriumOxide]

but games aren't just for kid, actually a lot of games are targeted for >= 15 years old, I really can't imagine some 30 years old playing with stick and a cowboy hat, but they can sure play with a videogame

Stick and cowboy hat, not yet... but I just got back from the playground with my wife and daughter, where I had a great time on the swings for a bit while my daughter played on the slide with her mum. I'd also happily don a cowboy hat and shoot at her with a stick (and get shot by her stick) if that's the game she wants to play.

Best thing about being a dad is that no-one looks at me funny for acting "childish" (not that it stopped me before I was a father, but I did get funny looks).

If you don't go out and "play" sometimes, I highly recommend trying it.

Re:Had this gameplay as a kid

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an ipod - in my mind! http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-have-an-ipodin-my-mind,10912/

AR tethered to a console

[jjbarrows]

Way to miss the point, again, Microsoft.
I can only assume this is another example of bureaucracy and accountants getting in the way of tech.

Re:AR tethered to a console

[Haxagon]

It's not necessarily tethered to a console, just wifi-only in 2014. As they said, they think they'll have the tech to do it 4G/Wifi in 2015.

Except you had absolutely nothing similar

[F69631]

I know that you had tongue in the cheek as you wrote that post but I believe that both you and other might still think that augmented reality games and imagination are somehow comparable... which they really aren't.

Think of reading a good book. You're enjoying a form of art where one talented individual (or group of such) carefully crafted something. Everyone gets the experience just as intended by the artist, but then each individual's personal views, life experience, etc. is combined with the artwork and everyone gets unique experience. The beauty of any artwork is exactly in the combination of being able to examine something just as it was designed and interpreting that based on your own personality.

Now, consider just coming up with a cool story inside your head. I'm not saying that's worse than reading a book, but it's entirely different thing, because you're no longer experiencing something as it was designed by the artist.

Re:Except you had absolutely nothing similar

[YttriumOxide]

I was tempted to mod this interesting (because it is, although I disagree), but then thought I'd rather reply with my disagreement instead.

If you're talking only the child's own imagination, you're right. However in the real world of imaginary play that the GP was referring to, children play with other children. The "story" is being told by all participants actively, and each can be considered the "artist".
Each child experiences what the others convey from their imagination through their actions; and then combines that with their own imagination in to the actions they then perform. I don't see this as being that different from your author as artist scenario (other than being significantly more active).

I'd also have to disagree with your statement "Everyone gets the experience just as intended by the artist ". I'd say everyone gets to experience something of what the artist was able to convey to them; and not necessarily what the artist intended. How often do you find yourself or someone else has read something and failed to comprehend the author's intention? As someone who (unfortunately) has to produce documentation from time to time, I'm well aware of misunderstandings of my own written text. The people reading my text certainly did not "get the experience as intended by the artist" but only the experience I was able to successfully convey to them.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume their target audience probably aren't the kind of people who need to wear prescription glasses already.

Re:Well...

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

You assume correctly. Most of the people doing this stuff are in their 20's with perfect eyesight.

I can tell as a 50 year old father that all the stuff for kids has instructions written in 4 point font in a 1 square inch area, with six inches of white space around it. Also every tag with a product serial number on it is a 2x1" sticker with a number on it in 2 point font.

I could branch off into how we as a nation can no longer perforate either, but thats not critical at this juncture.

Ars has a good writeup already

[Anonymous Coward]

Ars technica has a good writeup on this: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/leaked-document-points-to-299-xbox-720-for-2013/ Consensus is that its either fake, or marketing powerpointware for ideas, not designs.

Re:Ars has a good writeup already

[Haxagon]

Yeah, it's definitely mockups for where they want to go, not a hard lineup of their projects.

Say what?

[bmo]

>Kinect Glasses is marked as a 2014 project designed to connect to a future Xbox 720 console.

And not tethered to a smartphone or at least a wifi handheld, so you can go *outside* and actually *use* augmented reality?

Way to kill your innovation in the cradle, Microsoft.

--
BMO

Re:Say what?

[Haxagon]

Read the 2015 entry-- the wifi model is in 2014, and the 4G model in 2015. I can only assume they think it's going to take a lot of manpower to make AR glasses that have good battery life and cellular connectivity, so they're concentrating on wifi-only at first.

By the way, the powerpoint says nothing about it being exclusively connected to the Xbox "720". It could still be connected to mobile devices; we just don't know yet.

It seems like the full-vision glasses idea might not work, though. They've generally been bulkier than the sliver of projection glass that shows up in Project Glass. Plus, Google has an advantage: their services are pretty tight-knit, especially after the G+ merge they did. It will be interesting to see what consumers choose: the lighter, more stylish option with All Things Google, or the full-vision AR-VR glasses, with connectivity to their console.

Incredible sense for the useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that Microsoft has an incredible sense for useless innovations that will never catch on.

Nobody except a very small group of geeks will ever wear glasses for anything else than sharper vision.

Re:Incredible sense for the useless

[Haxagon]

Bullshit.
Glasses with HUDs are the first step to contact-lens screens, then embedded retina displays (TM). They're definitely part of the future. They're pretty primitive forms of human augmentation, but I'm sure the consumer would love being able to do what his smartphone does without taking it out of his pocket (Project Glass) or have a full Virtual-Reality display in a pair of spectacles. People started using soft-keyboards, though they were lauded as stupid, and told it would never catch on. However, the majority of smartphones today use software keyboards, because the consumer decided it was willing to put up with typing on glass to have a keyboard that literally disappeared with screen real estate in its place. I think people will do the same with wearable computing like Project Glass and the Xbox Glasses.

