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The Xbox rumours are flowing thick and fast at the moment, with the latest report stating that Microsoft’s going all-in with voice recognition, allowing you to simply walk in the room and shout “Xbox on” to fire the thing up. It’s even going to go all Siri-like on us too, let’s just hope it’s a tad more useful in the UK than Apple’s poor-excuse-for-butler.
Natural language controls are rumoured, so you’ll be able to command the thing without having to learn set phrases (apart from maybe, errr, “Xbox on”?), and you’ll be able to dictate text too, which would probably be the best thing to happen to in-game messaging ever.
Of course, take this all as purely rumour and conjecture for the moment, as who knows whether this is on the money or not. It does make sense from an expansion-of-Kinect point of view, though, but until Microsoft busts out a Durango, Xbox 720, or whatever it ends up being called, hopefully at E3, we won’t know for sure.
What do you reckon? Would you actually use the voice-control features if they turn out to be true, or would it be yet another feature you ignore completely because it’s simply quicker to bust out a few button presses than shout at the thing? [The Verge via CVG]
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that would be good, i completely agree that you should be able to shout at tech to control it
e.g. shouting shut up at your phone when it’s ringing to mute it, still waiting for that implementation
There’s probably an app for that, but you can kiss good bye to your battery
“Activate ShitBox!”
X-box: *Dun….*
HAHAHA!
How about those disable people who can’t speak?
Mormons? I kid.
I pity the fool that tries to make the majority conform for the minority!
lol well why make a console then when there are people who are blind LOL
About time too! The dark days of having to struggle with lifting a controller off the coffee table, strain the eyes to focus on a button and then to summon the huge amounts of energy to depress it for a second or two to power my XBox might soon be behind us.
you joke…. but the amount of times i have misplaced a controller when i just want to get on netflix and have had to boot my pc up instead are quite numerous….
Wired controllers are the future, you heard it here first.
On paper, it’s very cool to control a console by voice. In reality. it’s the saddest thing you could do with your life.
If this is true, this is a stupid idea. Computers are very inefficient at ‘listening’, therefore if you want to turn in on by speaking, the Xbox will have to already be ‘on’ and running a relatively computing intensive task 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This will use a shit ton of energy and, very likely, reduce the lifespan of the console.
Voice control once the Xbox is already turned on though is a pretty good idea although it is kind of competing with it’s kinect technology.
I see where you’re coming from but to be honest your Xbox is plugged in all the time and pulling electricity to keep it in a hibernated stand-by mode anyway; having a mic to pick up sound probably wouldn’t increase the load by a large amount.
I would also suggest voice control would actually complement Kinect rather than compete. If you were scrolling through a list of movie titles, it would be easier to use hand gestures than saying “next, next… next” but it would be more natural to say “play movie” than have to perform a hand gesture to signify the same.
Although if they decided on a hand gesture, I would proffer making a circle with your thumb and index finger and then putting the index finger of your other hand through the middle.
Your right that “stand-by mode” does use energy anyway but computer listening is not the same as simply having a microphone connected. Software must monitor and process all audio being received by the microphone and search for a specific pattern in the audio. This is something that actually take quite a lot of processing power. So you would either need a separate section of the console specifically designed to do this (which still uses a lot of power) or you essentially need to have the Xbox fully on at all times.
I find it easier to scroll through a list of movie titles with a controller. Moving one thumb is a lot quicker than randomly waving my hands around in the hope that the Kinect with recognise the gesture.
You’re talking about an always-on xbox using up energy. I’m more worried about a console being always on when it has a camera and a microphone. paranoid, yeah. When I’m not using the damn thing I’ll yank it straight out of the mains.
This is very worrying indeed. Also I don’t know if you heard about the patent that Microsoft filed for the Kinect? It allows the Kinect to monitor the room when your watching a TV show or Movie on your Xbox and it counts how many people in the room and, if there are too many people in the room, it won’t let you continue to watch the movie/tv show until you buy a more expensive license from them.
The idea of them constantly filming you is pretty disturbing.
I’ve met one of the lead machine learning developers for the Kinect and the ‘constant filming’ aspect isn’t exactly correct. I know the patent they’ve filed does sound worrying but these companies apply for patents for any number of things that never pan out (normally to stop competitors from doing the same).
Sound processing isn’t too much of a problem if you have a hibernate mode until a loud noise is picked up and then the processing software kicks in. This would reduce the power needed during the night or when everyone is out of the house. And if you’re going to be THAT paranoid about kinect recording you, imagine what would happen if the CIA were able to hack the voice recorder on the Xbox too? A direct video and audio into millions of homes around the world recording your every conversation!!!
May I suggest you get a PlayStation 4 instead?
Your right a hibernate mode is possible but even if it wakes up on detecting any noise, this is going to be quite often. I personally wouldn’t want to waste so much energy just because I can’t be bothered to walk a couple of meters and press a button but that’s just me.
But, by the looks of hwo things are with the whole used games thing for the next gen consoles, I won’t be buying either. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess.
Hmm… voice recognition uses a fair bit of processing power.
That means the Xbox would have to be in a stand-by mode, and one that is not very energy efficient.
In the EU stand-by modes on new devices must only use 0.5 Watts of power (or 1 Watt if it displays information such as a clock).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Watt_Initiative
Currently the 360 slim uses 0.6 Watts (non-slim 2.0 and up depending on version) when in stand-by mode, so it would be quite a feat for them to get that down AND do voice recognition.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3774/welcome-to-valhalla-inside-the-new-250gb-xbox-360-slim/3
I think this is a fake rumour.
My guess is that it’ll be power hungry whatever they do. The first iterations of these things always are. Sad, but true. Poor mother Earth/bank accounts.
Yep, but if it is more than 0.5 Watts they won’t be able to sell then in the EU without a proper power off mode.
I guess that means people worried about the power usage or the ‘they are going to spy on my through Kinect’ people can turn it off properly without yanking the cables out of the wall
I control my Samsung Smart TV by voice…
I haven’t used a traditional remote to turn my TV on/off, change source or alter volume in months.
does it really work well?
All I can think of is this: http://www.mactrast.com/2011/10/video-the-trouble-with-the-siri-based-apple-tv/
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to repeat myself because it hasn’t understood…
…Gesture controls however; absolutely awful!
I shall try to remember your recommendation when I upgrade my tv
I control mine by voice too.
I tell my son to do it
Dont let Findus touch the spaghetti bologneighs !
Spectacular.
So, in other words, the new XBox will, even when turned “off”, be listening to everything being spoken or done in the room and will be processing it. Maybe it’s like Siri and sends the recording off to remote servers for processing?
As long as all these kinect, Siri, touch controls are optional and not ingrained in all games, it sounds ok. Hopefully they can make a console that’s good for playing games with a good standard controller, without wriggling round your living room and talking to yourself like a maniac.
Brilliant, parents are going to love this:
Do while XBox exists
Parent: XBox off
Child: No, XBox on
Loop
I heard the Nextbox turns on when you unzip your trousers in front of it.
well i presume this means the xbox will always need to be connected to the plug socket and left on ….fire hazard
no thanks besides its just as easy to pressy the button on the controller since you pick that up anyway :S