We've all said "Xbox, stop making that red flashing sign" to no avail

"Xbox, Dashboard. Xbox, Kinect. Xbox, turn off." That last voice command doesn't work and probably won't, as Kinect project manager Alex Kipman explained on Major Nelson's podcast this week.

The reason the company doesn't allow you to turn your machine on or off with the sensor is very simple: it would mean your 360 takes too much power whilst on standby, and Microsoft doesn't like that idea.

It's for saving energy. For you to say 'Xbox, turn on,' that means that some amount of the system needs to be on. So we decided not to allow you to have 'Xbox on' which you know, in this world, means we also then don't allow you to say 'Xbox off,' because if you allow it to say 'off' you would expect to be able to say 'on.'

Of course, being able to turn your machine on with just your voice would save us the energy of actually walking over to the thing and pushing the button but hey, we're hippies at heart too, so we'll just go with it.

[source majornelson.com]