Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Xbox One: The Review

polygon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 110 posts

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#71

Post by freehunter »

comex wrote: post #64
mbennett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with almost all smartphones with cameras and microphones that people have with them 24/7 and even take to their bedrooms and bathrooms. Even on Android, the baseband and many drivers are closed source. I fail to see how this is any worse.

The difference is that because Xbox One feels like it's watching you, people's minds jump to how people could end up watching you, even though the actual risk is far less than with the devices you mentioned.

Why does it feel like it's watching you? The Moto X is constantly listening to you. The PS4 has a camera as well, along with every smartphone. What's different about the Xbox?

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#72

Post by girvo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #11
n1kh1lp wrote: post #7

Can anyone tell me what framework/technology was used to design this site? It looks really good.

From what I've heard from The Vergecast (sister publication), they have a custom CMS that focuses heavily one building these super-custom one-off designs for 'big' articles

Yep, done in Ruby on Rails (well, at least all of The Verge and Polygon is) IIRC.

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#73

Post by nivla »

JonSkeptic wrote: post #45

If you've ever complained about surveillance then I don't see how you could even consider buying this. >Kinect is also used for lots of little things throughout the Xbox One's user experience. Profiles support fast facial recognition for sign-in. Once a profile has a face associated with it, the console will sign that person in whenever they sit in front of the console — it even says hello. Controllers sync automatic…

>If you've ever complained about surveillance then I don't see how you could even consider buying this.

If I was concerned about surveillance, I wouldn't consider buying anything in the future, because sadly this is going to be the future. Google's Moto X is an always listening device and being a phone I am more likely to carry it around everywhere. Like it or not, the truth is that the average Joe doesn't care about surveillance, they care about convenience and since they make up the mass majority (not us techies), a company is far more willing to trade up privacy for it. The only way to fix it would be for the government to step in and put in some regulation.

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#74

Post by nivla »

ilaksh wrote: post #58

This is obviously an advertisement rather than an actual review. I think I know what's relevant though. Its a powerful gaming PC with a new significantly improved although still imperfect Kinect. Anyway its funny that so many people can't tell the difference between a commercial and a review.

>This is obviously an advertisement

Could you care to explain? From the article and the video, I got the notion that both pros and CONS were touched.

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#75

Post by jheriko »

"When you turn on your Xbox One, don't panic: from a cold, powered-off state, we've clocked the system requiring a minute or more to boot into the update screen (or the main home screen, if you've enabled power-saving mode and disabled the system's suspend ability). Once you've run your console and enabled suspend, things are much better: from power off to the home screen, we've measured startup at six to 10 seconds."

hmm... they couldn't boot the system up and do this for you? or make it come with a pre-stored 'image' for the suspend/restore? that doesn't sound like a particularly challenging ux bug to fix...

sloppy.

not surprising from microsoft of the crashy sample code and buggy C++/Cx that nobody needs or wants and simply adds technical debt, bugs and points of failure all over my code - to the point where they advise you to avoid it at all costs.

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#76

Post by TheSOB88 »

CatsoCatsoCatso wrote: post #35
phoboslab wrote: post #28

It's interesting that the D-Pad on the controller is now just a cross, instead of this awkward circle with a hinted cross on top. Didn't Nintendo have a patent for the cross D-Pad? Hence all the other "fun" ideas from Sega, Sony and Microsoft. Edit: Yep, the patent expired a while ago: U.S. Patent 4,687,200 (expired in 2005) - Nintendo's multi-directional switch - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad#Patents

My first thought was that having just a cross eliminates the ability to easily hit a diagonal on the D-Pad. I can't imagine it being easy than what was before.

...Have you ever played a Super Nintendo? Diagonals were easier on that thing than any D-Pad that came after (save the 64's, which was hardly used).

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#77

Post by foobarqux »

mbennett wrote: post #55
JonSkeptic wrote: post #45

If you've ever complained about surveillance then I don't see how you could even consider buying this. >Kinect is also used for lots of little things throughout the Xbox One's user experience. Profiles support fast facial recognition for sign-in. Once a profile has a face associated with it, the console will sign that person in whenever they sit in front of the console — it even says hello. Controllers sync automatic…

IIRC, the biometrics profile is stored locally on the device, just like the iPhone 5S, and is never synced to the cloud. If you sign in on two consoles, you have to go through the biometrics setup process twice. Edit: Why the downvotes?

The device runs arbitrary code. It's trivial to have a module that runs locally, downloads a "wanted list" and returns a probability of match for each entry.

This functionality will almost certainly be implemented given how effective it would be in locating young males.

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#78

Post by tostitos1979 »

duvet wrote: post #66
tostitos1979 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I missed that they changed this requirement. As an owner of all 3 of the previous generation of consoles, the always-on camera + voice was an absolute deal breaker for me. I'm still going to hold off for a few reasons. The first is the requirement for XBox Live Gold. It makes no sense to me why I have to pay $$$ to Microsoft in order to watch Netflix. My PS3 does quite fine without a subscription. I was a fan…

The PS4 requires Playstation Plus to play online but I'm not sure whether apps like Netflix require that. I had the same issue with Halo. Ultimately, I'm not going to support the Xbox One due to likely surveillance. At least with the PS4 the camera isn't forced on you at purchase. Although the PS4 camera does seem to have similar features like facial recognition. I wonder whether that will encourage anything maliciou…

Wow ... no multiplayer without PS+? You seem to be correct and this is a step back for Sony in my opinion. I thought they were the humble ones this time around and not pulling this crap.

PS+ doesn't seem to be required for Netflix and Amazon though.

Source: http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/playstation-4-facts/

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#79

Post by steveklabnik »

mbennett wrote: post #62
steveklabnik wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it's closed source so who can really tell? And even if it is now, who says a 'security update' won't change that in the future?

Same with almost all smartphones with cameras and microphones that people have with them 24/7 and even take to their bedrooms and bathrooms. Even on Android, the baseband and many drivers are closed source. I fail to see how this is any worse.

It's not, they're super bad too.

I carry an iPhone, but I'm under no illusions of their capabilities.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732399700...

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

Re: Xbox One: The Review

#80

Post by steveklabnik »

freehunter wrote: post #69
steveklabnik wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that it's closed source so who can really tell? And even if it is now, who says a 'security update' won't change that in the future?

Except that it's closed source so who can really tell? Anyone with a computer and Wireshark. And even if it is now, who says a 'security update' won't change that in the future? Do we want to get into justifications about what could possibly be done with a technology and therefore refuse to use said technology? I've heard Kinect could identify the guns in your house and send the police automatically!

> Anyone with a computer and Wireshark.

This assumes that the information is not encrypted, for one.

> Do we want to get into justifications about what could possibly be done with a technology and therefore refuse to use said technology?

When it comes to security, yes, you must consider all vectors. See the two news stories below about cell phones doing similar things as far back as 2006.

Post reply on HN