Kinect Hack Spawns First Minority Report Style Interface

[Logan Westbrook]

Kinect Hack Spawns First Minority Report Style Interface

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That cool sci-fi future we all dream of is one step close to being a reality, thanks to a German software designer and Microsoft's motion controller.

It's been just over a week since Kinect [http://www.amazon.com/Kinect-Sensor-Adventures-Xbox-360/dp/B002BSA298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1289753169&sr=8-1] launched, and in that time people with more technical skills than most of us will ever possess have figured how to get it working on computers and made that information available to the public [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105201-Hacker-Releases-Open-Source-Driver-for-Kinect-Wins-Money]. But the work hasn't stopped there, as Dr. Florian Echtler [http://campar.in.tum.de/Main/FlorianEchtler], who works at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, has created a proof of concept multitouch interface using the Kinect hardware.

Echtler took the driver that Hector Martin released a few days ago and combined it with his own work [http://tisch.sourceforge.net/] on open-source multitouch interfaces to create a working prototype that allowed him to manipulate pictures just by pointing at the screen. The sensor seems to be able to recognize the shape that Echtler is making with his hand, and can tell the difference between him pointing at a particular photo in order to resize it, or using a flat palm in order to move a picture around. In his comments on his YouTube video, Echtler jokes that he wanted to get the "mandatory picture-browsing stuff" out of the way so that others could focus on more interesting things.

It's not quite on a par with the Minority Report system just yet, but it's a pretty cool first step, especially with such short time with the hardware. Of course, this is also a step down the road towards murderous robot houses, but I suppose we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-11-12-minority-report-style-pc-kinect-interface]


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[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Oh man that looks cool!

Hooray for steps towards holodecks

Boo for Judgement day ):

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Oh. My. God.
If this ever happens just like the movie, I just might jizz in my pants.

 

[Arachon]

"First" Minority Report-style interface? Bollocks, this style of interface was actually fully realized, by the guy who advised on the film none the less. It is known as G-Speak, and was demoed [http://www.ted.com/talks/john_underkoffler_drive_3d_data_with_a_gesture.html] on this year's TED talks in February.

 

[Popido]

Why are we using this thing on gaming again?

 

[Baldr]

One of the guys who modded a Wii to do this ended up becoming a Kinect Engineer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjPUkBXOU

 

[Azuaron]

Of course, this is also a step down the road towards murderous robot houses, but I suppose we'll have to burn that bridge when we come to it.

FTFY

Because you'll definitely want to burn that particular bridge.

 

[TimeLord]

Now why doesn't Mircosoft either employ these people or make Kinect do that in the first place!

 

[Amethyst Wind]

One step closer to us all being wizards.

 

[Mcupobob]

Sweettt!! Now all we have to do is invent holograms and I can finally feel like Tony stark every time I'm using my computer to browse porn.

 

[lvl9000_woot]

Heh. Kinda reminds me of the computer from Ironman.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

Why are we using this thing on gaming again?

I know, I have a feeling that in 50 years time we'll be telling our hypothetical grandkids that this was created for a games console and they'll be like "whaaaa?" It should be useful pub trivia at least.

 

[DanDeFool]

You know, you could probably arrange 3-5 Kinects in a space and use the Kinect hack to set up a low-cost mocap studio or something.

If I were Microsoft, I wouldn't do anything about this hacking stuff, just because open-source applications could potentially sell more Kinect units than gaming will.

Granted, I could see Microsoft getting pissy about not having the proprietary rights to software applications for the technology they developed, but still. They let anyone and everyone write software for Windows, why not let them do stuff with Kinect as well?

 

[Jesus Phish]

You know, you could probably arrange 3-5 Kinects in a space and use the Kinect hack to set up a low-cost mocap studio or something.

That is a very good suggestion. You probably could. And the cost of it compared to a real mo-cap studio would be insanely low.

I really do think Kinetic is going to spawn alot of brilliant little things like this.

In regards to MS getting "pissy" I dont think they'll do anything. As long as people are buying their hardware they probably wont care what they do with it.

I'm sure someone will say "what about modded/chipped xbawks!?", which is a form of piracy, which is totally different.

 

[ark123]

http://www.flixxy.com/minority-report-interface.htm
http://singularityhub.com/2010/02/17/minority-report-interface-is-real-hitting-mainstream-soon-video/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQRYK9Ee-Fw&feature=player_embedded

I came up with these in my 15 second google search. Oh, and all of them are way more advanced and reliable as this one.

 

[Swaki]

why do the hackers do a better job of making software and supporting the thing than microsoft themselves, isnt it enough that they make a 90 dollar profit, they have to screw you at the same time.

this isnt just on mod level, this is something it should have been able to do out of the box, god bless the hackers, getting the job done in one tenth the time.

 

[psivamp]

MS could easily take hold of this whole thing and release their own drivers, they had to have written them. It would be child's play for them to take the reigns on this.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The Games developer better take notes on this. It would be a pretty cool interface for a game or a minigame or something.