Microsoft debuted the Xbox One this afternoon live from a tent on its Redmond, WA. campus, putting to end months of speculation about the company’s next-generation video game console. Microsoft exec Don Mattrick called Xbox One out as an “all-in-one” box. The core strategy is “simple, instant, and complete.” It was debuted alongside a new gamepad as well as a new Kinect motion camera for Xbox One.
Microsoft have just bought Pando, for $11million. Pando is basically a torrent app that nobody likes.
The dedicated fans at NeoGaf uncovered this from Calcalist, sadly we’re relying on google translate but here goes:
“Fendo developed a file transfer service between P2P users, and made it the means of distribution based cloud service for games, video and software content giants, while active large file transfer service for consumers and businesses. The purchase was made in part to give Microsoft an advantage in sharing media files for the launch of the new Xbox gaming console is expected in June, and to compete with Sony, who revealed last month its future media console PlayStation 4. “
Calcalist is a business magazine, so they’re not likely to try churn out rumours just for fan boy hits.
The article then went on to say
“More than 30 million users have installed the software Fendo File Transfer, which allows sending free files size up to 1 GB – SATA. The clients of Fendo one of American television network NBC Universal, which uses its own technology to deliver HD TV PC.
In recent years the gaming industry has become the biggest client of Fendo, thanks to technology that allows distribution of games with a volume of installation files over 1 GB – SATA. Its customers include Nexon, Riot Games, Turbine, Gala-Net and LevelUp.”
The latest rumour and speculation surrounding the forthcoming Xbox 360 successor – whatever it may be called…
Since it now seems unlikely we’ll see a PlayStation 4 announcement this year, the eyes of the incurably attention-deficit games industry have now flicked back toward the next Xbox. So what are Microsoft’s plans for the console that people are (erroneously, yet conveniently) calling Xbox 720?
If you’ve managed to fall behind on all the latest speculation, here’s a round-up of the key stories.
Florian Echtler and Theo Watson have managed to hook up the Kinect motion controller into two separate software libraries. Echtler used his own libTISCH library to demonstrate multitouch capabilities while Watson ported over libfreenect, the open source Kinect drivers, to work with Mac OS X.
In his demo, Echtler shows off multitouch picture shuffling and zooming. It’s not exactly multitouch as we currently know it, because there’s no actual touching involved (remember, there’s no touchscreen). Nevertheless, the system reacts just like it would for multitouch, except with full body tracking. We could call it multipoke or multipoint, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
“Here’s my proof-of-concept HD video of using a hacked Kinect camera for multitouch-like interaction,” the description for the video reads. “I thought I’d get the mandatory picture-browsing stuff done so it’s out of the way and everybody can focus on more interesting things.”
Watson, meanwhile, has released a video showing a Mac OS X port. He doesn’t seem real excited about it, but that could be because he’s exhausted after all the coding. Kinect on OS X doesn’t currently work the same way as it does on Windows 7, where you have complete control over its motors. Nevertheless, the potential is certainly there.
All of what you see above is possible thanks to the open source Kinect drivers that were released earlier this week. Without them, it would be impossible to have the Kinect interacting with anything but the Xbox 360. Everything you’ve seen is a work in progress (the device hasn’t even been out for two weeks!), so you can expect more to come.