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1. I don’t want someone else to beat it for me. Why don’t I just let them play the whole game while I watch? /s
2. I you really want to be a spectator like this, the Xbox One will apparently support the same thing through Skype remote sharing. The article is all over the interwebs.

about 8 hours ago on The NEW Kinect Feature IS for GAMING

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I was pretty sure Google Glass does require an internet connection via pairing with your phone. Did I get that wrong? Or does it just need internet to be useful…like the Xbox One.

about 14 hours ago on Google Glass code reveals always-on listening mode 2 recommends

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1. They haven’t formally announced their plans for this yet
2. It’s not like they couldn’t have a system for lending out game licenses. They did it with the ill-fated Zune player. They had a system for lending a friend a song for some set amount of time. The only problem was finding another Zune user

3 days ago on One problem with Xbox one 2 recommends

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It’s more like a post cable tv service provider revolution. People still want TV. They just want it on demand and a la cart

3 days ago on Xbox One won't lead the post-TV revolution and here's why... 3 recommends

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You beat me to it :-)

Based on his sources, Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com has previously made mention of a potential xbox set-top-box that would hit the market Q1 2014. You can imagine that a lot of the UI from the xbox one could make it into a device like this. though obviously, full Kinect and high-end gaming would have to be sacrificed for this to sell at Roku-like pricing.

3 days ago on Xbox One won't lead the post-TV revolution and here's why...

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I can understand that. I used to own android phones and tablets, where there are a ton of apps available – on the phones at least. For a time I downloaded 5 apps a day, just because. Some were useful, others frivolous, but at some point I realized that I was actually only using around 3-5 of the 100 apps on my phones. It seems like I just enjoyed browsing and downloading apps more than actually using them :-)

Now that I am on windows phone and Windows 8, I rarely go to the app store; not because there are no apps, but because I only go when I actually need something, It’s like grocery shopping to me. I don’t go there to window shop. When I do go, I usually find something to suit whatever need I have.

I currently have an HTC Radar, and boy do I miss the big screen on my Droid. Hopefully I’ll be able to remedy that problem when the 925 comes to T-Mobile.

3 days ago on How many apps will Windows Phone have by the time iOS gets 1 million... 1 recommend

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I’m in agreement. I can’t think of one time in the last 20 years that I thought to ask, how many apps does Windows have? My only concern is that it has the apps that I need, or that I can do the things I want to do with it. App counts? I’m not really interested in that.

3 days ago on How many apps will Windows Phone have by the time iOS gets 1 million... 1 reply

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What I don’t understand is why you bothered to write this post. You said, “help me understand”, which is what shadow and Zaitt tried to do. But you are just being dismissive and hard-headed. Every response to your post has been the same, in trying to explain this to you, but you don’t really what to hear it.

The technical pieces of what you are proposing just don’t work, for all the reasons everyone is giving, and more. Just because the new Xbox is x86 doesn’t mean PC games will work on it. If that were true, why don’t all windows games work on Linux? These are different operating systems with different APIs. It’s not a Lego set.

3 days ago on Can somebody help me understand this no backwards compatibility nonsense

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The WinRT platform supports games built in native c++ code and direct x. There could be some small API differences between the two, but those games, in theory, should run on Xbox. As for HTML games and others written in managed code (c#), I’m not sure.

Microsoft did mention that their non-game apps were web apps, which I took to mean written in HTML 5; the same as a number of WinRT apps. So some cross-comparability should be possible.

3 days ago on Will Microsoft leverage on XBOX One and have it run a WinRT derived runtime and give it an app store.

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Huh? Xbox has been leading 28 consecutive months. Those are monthly, non-cumulative sales numbers. Sony is way behind.

3 days ago on Sony mulls investor proposal to sell off movie, TV, and music units 2 replies

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Was I the only one who thought that game was awesome?! I played the heck out of that thing, but the reviewer at IGN said “this game is the opposite of fun”; a view that seemed to be held by most. Oh well, to each their own.

3 days ago on The all-seeing Kinect: tracking my face, arms, body, and heart on the Xbox One

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Huh? I don’t see it.

5 days ago on Lumia 925 = Nokia N8 2 recommends

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I didn’t say they were profitable, just that their numbers are trending that way. It’s a reversal of where they had been going. I wasn’t trying to imply otherwise.

…and return to a profitable track… Nokia is on the come-up – although their growth is entirely too slow for their investors tastes.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 3 recommends

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it’s apparent that people don’t want it

If you walk into a store and their are 10 premium smartphones:

• 2 are iPhones (4S and 5)
• 7 are android (spanning the Note and GS, over to the HTC One)
• 1 is a nokia lumia

That is why Windows Phone can’t compete. WP users have some of the highest satisfaction rates, but their aren’t many of them. That doesn’t mean that Nokia can’t be very profitable with a small market share. They own the windows phone market. If that becomes 7% worldwide, then Nokia own 7% of the smartphone biz. That ain’t terrible.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 3 recommends

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And the list could go on and on

No, it really can’t. Microsoft is one of the most successful companies in the world. They something around 5 different divisions that individually are billion dollar business on their own; most recently their online/cloud services division. Let that statement digest for a moment :-)

Dubious whether XBox could be called a success, money loser

xbox is a profitable arm of Microsoft. it makes more money than it spends every quarter. It’s been that way for some time. They are hoping to add this to the billion dollar making category sometime in the next product generation.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 1 reply 3 recommends

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I’ll give you Zune, but the rest:

• Longhorn was an unreleased product
• Vista was released and was a successful ($$$) product despite it’s early problems
• The Kin was a complete failure, so they had no choice…it happens. No carrier would take it after it flopped.
• The courier was an r&d product that was never released. If we count r&d projects that don’t make it, as giving up then all companies are quitters.

