BG Speaks to the People

“It’s perfect because I’ve been looking for a second thing to get mocked for, and Boy Scouts seems like a great fit. I think it’ll really open me up to a whole new batch of cutting insults.” 

Microsoft has filed for a patent on a system that would monitor the number of people watching a movie at home — and prompt them to buy more licenses if a few friends came over.

I actually find this kind of thing refreshing. We all know big corporations are evil. It’s nice to see some of them no longer trying to hide it.

Its “Snap Mode” promises to let you interact among multiple programs simultaneously without exiting them, like lots of us have been doing on tablet devices and in browsers for the last few years, now. Yeah, we’re accustomed to using multiple social and entertainment applications simultaneously — but it’s funny Microsoft thinks we want to do this on a television screen. There’s Skype, they say. Has anyone ever wanted to use Skype on their TV, instead of at their office workstation, on a tablet passed around a party, on a laptop nestled in bed? Do they want to? During a… video game, during a television program?

Let’s say you did want to do all of this: you kind of need a huge TV. You need an Entertainment Altar where instant voice command is a cool-future status item, where everyone is wont to sit As A Family in the thrall of the Entertainment Altar. You need to live in a fantasy of the privileged that is diminishing amid an economic and technological disruption where it’s hard to believe this kind of device is going to be broadly relevant. 

WEST HAVEN, CT Following Microsofts official unveiling of their latest video game console Tuesday, 41-year-old father of two Richard Shearer excitedly told his son David, 10, about the new features of the Xbox One.