News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

[Cyan]

I wish we could set how much it raises or lowers the volume, I am frustrated that I have to say Xbox Volume Up 30 or so times to get to a desired level. So that is one remote I keep around.

The volume of my TV increases/decreases in increments/decrements of two or three when I use a voice command (it depends, it's not a fixed function), and it has a maximum volume of 100. The thing is that it works very well for me because at 11 the sound is clear, at 14 and 17 the volume is slightly louder but bearable. More than that it begins to get loud, although it is nice to listen to music on the TV while you are doing other things around the house.

Still a nice suggestion if it can be done. I would have a few more. Yesterday I was calibrating my *old* -2008- 46" Samsung LCD TV using some tools and the Xbox 360 via DLNA and it might be due that I got used to it, but I kinda prefer the previous interface.

The new interface got many things right -imo, the messages interface for instance is like 1000% better-, it's not bad, but the flat background in a pitch black colour doesn't do it any favours -so PLEASE let people have their own backgrounds-, the inability to take screenshots is also a bummer, and the new achievements interface is cool but it is slightly clumsy.

Other than that, there should be features like allowing people to choose their country without forcing them to select the language of said country.

By this I mean that the system should work like on the Xbox 360, they could allow people to select their country and their preferred language for games, PLUS having the ability to select the language you want for voice commands.

This means that I could set... for example, Austria or whatever as my country, choose English/Spanish/Portuguese/German, etc etc, as the language for games, and select French for voice commands.

What would be the point of this? You might wonder... Easy. Some people are forced to choose UK, US or Australia, New Zealand, etc, as their country of origin, if they want to play a game in its original version, BUT this means that they can't keep the functionality of voice commands in their original language.

There are solutions like having the possibility of selecting the default language of the game within the said game's options, but that setting is not enabled for every game and the previous approach would work universally.

In other words, let's say you are living in Italy -as an Italian or an immigrant-, want to play a game in English, Spanish, Dutch or Portuguese, while having the ability to set Italian as your language for voice commands.... this would enable a new world of possibilities and freedom for the user, like on the Xbox 360.

People in Ireland are "forced" not to have voice commands (tested this myself), and freely choosing the UK for voice recognition would help a bit, too.

On a different note, this is a good article about the Internet Explorer on the Xbox One.

http://winsupersite.com/xbox/xbox-one-internet-explorer

Streaming radio for Microsoft's Xbox Music.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...adio-for-microsofts-xbox-music-236546551.html

 

[Cyan]

Xbone can modify its own audio output volume. It would probably be more confusing to most people though.

That comment aroused my curiosity, how can you do that?

Some news regarding Xmas gifts:

Celtics buy the entire team a Xbox One for Christmas.

http://nesn.com/2013/12/courtney-lee-buys-celtics-teammates-an-xbox-one-for-christmas/

Indianapolis Colts (football) owner bought all his players an Xbox One for Christmas.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on...uys-all-his-players-an-xbox-one-for-Christmas

More...

Microsoft are running a new promotion for Skype, Skype Premium for free, you just have to enter your email address and they will send you a code.

Microsoft is running a new promotion called the ‘Skype Collaboration Project’ that is allowing Skype users to make free group calls, free group screen sharing, no advertising and access to live customer support, for free. All of these features are typically reserved for premium account holders but you can get them free for 12 months. After you enter your email address a code will be sent to your inbox. After the code is redeemed you see a message that shows a credit of $107.88.

http://collaboration.skype.com/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wouldn't the ideal volume input be a virtual slider set by the hand's vertical position? 'Bring it down' is a very intuitive gesture. Similarly the index finger in front of the mouth for 'shhhh'.

 

[betan]

That comment aroused my curiosity, how can you do that?

I meant theoretically XBox could adjust pass-through audio volume. Assuming it's already mixing Xbox one audio and pass-through audio for things like snap, or notification overlays it's only a software issue at this point.

 

[Jwm]

True, I use game menus to set the volume level when I do not want to grab smartglass or get up. My AV steps up .5db at a time for each Kinect command, so setting an option for Kinect to fire off a few steps would be good.

 

[DaveNagy]

Wouldn't the ideal volume input be a virtual slider set by the hand's vertical position? 'Bring it down' is a very intuitive gesture. Similarly the index finger in front of the mouth for 'shhhh'.

I like that idea. Maybe preface the gesture with a spoken "Xbox", just to reduce the number of false triggers. Just stop making the "shhh" gesture when the volume has ramped down to where you want it.

To continuously increase the volume, you could cup your hand around your ear in a, "What was that? I can't hear you." gesture. Once the volume is high enough, take your hand away. Extra points if you flash your Kinect a smile and a thumb's up.

 

[Jwm]

I like that idea. Maybe preface the gesture with a spoken "Xbox", just to reduce the number of false triggers. Just stop making the "shhh" gesture when the volume has ramped down to where you want it.

To continuously increase the volume, you could cup your hand around your ear in a, "What was that? I can't hear you." gesture. Once the volume is high enough, take your hand away. Extra points if you flash your Kinect a smile and a thumb's up.

I am all over this idea once they start selling a 50' Kinect cable!

 

[blakjedi]

I am all over this idea once they start selling a 50' Kinect cable!

Do you think that would.negatively affect latency considerably?

 

[BadTB25]

I am all over this idea once they start selling a 50' Kinect cable!

How about wireless?

 

[Jwm]

How about wireless?

Batteries would suck, but would be cool if they could do it right.

Do you think that would.negatively affect latency considerably?

All speed of light, right?

 

[BadTB25]

Batteries would suck, but would be cool if they could do it right.

All speed of light, right?

I meant comm to the X1 via WiFi. For power it would still be plugged in. I don't imagine latency being much of an issue since you wouldn't use it for gaming, but for multimedia instead. To be clear, I'm thinking controlling apps, music, house lighting, A/C, etc.

