By Fred Schruers at TheWrap

By Vito Pilieci, Postmedia News

OTTAWA - Microsoft Corp. rolled out the new dashboard for its Xbox 360 console on Wednesday, bringing mainstream television programming to millions of Canadian Xbox owners.

The company, which has partnered with cable providers in other countries, announced Monday that the Rogers On Demand service, LeafsTV and DisneyXD will all be offering TV content to viewers through the Xbox 360 gaming console.

The initiative is another push by Microsoft to make the Xbox gaming console the heart of entertainment systems. The console has allowed users to play video games and DVDs since it was initially released in 2005.

It was updated early on to allow users to play music and movies stored on a nearby computer. In more recent years, Microsoft has added Facebook connectivity, Netflix and Internet radio to be streamed over the device. The announcement marks the first time the console has streamed TV shows from major networks and providers into the living rooms of Canadian consumers.

"It's been a passion in terms of how we've been evolving the Xbox platform," said Glenn Purkis, Microsoft Canada Xbox Live manager.

 

 

 

By Alex Thayer, PartnerPoint Contributing Writer

 By Robert Johnson

On November 8, 2010, one of my most anticipated packages arrived from Amazon: a250 GB Xbox 360 Kinect combo. Kinect is one of the more popular devices to leave the doors of Microsoft. The Redmond, Wash.-based company initially expected to sell two million of them during the holiday season but upped estimates to five million due to high preorder sales. Not a day goes by without reports about how someone has hacked Kinect for some other use besides gaming. I think this suggests demand for natural user interfaces will expand beyond touch, and go mainstream. Couple that with the high cool factor Kinect offers and this could be the device that reinvigorates Microsoft's consumer image. Could Kinect be Microsoft's iPod?

KinEmote is an easy-to-use application that allows Windows users to navigate the menus of Boxee and XBMC media portals using nothing but hand gestures that are captured by Microsoft's Kinect or any other OpenNI compliant camera.

 

John Simons and Joel Griffin Dodd release 'KinEmote' remote control software for MicroSoft Windows and Kinect.

KinEmote is an easy-to-use application that allows Windows users to navigate the menus of Boxee and XBMC media portals using nothing but hand gestures that are captured by MicroSoft's Kinect camera.

"Many developers are doing wonderful things with the Kinect camera," says Griffin Dodd, "While many of these projects are extremely impressive, they haven't really provided the casual user with something they can enjoy on a daily basis. That's why we developed KinEmote, a practical application that anyone can just install and use. Of course we also wanted to give people something fun to play with for Christmas".

How Kinect could apply to art, education, health and other domains.

by Alex Howard | @digiphile | 

 By Saad Fazil

Microsoft is on a roll: Its newly launched Windows Phone 7 isgaining momentum, and Kinect, its motion controller response to the Wii, is rumored to have sold out (although whether that rumor is true is another matter). If there was ever a time for Microsoft to get back on its feet and stand shoulder to shoulder with Apple and Google, this would be it.

This positive buzz comes at a time when Microsoft sorely needs it. Microsoft’s major source of power and revenue –  the Windows operating system –  is under an unprecedented threat on several fronts. First, as mobile phones become smarter, the Windows franchise will lose its dominance unless Microsoft can find a way to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. Second, as operating systems find their way into other connected devices such as Internet TV, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are getting all the buzz. Third, as the Internet becomes speedier and demand for cloud-based storage increases, web apps will become even more popular, making the Windows operating system even less relevant.

So what’s Microsoft doing to regain footing on these three fronts?

Mobile
Despite arriving late to the party, Windows Phone 7 has received strong reviews so far, and while there are a few glaring omissions (such as the missing copy/paste function), on the whole it is a great leap forward from the antiquated Windows Mobile platform.

It’s too early to tell whether Windows Phone 7 can catch up in a market dominated by iOS and Android, but it has some clear advantages. Tighter integration with Microsoft Office, still the most dominant productivity suite, is one of them. Gaming is another.

Josh Catone Josh Catone – Sat Nov 20, 10:28 am ET

Since its release on November 4th, "hacking" Microsoft's Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360 game consoles has become a popular Internet sport. Now, just a couple of weeks after saying that it would "work closely with law enforcement" to keep the Kinect tamper-proof, Microsoft has apparently reversed its stance, claiming that the Kinect was left open to tinkerers on purpose.

Following a $3,000 bounty put up by the open source community for anyone able to create an open source driver for Kinect, Microsoft told CNET on November 4th that it "does not condone the modification...

 

Cloud computing is to business what the pocket calculator was to education back in the 1980s.  I’ve already  told you how I was addicted to the Cloud , and your now probably hearing about it daily.  So why should you be interested in this new buzz word.  Well, there are a couple reasons your ears should perk up when you here news about The Cloud, especially when it involves the Microsoft products your company has become dependent upon over the years like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, or Microsoft Dynamics.

1. Cost – costs usually include little to no up-front costs, and monthly per user costs moving forward.  This allows you to convert capital expenditure to operational expenditure which can lower the barrier to entry into new products and services.
2. Freedom – your team can more easily access systems remotely and from multiple devices such as Mobile devices
3. Reliability – cloud computing is ideal for business continuity and disaster recovery.
4. Scalability – you get “on-demand” provisioning of resources on a self-serve basis in realtime.
5. Maintenance - cloud computing application maintenance is done for you by the host, and changes and updates apply to all users independent of location.

Microsoft is enticing gamers with a $400 entertainment bundle that will include the Xbox 360 250GB video-game console, the Kinect motion sensor and one game. The bundled Kinect-ready Xbox is the slimmer, glossy black console introduced in June at the E3 game conference. The console, which includes built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, costs $300 by itself.

