Microsoft launched Xbox One game consoles in 13 countries, selling over one million consoles within 24 hours, making Xbox One the biggest launch in Xbox history. In the first 24 hours, Microsoft reported that Xbox One gamers killed over 60 million zombies in “Dead Rising 3,” and drove more than 3.6 million miles in “Forza Motorsport 5.”
Ms. Smith’s blog
Over the past few years, Skype has made forays into the living room with a number of collaborations with third parties. These used smart TVs or Blu-ray boxes, paired with cameras. Now owned by Microsoft, Skype has a new way of chatting from the comfort of your sofa, and this time it’s a first party product: the Xbox One.
Xbox One systems will come with Skype preinstalled, and since every unit will also ship with a Kinect, they’ll also include 1080p-capable cameras and beamforming stereo microphones, making them pretty much the perfect setup for a Skype-on-TV experience. As an added bonus, Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers buying Xbox Ones will also get Skype Premium for free for six months, enabling group video calls and 100 minutes of telephone calling to some 60 countries.
We spent some time in Skype’s Stockholm office last week and talked to Todd Roshak, program manager for Skype on Xbox, to learn more about Microsoft’s plans for the client.
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There’s money to be made in the privacy business, and the latest example is a $ 20 privacy cover on an Xbox One Kinect TV mount from a company called PDP. Okay, so it’s mainly a TV mount with a removable privacy cover tossed in to protect “your privacy by blocking both the RGB and IR cameras.”
Ms. Smith’s blog
Meet Xbox One, which some fans are calling a win, while others are underwhelmed and saying it’s a disaster. It goes after the TV watchers as well as gamers. Besides gaming, the Xbox One system “will allow users to watch live TV, make group video calls on the TV via Skype, and search the Web.” Microsoft boasted, “This is the beginning of truly intelligent TV.”
Ms. Smith’s blog