I can envision a future household with multiple kinects, but one box (either PC or console) that controls your smart appliances. Although I don't drink coffee, I can imagine a Kinect sans camera in the bedroom where you wake up and say "Xbox brew coffee".

 

[blakjedi]

I meant comm to the X1 via WiFi. For power it would still be plugged in. I don't imagine latency being much of an issue since you wouldn't use it for gaming, but for multimedia instead. To be clear, I'm thinking controlling apps, music, house lighting, A/C, etc.

I can envision a future household with multiple kinects, but one box (either PC or console) that controls your smart appliances. Although I don't drink coffee, I can imagine a Kinect sans camera in the bedroom where you wake up and say "Xbox brew coffee".

I can too...much like wireless X1 video cameras

 

[Cyan]

Someone has built world's first Xbox One laptop:

http://www.geek.com/games/xbox-one-already-modded-into-22-inch-laptop-sold-1580536/

A review from a British journalist:

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/microsoft/microsoft-xbox-one/21613/xbox-one-review-king-living-room

More Xmas gifts:

http://blog.redskins.com/2013/12/24...-offensive-linemen-with-the-gift-of-xbox-one/

Impressions from someone after a month with the Xbox One:

http://www.neowin.net/news/a-month-with-the-xbox-one

On a totally different note, does anyone know how to properly trim videos using Upload Studio? When I try to trim... say 10 seconds -the initial ones- from a 30 seconds video, after stopping at the 10 seconds mark and trimming the video keeps the last 20 seconds instead of the 10 initial ones.

I wonder if I am doing anything wrong.

 

[bkilian]

Someone has built world's first Xbox One laptop:

http://www.geek.com/games/xbox-one-already-modded-into-22-inch-laptop-sold-1580536/

A review from a British journalist:

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/microsoft/microsoft-xbox-one/21613/xbox-one-review-king-living-room

More Xmas gifts:

http://blog.redskins.com/2013/12/24...-offensive-linemen-with-the-gift-of-xbox-one/

Impressions from someone after a month with the Xbox One:

http://www.neowin.net/news/a-month-with-the-xbox-one

On a totally different note, does anyone know how to properly trim videos using Upload Studio? When I try to trim... say 10 seconds -the initial ones- from a 30 seconds video, after stopping at the 10 seconds mark and trimming the video keeps the last 20 seconds instead of the 10 initial ones.

I wonder if I am doing anything wrong.

Maybe trim keeps the selection instead of deletes the selection? Select from 10s to the end...

 

[Cyan]

Maybe trim keeps the selection instead of deletes the selection? Select from 10s to the end...

:smile2: That was what the trim feature did for me, and I solved the problem fairly easily when I found out what I was doing wrong.

If you want to trim 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 seconds of a video, or whatever, you have to trim a section by dragging the markers separately to your desired location on the video.

With the Left Stick you drag the left marker to cut any section of a video located to the left of the marker. -I only used the Left Stick before, to select a portion of a video and ended up cutting everything to the left, effectively deleting that part instead of keeping it-.

In order to trim the video located to the right of the marker you have to use the Right Stick to set the right marker.

It is easy as pie -even easier to use than Movie Maker- and works like a charm. Not surprising how many videos are on Xbox One from fellow gamers, there is a "small Youtube like community" there already.

More news:

Xbox One update adds ten new skins for Upload Studio.

http://www.oxm.co.uk/68448/new-xbox-one-update-adds-ten-new-skins-for-upload-studio/

Capybara talks about their indie game Below:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/68615/features...lks-below-xbox-ones-most-secretive-exclusive/

 

[Cyan]

Some Xbox One tips and tricks.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/125274-xbox-one-tips-and-tricks-here-s-what-your-new-console-can-do

Youtube turned off my console when I was watching a documentary. And by that I mean turning it off with no option for a quick restart. I wonder why that happened or if instead of Youtube it was something else.

It is obvious the x86 code is much more familiar than anything else, but it's not bug-proof. Oddly enough, the games on Xbox 360 -save Skyrim at times- never sent me back to the dashboard nor they used to freeze.

 

[Cyan]

I think I definitely found a bug. I tried to access to my subscriptions and watch this documentary again, and it turned off my console a second time in a row. That's a very very serious bug if you ask me.

The console completely turned off for no apparent reason and went to a "zero state" where I have to wait for a minute til the interface appears and the quick restart got disabled.

The channel is DocumentaryAnimal and this is the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyKmsBHd6js

 

[Cyan]

I found out that the aforementioned bug doesn't happen because of watching that video, but just browsing the channel.

This past night I was browsing my Youtube subscriptions on the Xbox One and when I passed over the DocumentaryAnimal channel /I was pressing Up on the controller to browse the channels/ I tried to avoid it by pressing up again as quickly as possible.

I managed to get to the next channel in the list, National Geographic, but the console had frozen, it turned itself off completely /no quick start/ and I didn't feel like power it on again because of that bug. I lost interest 'cos it was disheartening.

Alas, I decided to unsubscribe from the channel.

On a different note, here it is another "1 month later" article.

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/2209457/xbox_one_one_month_later.html

 

[blakjedi]

cyan that's a very curious bug. are you using the YouTube app? or IE?

 

[Cyan]

cyan that's a very curious bug. are you using the YouTube app? or IE?

I am using the Youtube app. I haven't had a problem with any other channel ever since.

It seems to be a serious bug, the console kinda freezes, it starts emitting a high frequency sound in the innards and it turns completely off.

p.s. I still very much prefer to use the Xbox One's Youtube app than the computer for Youtube -except for comments-, the image quality is better by default and it displays the videos full-screen --or in the small screen on the very middle of the console's interface.