Microsoft announced today an ingenious new application for its Windows Phone 7 handsets. The Companion app is described as a “control remote” for your Xbox 360, allowing you to stop the movie anytime and to navigate through the Xbox Guide without any other device.

Sometimes, it can be quite annoying to get up to grab the Xbox controller to start a new movie when lying on the sofa. This is why Microsoft has developed a new application, completly free, to allow you to control your Xbox with your Windows Phone 7 phone.

In the press release, Microsoft gives the three main characteristics of the application:

• Finding Content: Just like on your Xbox, the Xbox Companion gives you instant access to the Xbox LIVE Marketplace catalog of games, movies, music and TV shows. I used it to search “Featured Content” and pulled up the X-Men: First Class.
• Learn more about what you’re watching, listening to, or playing: Once I found the movie and touched the movie tile, the Xbox companion app took me to an info page that has all the related details about. And the content is really rich, too – for example, when I swiped to the “cast” page and touched an actor’s name, like star James McAvoy, I was taken to other movies starring him. From there, I could easily learn more about the other movies, their cast, etc. It’s an infinite road of interactive content.
• Control & Play: Once I selected the content and hit play, the Xbox Companion flips into “controller mode” in which I could navigate my Xbox, or control video playback of your video. The best part here is that controls are virtually instantaneous – easily as fast as using my controller or a TV remote.

Yes, you’re right, this Companion App seems like the new best friends of thousands of husbands who will not have to wake up their tender wives to grab the controller and start a new movie after the Friday-night romantic comedy.

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