Lucky Xbox 360 testers have received a wonderful little email in their inbox today, telling them that they will soon be receiving a “limited audience” beta hardware version of Microsoft Kinect.

Germany  (Reuters) - Microsoft's motion-sensing game system Kinect will hit European retail stores before Christmas, the company said, as it battles for customers with rivals Sony and Nintendo.

If an invitation provided to Joystiq by several tipsters is accurate, Microsoft will soon begin the "Xbox Live and Kinect Beta Program." Several readers claim to have received the invitation via Microsoft Connect, a Microsoft service used to gather customer feedback on its products. The invitation itself includes little information about the program, though it notes that participants will be provided with "a unique opportunity to see pre-release software."

 Kinect is more than an Xbox 360 peripheral, it's the future of Microsoft, or at least a very possible one. It's the beginning of Microsoft's plans for natural user interfaces, the step beyond the thing you're staring at right now.

***

Kinect is as much a product of serendipity as anything else. When Microsoft hired Dr. Ilan Spillinger, VP of hardware and technology for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, it was to be "deeply engaged on the next-generation Xbox." Microsoft was looking to go beyond the Wii for its next big project, and about two and a half years ago, it started looking at natural user interfaces. At the same time, it had started looking at 3D cameras and input systems. Virtually in parallel, all of the necessary technology pieces to make Kinect fell into place—in particular, PrimeSense's 3D sensor.

What Microsoft considers revolutionary about Kinect—and they do consider it revolutionary—isn't that it tracks your body with full depth mapping, or responds to voice commands, or that it has a standard video camera: It's that it brings all of three of those things together for the first time. It's natural user interface in its infancy.

***

Raghu Murthi, the general manager for Natural User Interface Hardware, is holding a Kinect, stripped naked, as a dozen people gawk at its innards. The exposed metal seems cold. He's telling us about the optical system—how it sees with the three holes in its head that seem like eyes. Without the plastic housing they look like they're bulging out. We're at the beginning of day-long tour of Kinect, gathered in the Great Room, the living room you wish had, but tucked behind a sliding wall inside one of the many food courts on Microsoft's sprawling campus. 3D sensing has been around for 15 years, Raghu explains. What Microsoft has done, he says, is taken 3D depth-mapping technology that typically costs $10,000 to $150,000, and made it at volume, for cheap.

The way the optical system works, on a hardware level, is fairly basic. A class 1 laser is projected into the room. The sensor is able to detect what's going on based on what's reflected back at it. Together, the projector and sensor create a depth map. The regular old video camera is held at a specific distance away from the 3D part of the optical system in a precise alignment, so that Kinect can blend together the depth map and RGB picture for dynamic, on-the-fly greenscreening.

 

Gallery in Covent Garden and a roadshow

 

Holiday sales expected to be strong for gaming industry's first hands-free motion control system.

By Paul McDougall  InformationWeek  July 22, 2010 09:10 AM 

Microsoft could sell as many as three million Xbox Kinect units in the run up to the 2010 holidays, according to a market watcher.

"We believe that Kinect units are already in production and should be available in adequate quantities for the November launch. We continue to expect that roughly three million units of Kinect will be sold worldwide in 4Q," wrote Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian, in a research note to clients this week.

If Sebastian's estimate is correct, that would put Kinect, a hands-free motion control system that lets Xbox 360 players physically interact with on-screen games, on par with the...

 Matt Peckham, PC World - Jul 20, 2010 1:16 pm

By: Alan Ng - July 5, 2010

For those of you who are planning to pick up Microsoft’s Kinect motion system in November, you should pay attention – it looks as if the retail box package has been leaked a few months early. We want your thoughts on the color scheme.

An image of the packaging has been obtained by Kotaku and gives us a very close-up look at Microsoft’s somewhat ‘colorful’ choice of packaging. We know that Microsoft are really pushing the boat out with Kinect and want to appeal to as much people as possible, but is the ten shades of purple and green really necessary?

We would of preferred a slicker look, perhaps black mixed with a bit of dark blue, but we don’t all get what we want sometimes. I don’t like the packaging personally, but maybe you think differently.

Take a look at the image below and let us know your thoughts on the box. Are you a fan or not?

 

Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect: Retail Packaging - Do you like it?

Formerly called “Project Natal,” Kinect was revealed Sunday evening in a Cirque du Soleil performance on the eve of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.



LOS ANGELES – June 13, 2010 – Microsoft today unveiled Kinect for Xbox 360, a controller-free gaming device that Microsoft is positioning as an entirely new way to experience entertainment in the living room.

The world premiere of Kinect, formerly Project Natal, featured live performances by dancers, musicians and acrobats. Premiere attendees included Hollywood stars, VIPs and media from around the world.

Previously code-named “Project Natal,” the Kinect label was released before the start of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles (E3) as part of a Cirque du Soleil performance that was inspired by Kinect’s technology.

The slim black Kinect sensor plugs directly into any Xbox 360. Despite its small size, the...

LOS ANGELES — June 14, 2010 — Get ready to Kinect to fun entertainment for everyone. Microsoft Corp. today capped off a two-day world premiere, complete with celebrities, stunning physical dexterity, and news from a galaxy far, far away, to reveal experiences that will transform living rooms in North America, beginning Nov. 4. Kinect will roll out to the rest of the world thereafter.

Opening with a magical Cirque du Soleil performance on Sunday night attended by Hollywood’s freshest faces, Microsoft gave the transformation of home entertainment a name: Kinect for Xbox 360. Then, kicking off the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Xbox 360 today invited the world to dance, hurdle, soar and make furry friends for life — all through the magic of Kinect — no controller required.

“With ‘Kinectimals’ and ‘Kinect Sports,’ ‘Your Shape: Fitness Evolved’ and ‘Dance Central,’ your living room will become a zoo, a stadium, a fitness room or a dance club. You...