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| Thanks to Sky Glass TV Microsoft's Kinect is back |
Sky is reviving Microsoft's initial dream of launching Kinect accessories next year. The British Broadcasting Corporation and Satellite Communications announced the launch of the new Skyglass TV.
The company has also built a separate 4K camera that includes motion control and gesture support. It's even a multi-game plug-in and, in collaboration with Microsoft, has built-in social TV sharing capabilities.
Sky's product manager explains: "We are developing a feature that, working with Microsoft, will allow us to watch TV together, despite our distance from each other.
He added: This feature can sync your TV with other homes, integrated on-screen video and chat, and you can choose content from the biggest channels including Premier League games, movies and all your favorite entertainment.
The social TV functionality is one that the software giant didn't want to add to Kinect in 2013.
Xbox One launched with Kinect. The platform has an HDMI input to access satellite channels such as Sky.
Sky revives Microsoft's dream living room
The American company made big plans for Xbox TV and even experimented with social features that allow Xbox users to watch TV together. But the Kinect package failed, and the company dropped all of its bold TV plans.
The Watch Together feature, developed by Sky and Microsoft, allows users to instantly see each other's reactions.
You can also pause, jump and rewind while watching them together. With motion control and in-game gesture support, this camera gets interesting.
Sky Glass TV has games that specifically support this new camera, including Fruit Ninja. The camera also supports multiplayer games.
Sky's product manager said, "Choose your opponent, whether at home or in another home, to play your body movements or control gestures. Family games will never be the same again."
Sky has also invested heavily in voice control for Sky Glass TVs. The phrase "Hello Sky" activates Sky's voice commands, similar to a digital assistant. When you have it, you can use it to switch the HDMI port by saying "Sky Xbox" to switch to the Xbox console.