Polygon

Microsoft has reportedly acquired home-entertainment technology startup id8 Group R2 Studios to bring its talent, technology and patents to the Xbox division, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

R2 Studios, a developer of home media and home automation technology, has been "working on technology related to distributing and displaying digital media on TVs," according to the Journal. The company was founded in 2011 by to distributing and displaying digital media on TVs," according to the Journal. The company was founded in 2011 by team.

The company reportedly owns patents related to controlling electronic devices and interfaces, according to an earlier WSJ report.

The startup has released one commercial product, the Android app R2 Control for Crestron. The $99 app lets users control AV equipment, lighting, thermostats, security systems and other products from touchscreen Android devices.

Microsoft is reportedly developing a set-top box under the Xbox brand. According to The Verge, the low-cost "Xbox TV" is an "'always on' device that boots quickly and resumes to provide near-instant access to TV and entertainment services."

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/2/3829354/microsoft-acquires-home-automation-start-up-r2-studios-xbox-team

They're really ramping up the effort for next gen.

This is exactly in line with what I expect from Microsoft's next generation efforts. It looks like they are really going to push the software and services side of things to the maximum.

Sweet , look forward to see what the final Xbox will be able to do .

So what's this maybe do? Better smartglass?

This seems to be in line with that rumor of 2 xbox: one for core gaming and one for casuals...

But the Xbox 360 pretty much does anything you would it to do in terms of Netflix, Hulu..etc.
What possible feature could they add to make people upgrade?

SHIT JUST GOT REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MS really stepping their game up, and seems to by trying to build be guns.

shit didn't really get real, but i've always wanted to use it.

Can not wait to see what the NeXbox and MSFT has in store for use

Home automation: Controlling things like thermostats, appliances etc because the console is always at home and always plugged in to the network.

Distributed computing: Pushing content to mobile devices and pulling computing tasks as home to the console itself so for instance if you take pictures on your phone you can use the performance of the console to manipulate the media or say transcode video into other formats.

Media backups/home server: Have all your media on the consoles HDD with seamless over the cloud backups so you can access stored information anywhere and you have an assurance of having a backup. So the console can act as both a NAS and Cloud interface.

Education apps: Take advantage of the natural computing interface to teach children and adults and use the fact that the console itself is a trusted platform to 'prove' competency so when you learn something it can be meaningful to more than just yourself. So not only will you be able to say learn French, you can prove you learnt French so you can put it on your CV and if someone asks you for a certificate you can give it.

Improved media integration: Natural voice communication, meta searches etc to make it easier to find content you want to watch and play in 1080P high definition with better compression, H.265 promises twice the visual quality or half the bandwidth for the same quality but requires a lot more performance to use, final ratification January 2013.