Prior to its launch, Kinect was mostly viewed as a gaming peripheral. But Microsoft's answer to comparable motion-gaming products from rivals Sony and Nintendo has turned out to be much, much more. Hackers are wallowing in the world of endless possibilities unleashed by the release of open source Kinect drivers. The latest hack has the Kinect perched atop a quadrocopter so it can lend its services as a 3D radar. The Ascending Technologies Pelican UAV uses the data from the sensor to fly autonomously through predefined waypoints while avoiding obstacles. The imaginative brain matter behind this hack belongs to a group of researchers at the Hybrid Systems Laboratory at UC Berkeley.
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Keith E. Whisman
December 06, 2010 at 4:57pm
That's just awesome and I'm sure Microsoft is just thrilled about this. MS should produce Windows 7 drivers for Kinnect and see what people can do with the device, might as well since people are doing it anyway.
schinkinatror
December 07, 2010 at 10:24am
I think what microsoft's problem is like the xbox 360 it costs more to make than what they sell it for. So they make the money from the games that are sold. Since the pc community wouldn't be buying xbox games they would lose money when people buy the kinect for the computer. On a side note if you want want to take down the 360 and the PS3 just get a bunch of people to buy the console and then not buy any games.
opulent_rigs
December 07, 2010 at 12:46pm
If MS has sold as many Kinects as is being claimed then there are a lot of buyers out there to buy Kinect software (games). And i suspect only a fraction of those millions bought it for its hackability. On a side note, i hope these hackers launch an open source web store for web and desktop games/apps for the Kinect. That'd be super cool. I believe raising funds wouldn't be a problem as there are places like kickstarter for such projects. But this is just a random fantasy.
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