By Mark Brown, Wired UK
New York-based Adafruit Industries really wants to get its hands on open-source drivers for Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 peripheral, Kinect. So much so that the firm is offering a handsome bounty for the first successful release.
The company, which sells DIY electronic kits and open source hardware projects, initially offered up $1,000 for the first drivers, but has since doubled the prize bucket to $2,000 after Microsoft spoke out against the project, and touted the Kinect’s tamper-proof design.
Open source access to the Xbox 360 sensor would obviously be a hot commodity for amateur creators as the $150 off-the-shelf rig packs in an RGB camera, a depth-sensor, four microphones and even a motorized pivot. The seriously complex device can pull off full-body 3-D sensing, face recognition and impressive voice recognition.
“Imagine being able to use this off the shelf camera for Mac, Linux, Windows, embedded system and robotics,” the company writes on its website. “Let’s reverse-engineer this together, get the RGB and distance out of it and make cool stuff!”
The full bounty will go to the first reverse engineer who manages to get a set of drivers, completely documented and open source licensed, up on social coding website GitHub. To prove it works, the coder must also write an application that shows the 640x480 video and the depth perception are being recorded successfully.
CNET spoke to Microsoft about the project and found the company less than impressed by Adafruit’s intentions. "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products," a rep told the news website. "With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will ... work closely with law enforcement ... to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."
Adafruit’s reaction to the threat of law enforcement? Double the bounty. “Don’t make us up it to $3,000,” the firm says.
Previously, the motion-sensing Wii Remote was quickly hacked, thanks to the device using a rather basic Bluetooth connection, and has been used for a wealth of DIY projects. Nintendo’s pearly white wand has been successfully turned into a head-tracking device, an iPhone controller and a theremin.
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