At its E3 press conference today, Microsoft announced an unexpected new feature for the Xbox console called Xbox SmartGlass.
SmartGlass is several things. Firstly, it's an app for Windows tablets, Windows Phone, iPad, iPhone and Android, which will allow you to control aspects of the Xbox interface with these devices.
Secondly, as part of the aforementioned apps, SmartGlass will let the Xbox use supported phones and tablets as secondary screens.
This second feature is the most interesting. Imagine you're playing a game of Halo 4 and you stumble across a curious object lying in a forest -- a shotgun, a computer terminal, a corpse. SmartGlass would let the game's developers use your iPad or Windows 8 tablet to show details of this discovery, such as schematics if it was a gun, or maybe cause of death if it was a body. "You can do that with any device," said Marc Whitten, head of Xbox Live, noting this isn't limited to Windows tablets.
Although a demonstration of the gun scenario was shown on stage at E3, it's important to note that such integration with games would require developers build it -- it's not likely to be something games can support automatically.
But another feature SmartGlass enables has nothing to do with games. Movies and TV shows have heaps of supplementary info associated with them (cast, crew, reviews and ratings etc) and this is all content that the Xbox could throw up on your tablet when you said a given movie to play from, for example, the console's Netflix app.
There's a third feature SmartGlass enables, too, and it's reminiscent of Apple's AirPlay system on the iPad and Apple TV: if you're watching a movie on your Windows 8 tablet and half-way through you want to play it through your Xbox, SmartGlass lets you beam it across and resume playing. Details on precisely
how are unclear, and we're digging to find out, but in a demo it was suggested the technology uses Wi-Fi similar to AirPlay.
We have asked Microsoft to confirm if this is the case.
You'll also be able to use SmartGlass to give touch-based gesture commands to the Xbox: Swipe left on a tablet, the menu on your Xbox will swipe left. Tap to select an item on your phone, it'll be selected on the Xbox. It's like using your tablet as a giant trackpad for your Xbox.
SmartGlass will launch in the second half of this year.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
