Hacker Releases Open Source Driver for Kinect, Wins Money

[octafish]

Minority Report style windows manager for Linux here we come. Kinect is of limited interest for gaming, however the possibilities outside gaming are huge.

 

[V8 Ninja]

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?

#1. Nintendo owns the Wii remote. Microsoft owns the Kinect. If the Wiimote gets hacked, it's Nintendo's problem. If the Kinect gets hacked, it's Microsoft's problem.

#2. Because Nintendo owns the Wiimote and Microsoft owns the Kinect. Microsoft probably hired that person to help make the Kinect (or, at least, what was originally supposed to be Kinect) BECAUSE he hacked the Wiimote.

OT: More power to the people. Kinect is probably the best and most affordable motion-tracking camera that's available to the public, and Microsoft is just restricting the potential of the device by having it exclusively on the 360. Besides, this gives me a actual reason to buy Kinect.

 

[CrystalShadow]

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.

Years of what now?

All that's been done is create a method to connect the hardware to something other than an Xbox.

The hardware in question is pretty much a reduced cost version of what they paid the original isreali company for.

The 'years' of work involved mostly have to do with the software libraries that get the Kinect hardware to actually do something useful.

And, last I checked, those haven't been hacked. Nor do these drivers do anything remotely like what the kinect software does.

So anyone wanting to replicate the kinect games, even with the hardware itself, has still got a lot of work ahead of them.

Really.

I don't understand people with attitudes like yours.

If I buy a car, and replace the engine with something else, have I 'stolen' all the work it took to develop the car?

This 'hack' doesn't even let you replicate the hardware. All it does is allow you to use microsoft's hardware with something other than an Xbox.

You make it sound as if someone's figured out all the info nessesary to create a perfect duplicate.

Not even close.

 

[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...

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.

No...most of that time went on the motion tracking and recognition software, which is on the 360. NOT on the Kinect unit. All he has is a webcam with a mic built in that can see depth. It's cool, but that's not the main selling point of kinect.

But then again, it's hard to be morally outraged by something when it's not that big a deal. Such is life.

 

[DayDark]

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.

Years of what now?

All that's been done is create a method to connect the hardware to something other than an Xbox.

The hardware in question is pretty much a reduced cost version of what they paid the original isreali company for.

The 'years' of work involved mostly have to do with the software libraries that get the Kinect hardware to actually do something useful.

And, last I checked, those haven't been hacked. Nor do these drivers do anything remotely like what the kinect software does.

So anyone wanting to replicate the kinect games, even with the hardware itself, has still got a lot of work ahead of them.

Really.

I don't understand people with attitudes like yours.

If I buy a car, and replace the engine with something else, have I 'stolen' all the work it took to develop the car?

This 'hack' doesn't even let you replicate the hardware. All it does is allow you to use microsoft's hardware with something other than an Xbox.

You make it sound as if someone's figured out all the info nessesary to create a perfect duplicate.

Not even close.

I'm mostly against pirating, but I don't see this as a pirate issue either. This is more complicated than that, the only issue I can see microsoft having with this is that the guy doesn't have to buy a 360 to make it work, and possible freelance games down the line which they can't get a cut in profit from. It's seems to be a matter of control (microsoft want control over this hacking thing), not a matter of piracy.

 

[Delusibeta]

The 'years' of work involved mostly have to do with the software libraries that get the Kinect hardware to actually do something useful.

And, last I checked, those haven't been hacked. Nor do these drivers do anything remotely like what the kinect software does.

So anyone wanting to replicate the kinect games, even with the hardware itself, has still got a lot of work ahead of them.

Incidentally, there's an open source version [http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/] of some of the stuff Kinect does (face detection, eye tracking, motion sensing etc.) that was released ages ago and I wouldn't be too surprised if the Kinect code was taken from. The effort required to get library working with Kinect is far less than starting from scratch. Here's a video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-yR5ozxw4E&] of someone using OpenCV (aforementioned motion sensing library) with the Sixaxis and the Playstation Eye + Move.

 

[Delusibeta]

Incidentally, you're probably still better off with a pair of Wiimotes and a bunch of IR diodes if you want to do some cheap motion capture: better resolution and better drivers.

 

[CrystalShadow]

The 'years' of work involved mostly have to do with the software libraries that get the Kinect hardware to actually do something useful.

And, last I checked, those haven't been hacked. Nor do these drivers do anything remotely like what the kinect software does.

So anyone wanting to replicate the kinect games, even with the hardware itself, has still got a lot of work ahead of them.

Incidentally, there's an open source version [http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/] of some of the stuff Kinect does (face detection, eye tracking, motion sensing etc.) that was released ages ago and I wouldn't be too surprised if the Kinect code was taken from. The effort required to get library working with Kinect is far less than starting from scratch. Here's a video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-yR5ozxw4E&] of someone using OpenCV (aforementioned motion sensing library) with the Sixaxis and the Playstation Eye + Move.

That makes sense. Libraries of that kind are basically designed with webcams in mind, and the kinect hardware is to some extent just a webcam with some built-in distance measuring hardware.

 

[DTWolfwood]

isnt this technically a jailbreaking method? If so Microsoft cant go after them until they decide to make money off of it.

Hope they find more uses out of the thing

 

[marcooos]

I'm completely for this from my standpoint as an engineering standpoint getting something to work for other applications is the way innovation happens and believe me what he's done with the kinect could seriously help indie games and ametuer robotics

 

[thenamelessloser]

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?

#1. Nintendo owns the Wii remote. Microsoft owns the Kinect. If the Wiimote gets hacked, it's Nintendo's problem. If the Kinect gets hacked, it's Microsoft's problem.

#2. Because Nintendo owns the Wiimote and Microsoft owns the Kinect. Microsoft probably hired that person to help make the Kinect (or, at least, what was originally supposed to be Kinect) BECAUSE he hacked the Wiimote.

OT: More power to the people. Kinect is probably the best and most affordable motion-tracking camera that's available to the public, and Microsoft is just restricting the potential of the device by having it exclusively on the 360. Besides, this gives me a actual reason to buy Kinect.

Oh, of course it is makes sense from a purely self interested stand point Microsoft's position but it still doesn't stop them from being hypocritical which annoys me because I'm silly. weeee

 

[DonTsetsi]

Now if someone can make a mod for a game or 2 to use this functionality on PC...

 

[Baneat]

Linux hackers deserve a big hug.

in terms of computers, Kinect has great potential

For games I just don't believe it can ever beat traditional control systems.