By the by, Google showed that Project Glass doesn't even have to be accompanied by any form of glasses.

Enough of this stuff, please.

[toddmbloom]

I don't want to wear glasses to control a screen and look like an idiot.
I don't want to wave my arms around like a fool.

Just give me a controller and let me do it as it's always been done.

I'm so sick of these gimmicks already.

Bill Gates is Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HnOFwqpLRQ

The day before they came

When Microsoft and the FBI came for the communists, I remained silence, since I wasn't a communist.

When Microsoft and the CIA imprisoned the democrats, I remained silence, since I wasn't a democrat.

When Microsoft and the NSA came for the programmers union members, I didn't protest, since I wasn't a union member.

When Microsoft and the Secret Service came for the security researchers, because they found a severe security leak in Windows, I did not protest, since I wasn't a security researcher.

When the television said "you're either with us or you are with the terrorists, there must be war!", I started feeling uncomfortable since I believed that war is not a solution.

When steve.ballmer@ceo.microsoft.com and bill.gates@chairman.microsoft.com send me an email, they wanted me dead, because I was a programmer, there was no one left to protest. I now live my life in an anti-terrorist Fema camp for just a little over 7 years, we are forced to develop Microsoft products against our will or they will kill us one by one. ... ---...

The secret of Microsoft's success.

Microsoft has special people who search everywhere on the internet for anything that might be a technological advance in mostly software technology because software is easy to steal, buy or copy.

In the 1980's Bill Gates had seen cp/m from Gary Kildall and told IBM that Microsoft could provide an operating system. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer simply bought a cheap cp/m rip-off named Q-dos for $50,000 illegally stolen by Tim Paterson who simply copied it from disassembled cp/m machine code. Gary Kildall found out and tried to sue IBM and Microsoft. Unfortunately for Gary, Bill Gates father was a powerfull lawyer employed by the Rockefeller family, so the judge made a statement. For every PC wheter an original IBM or a IBM clone, customers had to pay Microsoft even when the customer only wanted Gary's cp/m based dr-dos. These practises are still used by Microsoft today. If you want a laptop or PC you are forced to buy it with a Microsoft product named Windows. They pretend you have a choice to not pay for Windows. Usually if you do not want Windows, they have to take out the harddrive with its Windows recovery partition and to replace it with a clean harddrive. So buying a PC or laptop without Windows will simply cost you more. Most stores however simply refuse you to sell the PC or laptop if you don't want Windows.

Did Microsoft invented Windows themselves? Is Windows stolen technology?

And Bill Gates had seen Xerox Star so he bought such a Xerox Star machine (made in 1978), it would take Microsoft 13 years to duplicate its operating system capabilities, and they named it Windows 3.1.

Meanwhile Gary Kildall got a tragic accident, unexplainable head injury wich caused his death shortly after writing a book that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer steal technology from whomever they can. Gary's son is still scared of Microsoft so the book remains sealed.

And Microsoft kept on stealing technology. Visicalc became Microsofy Excell. Borland became Microsoft Developer Studio, Wordstar became Microsoft word. Netscape became Internet Explorer. 3dFx became Microsoft directX, Lernaut&Hauspie became Microsoft speech synthesis and recognition. Even the Windows 95 taskbar and startmenu where stolen from a graphical user interface made by another company in 1987 than named Icon Bar.

Almost nobody knows the original inventors of the by Microsoft stolen technology and about the highly unexplainable death rates under original software inventors. Who knows Stacker? The company from who Microsoft stole their compression technology for filesystems? Even fat32 the filesystem for wich other companies have to pay Microsoft for, was stolen. Microsoft hires special companies to scare programmers and inventors with braindead, cardiac arrest, lifelong unemployement, lifelong prosecution, tragic car accidents (Avalon prog

what will the TV content have? work with cards?

[Joe_Dragon]

what will the TV content have? what will it work with?

Just the IPTV that U-Verse and other systems with the same tech use (still needs there main box)

OTA TV?

cable clear qam?

cable card?
cable card + SDV tuner?
cable card + VOD / PPV?

RVU (right only with directv and needs there main box)
Take a DISH or DIRECTV smart card? (under ground route they don't offer cards for 3rd party boxes)
AllVid (still needs a main box and roll out date unknown)

others??

microsoft has a huge hit here...

[Anonymous Coward]

... if it can augment the wife.

If it's one thing I know Xbox frat boys love...

[rsilvergun]

it's wearing glasses. Nothin's cooler. Ok, maybe if it's those cool glasses you were while AC/DC music plays, but the trouble with that is the music only plays when you take the glasses off.

New MS slogan: ME TOOOOOO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Between this and the non-stop stream of "oh yeah, we should do that too" non-creativity, looks like MS should change their motto to the classic Usenet idiocy:

ME TOOOOOOOO!

Hi, My Name is Microsoft and I'm a proven liar.

[Nyder]

Sure it was "leaked" document full of "stuff" for the Xbox.

More likely it was purposely leaked piece of FUD to make their competition (Sony) worry and work on stuff that doesn't matter.

I trust nothing about MS based on MS's history.

xbox is garbage

[Anonymous Coward]

the xbox kinect is a piece of shit!

the comercial sells it far above its bar.

the comodedy is less accurate to give user expirnce for gaming, and the device is a microsoft clasic.

not ready to hit the marker
they dont know what to do with it
they dont care about you, you already paid for the hardware, the software is others problem.

till this day, no epic game for kinect, ony garbage.

Boo Radley!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, go back in the house and listen to your Mungo Jerry!