Microsoft is on a roll and reports suggest that the Redmond-based company's upcoming Live dashboard, along with the highly-anticipated Xbox Music service, will start rolling out on Oct. 16.
The new dashboard is now set to introduce features like Internet Explorer for Xbox, genre search, the extension of voice search for the YouTube app, and more. The customized dashboard was already public beta since July, and the new update is aimed to make the experience more promising.
The new features include the following:
Web video results: Bing voice search will now be re-worked to include content in the YouTube app, which will be displayed as web video results.
Recommendations: Recommendations for movie, games and TV shows per the users' preference will now surface effortlessly, which will allow users to discover new content. Note that recommendations will be generated based on the content the user previously viewed, accessed or rated. In case of no recent history, recommendations will be generated based on what's most popular amongst the Xbox LIVE community.
Internet Explorer for Xbox: Microsoft plans to bring the web browser to the user's TV with navigation supported by Kinect voice, Xbox SmartGlass, and the Xbox 360 controller. Autocomplete functionality has also been added to the address bar for an easier approach to the preferred Web sites.
My Pins: "My Pins" will allow users to bookmark their favorite content to a single queue, which can later be easily accessible from the Xbox dashboard, including movies, TV shows, games, Web sites, and apps.
Sports hub: Sports hub will now be found on the home channel of the dashboard (in the U.S.) to make it even easier to access the favorite sports, with new content from the NBA and ESPN. TV & Movies will be combined in a single channel on the dashboard for easier searches.
Other than this, Microsoft has made a few more performance improvements for a more seamless experience.
The dashboard, as mentioned earlier, will arrive alongside the Xbox Music service, which latest reports indicate will not be available on Windows Phone 7 or Windows 7. According to Jerry Johnson, general manager of Xbox Music, Windows 7 "will still have the old Zune client. That client will have access based on the subscriptions and the content that anyone purchased and that content can flow forward to Windows 8 but we're not touching that client just now."
