The future of xbox is now! (and in a bit)

From Major Nelson:

On Tuesday, December 6th the latest update to the Xbox 360 dashboard will be available to consoles around the world. In addition to new and updated features, if you have Kinect you’ll be able to say it and Xbox will find it with Bing Search.

Today we also announced the following partners and apps are coming soon to Xbox 360:
Dec. 6:
• EPIX. United States
• ESPN on Xbox LIVE (ESPN). United States
• Hulu. Japan
• Hulu Plus. United States
• LOVEFiLM. United Kingdom
• Netflix. Canada, United States
• Premium Play by (MediaSet). Italy
• Sky Go (SkyDE). Germany
• Telefónica España – Movistar Imagenio. Spain
• TODAY (MSNBC). United States

Later in December:
• 4 on Demand (C4). United Kingdom
• ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.). Australia
• AlloCiné. France (AlloCiné), Germany (Filmstarts), Spain (Sensacine), United Kingdom (Screenrush)
• Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media). Canada
• blinkbox (Blinkbox). United Kingdom
• Crackle (Sony Pictures). Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
• Dailymotion. Available in 32 countries globally
• Demand 5 (Five). United Kingdom
• DIGI+ (CANAL+). Spain
• GolTV (Mediapro). Spain
• iHeartRadio (Clear Channel). United States
• Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF). Germany
• MSN. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom
• MSNBC.com. United States
• MUZU.TV. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
• ninemsn. Australia
• Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports). Canada
• Rogers On Demand Online (Rogers Media). Canada
• SBS ON DEMAND. Australia
• TMZ (Warner Bros.). Canada, United States
• TVE (RTVE.es). Spain
• UFC on Xbox LIVE (UFC). Canada, United States
• Verizon FiOS TV. United States
• VEVO. Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
• Vudu (Wal-Mart). United States
• YouTube. Available in 24 countries globally
Early 2012:
• Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisión). Spain
• BBC (BBC). United Kingdom
• CinemaNow (Best Buy). United States
• HBO GO (HBO). United States
• MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media). Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
• Telenovelas/Sports (Televisa). Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom
• Xfinity On Demand (Comcast). United States

BBC! Finally! Can it be true? I notice it doesn't say 'iPlayer', but I don't think I should read too much into that... should I? The problem with iPlayer, as I understand, was always that Microsoft wanted to charge for it (i.e. gold members only) but that's very much against the BBC's code of conduct. Either it will be free (silver), or it will be some kind of two tier premium service, or the BBC will sell out...

It's a pretty long list of stuff, but most of it (unfortunately) is just playing catch-up with set-top boxes, blu-ray players and that big lump of Sony merchandise they call the 'ps3'.

The kinect stuff is pretty nice but I'm still not totally sold on the idea of talking to my television. Despite my reservations I do expect it will take off... it could be a nice technology to have built into televisions and computer monitors some time soonish (replacing traditional webcams). This update might also help push a few more kinects into homes (ooh and look, it's Christmas, how bloody convenient!)

majornelson.com