Brian Roberts of Comcast announces arrival of cloud-based X2 platform

On the second day of The Cable Show, Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast, introduced the new generation in cloud-based entertainment: the X2 platform. He also announced X1, Xfinity’s new platform, would be online in the U.S. later this year.“The X1 platform allows us to move all the capabilities of set-top boxes to the cloud. We introduced this innovation last year at the The Cable Show in Boston, and I’m pleased to announce that it will be available nationwide by the end of the year,” said Roberts in front of a large audience this Tuesday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.“What’s interesting is that with X1, we can update and change the platform easily and quickly. We’ve had 1,200 upgrades in the past 12 months, but that’s how our company works, by innovating,” said Roberts.The executive pointed out the new box for the X1 platform is four times faster and three times smaller. He also said that the new generation, the X2, is smart, fast, easy to use, and allows for customization.Roberts also underscored the importance of On demand, Comcast service that is nearing its 10th anniversary. “In these 10 years we’ve had over 30 billion downloads and have a monthly average of 400 million On Demand sessions of at least 30 minutes. We have a library of 40 thousand movies and now we’re adding something we never did before: videos on the web,” he said.Roberts said the new X2 remote control will feature voice-activated searches.