Being the techy gadget driven person that I am, I have to say I have been watching the development of the Xbox 360 dashboard with an element of excitement and hopeful expectation.
Over the last year I have been streaming movies on a regular basis, streaming music via the media centre and generally using the Xbox as an all round entertainment unit as opposed to using it exclusively for gaming.
A couple of months ago, you could imagine my excitement when I found out that there was an android app for Xbox Smart Glass. After down loading it to me Samsung Galaxy S2 I tried it out with Xbox music. Having chosen what to listen too, the music starts pumping out via the TV through to the sound system and my phone gives me the latest information about the album and the members of the group, a brilliant add value service for someone like me that knows the music he likes but never remembers who sings the songs!!
Using the "Smart Glass" as a remote is also intuitive, and removes the need for the multi-media remote that I used to use (albeit I still use it for music via the media centre). Where I really think "Smart Glass" comes into it's own is the information that it provides whilst watching a movie. Recently I streamed The Avengers and used Smart Glass, as well as giving general information of the movie, it also displayed the information of each of the actors as they appeared on the screen. I have to say I was blown away by this, talking about adding value, the service is brilliant. As each of the actors comes through on the Smart Glass you can click on them and find out more about them and what they have starred in before. If there was a down side to all this information, I found I wasn't paying attention to the story line at the start of the movie as I was being mesmerised by all the additional information, it was a bit distracting.
I can only imagine this is where TV viewing in general will eventually go, but for now, I have to say all the changes happening with the Xbox 360 at the moment is exciting and living in NZ we don't have too much to get excited about regarding the depth of apps available to us via the Xbox. Here's looking forward to more good stuff to come in 2013!!
Over the last year I have been streaming movies on a regular basis, streaming music via the media centre and generally using the Xbox as an all round entertainment unit as opposed to using it exclusively for gaming.
A couple of months ago, you could imagine my excitement when I found out that there was an android app for Xbox Smart Glass. After down loading it to me Samsung Galaxy S2 I tried it out with Xbox music. Having chosen what to listen too, the music starts pumping out via the TV through to the sound system and my phone gives me the latest information about the album and the members of the group, a brilliant add value service for someone like me that knows the music he likes but never remembers who sings the songs!!
Using the "Smart Glass" as a remote is also intuitive, and removes the need for the multi-media remote that I used to use (albeit I still use it for music via the media centre). Where I really think "Smart Glass" comes into it's own is the information that it provides whilst watching a movie. Recently I streamed The Avengers and used Smart Glass, as well as giving general information of the movie, it also displayed the information of each of the actors as they appeared on the screen. I have to say I was blown away by this, talking about adding value, the service is brilliant. As each of the actors comes through on the Smart Glass you can click on them and find out more about them and what they have starred in before. If there was a down side to all this information, I found I wasn't paying attention to the story line at the start of the movie as I was being mesmerised by all the additional information, it was a bit distracting.
I can only imagine this is where TV viewing in general will eventually go, but for now, I have to say all the changes happening with the Xbox 360 at the moment is exciting and living in NZ we don't have too much to get excited about regarding the depth of apps available to us via the Xbox. Here's looking forward to more good stuff to come in 2013!!