A couple of quick items this afternoon:
The Xbox One, which will hit store shelves Friday, will feature more natural voice-search capabilities, thanks to the combination of Bing search and Kinect voice- and motion-sensing technologies.
Tell the Xbox One: “Xbox, Bing,” and then tell the console what you’re looking for, for example: “Show me popular sci-fi movies from the ’90s” or “download Forza Motorsport,” according this Microsoft video:
Microsoft’s blog post about the voice capability mentions that the idea of talking to a computer, as in “Star Trek,” seemed like pure science fiction not so long ago. Which reminds me of this:
Second, there’s now a Microsoft Store on eBay.
Microsoft Store on ebay (Photo from Microsoft)
The store, opened by Microsoft, offers the same return and free shipping policies as on microsoftstore.com. The ebay store is part of Microsoft’s efforts to expand its retail presence. On the brick-and-mortar front, earlier this year, Microsoft opened hundreds of Windows Stores within Best Buy locations across the U.S. and Canada.