Hacker Releases Open Source Driver for Kinect, Wins Money

[Arcanist]

Oh god, I almost feel sorry for these poor bastards. Microsoft is going to be PISSED, and even the internet's veil of anonymity can only protect one so far. Hell hath no fury like a megacorp scorned, after all.

 

[cerebus23]

i thought ms said the other day that they did not classify these "hacks" as hacks since it was a just a driver that allowed formats other than xbox to use the kinetic, would be rather silly of them to go back on that consideing this does not mod the system itself.

hackers rule anyway love using my ds3 controller on pc anyway .

 

[Canid117]

Why would Microsoft care if people modify their Kinects to work on the PC, they make a profit on every Kinect sold, why would it matter what platform it is used with?

Software sales. By creating a way for anyone with any know-how to program for this thing, unlicensed software can then be created, taking licensing profits away from MS. In a sense, it's kind of the same principle as an emulator. Also, god forbid this winds up on Linux or Mac

It was demonstrated on a linux laptop, read the article. So now what?

MS might unleash their Legalese.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Wait, didn't Microsoft HIRE A HACKER, the dude who hacked the wii remote...

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee_(computer_scientist)

What is the difference betwixt hacking a wii remote and kinect? Why would Microsoft hire someone that they would sue if they did the same type of thing to a Microsoft product?

I'm not sure if Microsoft would actually do anything legally against the people who hacked the kinect but if so aren't they huge hypocrites?

 

[MMMowman]

What are the drivers usefull for? Is there a practical use I'm not seeing here?

 

[Veylon]

What are the drivers usefull for? Is there a practical use I'm not seeing here?

You could build a robot and use the Kinect for it's vision.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

This requires the Guile theme...

your request wasn't forgotten!


EPIC THEME !

 

[SinisterGehe]

So if I got and buy a physical product I am not allowed to modify it for and by my means?
Like going to buy a sheet of construction paper and then saying "you are not allowed to build anything from this sheet of construction paper."

Microsoft, you make me sad, but so does many others.

"You can cut our wings, but you can never take our will to fly"
-Some dude

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I hope he copyrighted his code, otherwise they've (Adafruit) tapped into one of the cheapest ways to get a program written for them.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Why would Microsoft care if people modify their Kinects to work on the PC, they make a profit on every Kinect sold, why would it matter what platform it is used with?

Because that means Microsoft cannot sell them a "special bundle" that includes software required to make it work on the PC presumably. And, if for no better reason, because they politely asked the world not to do such a thing.

 

[arcticspoon]

Hacker Releases Open Source Driver for Kinect, Wins Money

Yet still hasn't won respect of peers.

 

[Danish rage]

Imo The hacker is a asswipe.

Is it ok to steal as long as you steal from microsoft?

I don´t follow the logic. And im sick of all the MS hate.

 

[Om Nom Nom]

Hey, Microsoft... Trololololol. [http://trololololololololololo.com/]

Also, as said already, the Kinect would be great for use in robotics.

 

[delanofilms]

I may be dense for this, but what goes this actually mean? What has doing this accomplished, and since I don't speak hacker-speak, what the hell did he actually write a program to do? Did he just make a program to interpret the output of the Kinect device's camera and depth perception coding? I'm a bit confused.

 

[HuntrRose]

I hope he copyrighted his code, otherwise they've (Adafruit) tapped into one of the cheapest ways to get a program written for them.

The code was released as open source. Probably GPL'ed.

 

[HuntrRose]

Imo The hacker is a asswipe.

Is it ok to steal as long as you steal from microsoft?

I don´t follow the logic. And im sick of all the MS hate.

Nothing was stolen from MS. Just that now a new market appears for the kinect as well as the 360 games.

This code allows the use of the kinect on pcs (demonstrated on a laptop running linux). The user still has to buy the kinect, thus not stealing.

Still, MS may try to sue, but I'm not sure on what grounds. The more likely and effective approach by Ms would be to alter the firmware on the Kinect to make the current open source driver useless. Of course, if they don't they just got given themselves a whole new market for the kinect hardware, or several actually, as the kinect now suddenly can be used for games for all kinds of plattforms, as well as industrial applications, robotics and so on.

 

[HuntrRose]

I may be dense for this, but what goes this actually mean? What has doing this accomplished, and since I don't speak hacker-speak, what the hell did he actually write a program to do? Did he just make a program to interpret the output of the Kinect device's camera and depth perception coding? I'm a bit confused.

that's pretty much it yeah =)

 

[Danzaivar]

Imo The hacker is a asswipe.

Is it ok to steal as long as you steal from microsoft?

I don´t follow the logic. And im sick of all the MS hate.

What did he steal? He wrote the code himself from scratch, so that's his IP. And there's nothing in the article he broke into a games store and stole the Kinect unit...

 

[Danish rage]

Imo The hacker is a asswipe.

Is it ok to steal as long as you steal from microsoft?

I don´t follow the logic. And im sick of all the MS hate.

What did he steal? He wrote the code himself from scratch, so that's his IP. And there's nothing in the article he broke into a games store and stole the Kinect unit...

Well, lets all do what we want then with whatever we want. As long as we do it in the moral grey area we should be fine.

He stole all the time it´took to develop kinect. That´s what he did.

Futhermore MS will eventually loose money because kinect and the code the nerd wrote end´s up with some chineese counterfitters.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

I don't understand all this hate... Microsoft said they'd increase their safeguards. So that stops it being hacked for 360, and will make it more difficult to hack for PC.

I don't see anything about a lawsuit and I severely doubt they'll bother...

Anyway this can only do good so whatever.