There are no Microsoft rumors. There are only Microsoft leaks. - Pre-E3 2012 Edition

[mrcorbo]

Apologies to Acert93 for stealing his sig. for my thread title, but it was just too appropriate not to.

The Verge have been killing it with MS leaks of late.

Starting with the leak that started this thread about MS introducing a subsidized 360 plan that has since become a reality.

Then the link I posted here about MS implementing a system-wide Kinect activity tracker with an optional hardware pulse-rate monitor.

And now we have MS bringing IE9 to the 360 with Kinect controls.

I thought it might be useful to have a central thread for these so they can be discussed in the context of a total package of additions to the 360. I'll try to keep this post updated with any new leaks and link to threads where the leaks are discussed individually.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The prospect of browsing the internet with voice commands is interesting. That's something that I'd like to try as the worst part of using an HTPC to surf the web on my TV is having to have a mouse or pointer device or keyboard handy. And on a couch, none of those things are handy to have around.

If a Kinect voice and gesture based browsing experience is enabled for IE on X360 and was able to do, say 80% or more of what I can do with mouse, pointer, remote, and keyboard I'd seriously think of switching to browsing from the X360 rather than the HTPC.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

How would you click links with voice commands?

I suppose you don't, but rather wave your hands ineffectively in the air in front of the kinect sensor to try and simulate a mouse pointer...

 

[AlphaWolf]

There's a number of ways you can navigate links with voice, I have no idea if they will try to use them.
ie. "kinect - select link 'name'', 'kinect follow link"

Kinect wouldn't be forging new ground here, just making it mainstream rather than an accessibility feature.

 

[mrcorbo]

I's an interesting turn-around. Until this rumor surfaced, the conventional wisdom was that MS would never put a browser on the 360. Sadly, the first thing that came to mind for me wasn't, "How well will it work?" but was instead, "How will MS restrict the functionality to maintain their control over content access?".

 

[RobertR1]

I'm more curious on how well they could optimize IE n the 360 with limited RAM.

 

[mrcorbo]

I'm more curious on how well they could optimize IE n the 360 with limited RAM.

They got it onto Windows Phone.

 

[Grall]

ie. "kinect - select link 'name'', 'kinect follow link"

Many links either have unpronouncable names, or are not actually text links but rather images, so this would not work very well. I'm sceptical, but whatever. I don't even own a 360 anymore at this point, so why should I slag off the idea?

I think MS ought to leak something themselves to keep the buzz alive; it'd do them good to keep up interest about their products. Their current hardware is old hat by now and they're not going to get terribly much more mileage out of it at this stage as far as new customers are concerned. They should try and make people interested in something new.

That goes for Sony too I might add, but this is a MS thread after all, so...

 

[BRiT]

Seems simple enough to image a couple different ways to tie in with Kinect...

"Kinect Links" or "Kinect List Links" - lists the links found on the current portion of the page
"Kinect Link #N" - selects link number N from the list

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How many links are there on this page?! I can't see Kinect voice ever working well as a browser interface, and await to be proven wrong. The most ideal interface IMO is a tablet. Second to that, the mouse. The web was designed around such interfaces (selecting by position) whch really don't translate to an audio interface. Of course, Kinect as point-and-click would work with obvious Minority-Report style gestures.

 

[N2O]

well,since it said with Kinect controls,it also can use IE with controller(if the rumor is true)

 

[BRiT]

It doesn't have to list the links on the entire page, only the links currently displayed on the screen. Or perhaps it only lists the links nearby the Kinect hand cursor.

I imagine they will be using some sort of zoom factor to make the web browser be 10-foot friendly for the living room. If that's the case, then it wouldn't really to display any more links than what's perhaps shown by 2 posts in this thread. It might possibly even display less than a 7" Tablet screen even when in 1080p display mode.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I make it about 20 links/clickables showing just your above post. (Post #12, BRiT, Report Post, IP, Edit, Quote, Multiquote, Quick Reply, Post Reply, Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Google, Edit Tags, Post Quick Reply, Go Advanced, Previous Post, Next Thread, and other bits).

If you're moving your hand to identify the area of the link, may as well just do that exactly, with an on-screen pointer tracking where the user is pointing. Voice could be 'go there' or 'click' for a click. And hand swipes could be used for scrolling.

 

[RobertR1]

I'm more curious to see what entertainment services they will have. A browser is quite low on my wish list.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

How would you click links with voice commands?

I suppose you don't, but rather wave your hands ineffectively in the air in front of the kinect sensor to try and simulate a mouse pointer...

I mentioned Kinect voice and gestures.

So there's quite a few ways it could handle links.

Assuming there's an onscreen cursor that follows/mimics your hand movements you can...

1. Hover over a link and say, "click" or some other trigger word. Or...
2. Hover over a link then push your hand forward. Or...
3. Tell it to "highlight links." It could then highlight links and enumerate them. Then you just say "open <number>". You wouldn't even need it to list the links. It can just superimpose a number over a highlighted link. That also would presumably limit it to what is displayed on screen rather than enumerating every single link on the page whether you could see them or not.

And then for general browsing...

Two hands can do the obvious pinch and spread to zoom in and out. Or a user could specifically say to zoom in or out.

Same applies to going forwards or back. Scrolling up or down, etc.

I'm not saying it would necessarily work well, but it is certainly something I'd be interested in trying as an alternative to the current browsing controls available through an HTPC.

If I could browse the internet without having to use a keyboard and mouse/pointing device, I'd be extremely happy as both of those are somewhat cumbersome at best on the living room couch. And I don't even want to think of the pain of attempting to browse with a traditional console controller.../shudder.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlphaWolf]

People are trying to over complicate this and it's not really new ground you can do browser voice control with software on a PC. Yes it's not perfect and doesn't work for everything that doesn't mean it couldn't be workable for the majority of normal usage.

 

[AzBat]

3. Tell it to "highlight links." It could then highlight links and enumerate them. Then you just say "open <number>". You wouldn't even need it to list the links. It can just superimpose a number over a highlighted link. That also would presumably limit it to what is displayed on screen rather than enumerating every single link on the page whether you could see them or not.

Microsoft already uses this method in a lot of voice control on the dashboard & Kinect-supported apps. Instead of "Open <number>" it says "Item <number>". Just say "Item" & the number & it selects it.

Tommy McClain

 

[Davros]

Have any of you, singing the virtues of voice control actually used a voice controlled p.c (track-ir for mouse control)
Ive set up a couple for disabled people and they are horrible.

 

[BRiT]

Were those PCs setup to use a user-friendly 10-foot display or were they typical PCs cramming as much info as they can on their displays?

 

[Davros]

Normal pc's
but I dont see how display size makes voice control any easier