Even with Zune, there were three generations of the product, and the software and Services live on today. So no they didn’t give up on it, but it was a market failure with no discernible growth. Windows phone has slow, but decent growth in the market, so I don’t imagine they’ll be getting rid of it.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 1 reply 3 recommends

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If they did, they would lose that love ($$) from Microsoft which helps them with advertising and r & d. So I think it’s unlikely at this stage in their comeback story.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 2 recommends

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It’s not pride, it’s smart business. A lot of nokia’s newfound success and return to a profitable track are because they are exclusive with Microsoft. Through that deal with Microsoft they get advertising dollars and cash for windows phone related r&d. These are things that Nokia would be hard pressed to do on their own.

This fantasy that people have about if only it was on Android, is just that, and doesn’t make good business sense. As Krinos’s reply points out, Nokia was (and still isn’t) in any position to take on a company like Samsung in the android space. HTC has been making good hardware for android, but it hasn’t seemed to have helped them much. They are on the serious decline, while Nokia is on the come-up – although their growth is entirely too slow for their investors tastes.

6 days ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 1 reply 5 recommends

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Yes. Because that’s all ad revenue has ever done. It’s not like it has funded huge advances in information processing, disrupted markets, or transformed media

So has traditional pay-for and privately funded organizations. Selling your info is not the only way to disrupt or transform markets. Microsoft, Apple, IBM, SUN Micro; all of these shaped and transformed the world, and in some cases, continue to do so (iPhone, anyone?); all without using me as a commodity.

Privacy protection is not a one-or-the-other type of thing. And it’s not about stifling technology. It’s about understanding the potential of the tech, and taking steps to inform and protect the interest of people.

Ah, the invisible bogeyman. “Someday you’ll regret it…someday…”

You are welcome to be dismissive and tie my statements to those fearing an invisible bogeyman of sorts. As I said:

I don’t expect anyone to care until these things effect them directly.

I’ll just follow-up by that I have spent years working with technology in a number of industries, including healthcare and sports entertainment. There are very real, and very visible reasons why we have protections around the tracking children online (from my sports entertainment days), and your personal medical information (from my time in healthcare). These are not the only restrictions we have on person data, and a lot of the reasons for those protections can be applied to some of the data that these online services collect and share/sell about you.

Most people dismiss these privacy concerns with regard to online services by saying, “well, they are not giving out my name, so what’s the harm?” The simple fact is that they no longer need your name. If they know everything about you, in terms of where you go and what you do and/or buy, then why do they need to know your name? Finding out your name is trivial after all. There are a number of applications for this type of data that go far beyond just showing you ads.

I’m not the paranoid type, and I don’t think the government or anyone else is out to get me. But after two decades in the business, I am aware of what tech can do when completely unrestrained. However, like I said, I don’t expect anyone to take this type of thing seriously until it effects them directly.

8 days ago on Leaked Scroogled video sees Microsoft parody Google's Chrome ad

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I don’t care about the tracking. I see nothing wrong that could come of it

Really? Down the road you may feel differently. However, by that time it won’t be possible to pull back. In recent years people have been far too willing to give up their privacy in return for free stuff or marginal convenience. However, I don’t expect anyone to care until these things effect them directly.

While I know their intentions are self-serving, I think the message is spot on. However, like most things they do, Microsoft is too far ahead of the curve on this one. Maybe Apple can explain it better in a few years :-)

9 days ago on Leaked Scroogled video sees Microsoft parody Google's Chrome ad 1 reply 9 recommends

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I could be wrong, but I don’t think he meant that statement to be taken so literally. When he says “just for streaming”, you can read that as someone who is spending far more time streaming than gaming. Taken literally, that would mean someone who never ever has played a game on an xbox, but has only used it for Netflix; some thing that can’t be quantified because there is no non-gaming-only-streaming xbox live plan. When given the choice between the two interpretations, I tend to choose the more likely one.

Feel free to disagree, as I could be wrong. However, given my assertion, the article does reinforce the point that people with xbox live, on average, are spending most of their time streaming media, rather than playing games.

10 days ago on Microsoft killing off Xbox Points in favor of currency and gift cards system 1 reply 1 recommend

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Microsoft reported it. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/03/xbox-more-entertainment-gaming-hbo-go-comcast-xfinity-mlb.html

10 days ago on Microsoft killing off Xbox Points in favor of currency and gift cards system 1 reply

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What are you basing that statement on, because everything I’ve read says that they actually make money on xbox live. The consoles, however, they initially sell at a loss; which is not unusually in this space.

10 days ago on Microsoft killing off Xbox Points in favor of currency and gift cards system 1 recommend