Disrupting Automotive: Using AR to Pick Your Next Ride

Nissan’s teamed up with the versatile and endlessly-surprising Kinect to enable people to check out its 2013 Pathfinder, inside and outside, from all angles, with a natural series of gestures. And it’s pretty specific, lending you a sense of proportion for the trunk space and even indicating where your head falls in the driver’s seat.

The idea is to give you enough sensory information via augmented reality (AR) to make an informed decision about whether the Pathfinder is right for you. (It was certainly right for my parents at least three times in their car-buying history.)

Question is, how many cars have been sold by new car smell alone? Somebody better be pumping that in from someplace.

Xbox SmartGlass: Seamless 2screen TV, gaming & films. FTW!

OK, so the above is a promo rather than a video demo. But it rather snappily sums up why SmartGlass was the second sexiest thing at E3, after Watch Dogs. 

Why? Well, M$oft - clearly more and more inspired as it gets older - has been keeping an eye on 2screen TV. You know, when you have extra content and conversations around a TV show on your smartphone or tablet, whilst watching. So it’s decided to go one step further, with extra, apparently ultra-rich content for your device - Apple and Android included - whilst playing music, games or movies.

With music, it’s a multimedia voice-controlled player (if you have Kinect); with games, a screen to show maps and extra commands (Wii U’s ouchscreen-equipped controller was clearly a major influence too); and with films and TV, your tablet shows biogs & backstories; as well as pausing content on your TV and watching the rest on the go. 

WHICH MEANS YOU CAN WATCH GAME OF THRONES AND SEE THE CHARACTERS MOVING ABOUT ON A MAP OF WESTEROS! AND SEE WHICH ONE HAS A CLAIM TO THE THRONE AND WHY! AND DO YOUR ‘HOMEWORK’ IN THE CAR!

Frankly? We can’t wait…

Could Microsoft start selling Xbox 360 consoles as if they’re mobile phones? That’s what The Verge is suggesting.

It claims that Microsoft is about to unveil a new scheme where people will be able to pay $99 to get an Xbox 360 plus Kinect motion controller – but only if they sign up to a $15 monthly subscription for two years.

That’s pretty much the deal you strike when buying a swanky smartphone, and it could be very disruptive in the console hardware market, which is starting to wind up for its next generation of hardware in one or two years’ time.

Microsoft Banking Big on Barnes & Noble’s Nook

Since Amazon changed the rules of the game with Kindle, it seems you can’t be a big box book dealer without having your own e-reading device. Still, if you’re competing with AMZN as a brick and morter company, you’re at a massive disadvantage.

Barnes & Nobles may be able to fend off the repo men a wee while longer, having just announced a “strategic partnership” with Microsoft for its e-reading device, the Nook. For a 17.6% stake, Microsoft will invest $300 million in a subsidiary dedicated to Barnes & Nobles’ digital and college businesses, currently dubbed “Newco.” Educational operations will be crucial to Newco’s development, with Nook Study software for students and teachers getting serious push.

But the most visible and immediate change resulting from the partnership will be the Windows 8 Nook application. A test version of Windows 8 was released to the public in February, equipped with a storefront containing some 100 apps. (Contrast that with the over 585,000 apps for iPhone and iPad.) The test also featured Amazon’s Kindle app for e-books; no word on whether it will remain once integration with Nook happens.

Microsoft’s Andy Lees says Barnes & Nobles’ ”complementary assets” will  ”accelerate e-reading innovation across a broad range of Windows devices”, adding, “We’re at the cusp of a revolution in reading.”

The cusp of a revolution? It’s happened. And it’s kinda been awhile, at least in the tech world, where yesterday is roughly 50 years ago.