h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was at a friend's house last night and got to see the new Xbox One in action. And I'm very impressed, for several reasons.

Firstly, let's get the graphics out of the way. Yes, they're very good. There, done.

Now, why was I impressed? Because it worked. Not in a “Oh look, it switches on” sort of way, but in a “oooh, that's good” sort of way. It was completely intuitive and intelligent, and seemed to understand what was wanted.

A few examples: It uses face recognition technology from its Kinect to see where the signed in users are, which is kinda a nice idea. But it goes further, it recognises when you're not there. My mate got up to go fetch a beer, and it knew when he left the room. It also made a little pinging noise when he came back. He had a film on at the time, realised he'd missed a bit, so was able to wave his hand around in a circle and it rewound the film. This was impressive. Later, he put a game on, some first person shooter where you run around killing things. Another friend was playing it for a little bit, having been signed into the system as a guest, and unconsciously did that thing where you lean to the side to see around something on the screen. Thing is though, the character in the game did lean. The Kinect monitors how you're sitting, and if you lean, it leans your character. This was pretty cool, and totally intuitive.

The whole operating system was intuitive though, and learning. He opened the media app which is obviously Microsoft's attempt to rival Spotify, and after the first couple of searches, the predictive text suggestions started getting a lot more accurate. It seemed to be monitoring what genre of music he was actually clicking on, and using that in its suggestions. I'm wondering if this is already related to the facial recognition, so that if his other half was looking for music, it'd recommend stuff based on her tastes instead. The apps also work across a computer running Win8 or a Windows Phone, making all things work together seamlessly.

This is something I've been saying for a while is what I think computers in the next few years will be like, one system that runs across many devices. A computer running your house, with software on your console, your laptop, tablet, desktop, phone, fridge, heating system, alarm, kettle and who knows what else. We're now starting to see this become a reality, all the hardware exists, and so too does the software. But we've not seen it put together properly yet, or become mass-market and in every home.

But a Google account allows you to access your files, your email, your video preferences and your bookmarks on any computer you sign into. Windows 8 and Xbox One allows you to do the same, on their devices, and Apple have bought the company that developed the Kinect so they obviously feel they've got to play catch-up. If Google want to keep up with Microsoft and Apple, I think they're going to have to get into the hardware market properly, with an operating system that's a lot better than Chrome OS currently is. They've got the Android phones sorted out, but there's not the rest of the ecosystem to back it up. Microsoft have the desktops, laptops, tablets, phones and consoles. Apple have the desktop, laptops, tablets and phones with the Apple TV and their purchase of the Kinect company hinting at their movement there. But Google really only have the phones. The Google computers and laptops are awful and that's going to really hold them back if they're not careful. If I was writing their cheques right now over at Google, I'd be investing very heavily in the Steam system and Linux in general .

>>The Kinect monitors how you're sitting, and if you lean, it leans your character.<<

The spy in your living room, eh? Does it tell you have had enough beer?

Bill Gates' house has been wired like that for decades.

The technology has mostly been around for a while, but it's now becoming available for the average person to buy and install. If I had the money, I could go out tomorrow and buy this stuff from shops in the city centre, it's no longer specialist equipment that requires specialist fitters.

I'm all in all not a fan of consoles. I think the only consoles that make sense to buy are Nintendos, because you can't get games like that for computer. In any other respect I prefer a proper PC to an overpriced console.

And as for Windows 8... my phone has Windows 8. I liked it at first but it has huge handicaps which are just not excuseable. I found out for instance that I CANNOT save new phone numbers on it. No joke. To save a phone number I would have to sign into my hotmail account and save it there. This is definitely not going to happen. I rather get a sheet of paper, write it down and keep it in my wallet.

Back to consoles. I don't see the sense in games consoles playing movies and music. The more things an item can do the worse it is when it breaks and the more easily complications happen.

What I really love about My Wii U is the game pad. It's like a gameboy which is part of the console and you use it as main controller. It has a screen so you can also play games solely on the controller and it's a touchscreen so you can also use touch options in the game.
Another nice thing is that you can re-use the old controllers from the Wii. You don't have to buy completely new equipment. That's a very good move. (I think Sony wants to do something like that with the new Playstation and the Sony gameboy... Vita it's called I think)
Like the Wii it also notices movements, but only of the controllers... although there may be other stuff. But I really prefer my console not knowing exactly what I do in my living room. It's just not its business.

I agree with Tav, I think technology can know too much about us,
wasn't there a case a little while ago about a man who found out his smart tv was spying on him to monitor what adverts he watched and his ads got tailered to him or something like that... thats just creepy

Oh yes.
And in the US there was a shool who gave laptops to their students and then they found out the school was spying on them through the inbuilt webcam.

Not looking forward to the always-on Kinect on Xbox One unless it's a significant improvement on the 360.

The amount of times that Kinect has decided that Laura saying "Han, get down from there" or "Andy, will you brew up?" sounds like "Xbox, fast forward Netflix for three minutes and ruin the end of this programme please." or "Xbox, stop this 4od app and run a Bing search" is staggering and infuriating.

And don't even get me started on the whole "our camera has detected you picking up a glass - this is clearly code for us to turn iPlayer off" debacle.

Having now seen both Kinects working, the new one is much better. It's not perfect by any means, but it is much better.

Maybe it was only leaning because he had had enough beer

This is one of my friends. 'Enough' beer doesn't exist