By Alec Meer on January 10th, 2012.
With the tile-based facepalming of Windows 8 slowly slouching this way, Microsoft used its CES conference last night to reveal assorted PC-related shenanigans. One of the more interesting – in theory – is a new version of its Kinect motion camera thinger, designed specifically for PC rather than Xbox.
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By Craig Pearson on November 7th, 2011.
“Kinect. KIN-ECT! Write this down… no, don’t open the DVD drive. Close it. C-L-O-S-E it! Don’t make me come over there: you’ve seen what I do to a mouse during games of Team Fortress 2. Yeah, I thought that would scare you. I knew you things talked to each other. Right, so I’m speaking these words into my Kinect. It’s hooked up to my PC, thanks to Microsoft releasing it for the PC. Also, I’m from the future.”
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By Jim Rossignol on June 16th, 2011.
The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is up, and a bright shiny future of PC motion tracking begins! I’m looking forward to “Slumped In A Chair, Twitching A Bit,” novelty pointing games, and other exciting motion-tracking experiences you can have at your PC. Hopefully there will also be a version of that Milo thing where you can make friends with a childish Space Marine.
Relatedly, I’ve posted a video of Kinect running in Unity below, because I really like the visuals. (That’s what I used to illustrate this post.)
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By John Walker on March 11th, 2011.
In a list of inevitable, but glorious things, someone figuring out how to get Kinect working with Garry’s Mod appeared near the top. And Bit-Tech brings us wonderful news of its happening. The program allows the user to manipulate objects within Source, taking advantage of the engine’s physics. Which primarily involves kicking boxes. And better still, innovator John Boiles has made a truly brilliant video to prove it. It’s below. Watch this.
By Jim Rossignol on January 17th, 2011.
Almost confirming what we already thought we knew, cleverly-named Windows rumours site WinRumours states that: “Microsoft is set to unveil driver support and an SDK in the coming months and will allow third-party developers to create titles that utilize the Kinect sensor when plugged into a PC. According to sources familiar with the plans, Microsoft will distribute the drivers under the “beta” tag.” This follows Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer responding to questions about Kinect on PC by saying: “We’ll support that in a formal way in the right time.” Did he mean at the right time? Probably.
Anyway, we can totally expect a wave of PC dancing games and robot-controlling apps! An exciting future, I think you’ll agree.
By John Walker on January 10th, 2011.
It’s hard to see how we’re going to top this story in 2011. Unless Bethesda announces that Skyrim will have always-on DRM to prevent the game causing addiction to BioShock 2, this has to be the ultimate in RPS. It’s Minecraft and Kinect.
Kotaku spots that Nathan Viniconis has figured out a way to take a depth image with the 360′s Kinect and then have Minecraft translate this into its world. Pow!
By John Walker on January 5th, 2011.
Yeah, sure, Kinect hacks are this month’s Minecraft creations, but get over it. Because this one’s about turning into a superhero. And FIRING LASER BEAMS OUT OF YOUR EYES. Attention got.
I briefly mentioned yesterday, Microsoft has stated that it has no intentions of releasing a Kinect for the PC, but the tech types behind the device are working with ASUS on something extremely similar. The WAVI Xtion will be properly revealed this Summer.
Spotted by Joystiq, this is my favourite so far. You can see the video below.
By John Walker on January 4th, 2011.
Updated: MS deny plans to release Kinect beyond the 360 – see below.
Yesterday we told you news of Kinect being used to play RUSE. Today: World Of Warcraft. With the 360 peripheral being realised far more excitingly as a piece of PC equipment, can it be long before Microsoft decides to change their uncharacteristic toleration of all this hackery into something legitimate? This latest hack is by the University of Southern California, as Wired tells us, building the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit piece of middleware to allow them to play the one MMO to rule them all by waving their arms around. There’s an actual real-life video of it below.
By Jim Rossignol on January 3rd, 2011.
Well, dancing about is all very well, but the only real application we were ever going to be interested in was one involving terrain. Here’s a chap from touchscreen clevertypes Evoluce who has set up Microsoft’s Silent Robot Eye Of Judgment Kinect thing being to be used in playing a real-time strategy, via VG247. Seems to work. In truth, though, motion control is only really going to fly with me if it can detect my slumped form in an armchair, and enable the ordering millions of tiny men to their deaths with a barely-perceptible nod. Then, and only then, will I install a sinister black camera to watch over me.
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By Quintin Smith on November 23rd, 2010.
I’ve decided that I’m going to keep posting videos of Kinect hacks for as long as it takes Microsoft to publish a completely awesome game for their little motorised Eye of Sauron. I appreciate that this may be some time, but I’ve got a two litre carton of orange juice here. No danger.
Today, you can watch a man wielding a sword made entirely of light. It looks pretty cool, and even makes a sort of warbling noise.
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By Quintin Smith on November 11th, 2010.
Last week, open source hardware company Adafruit announced a $3,000 bounty for the first individual or group to hack Kinect, Microsoft’s hands-free controller extra for the Xbox 360. Kinect contains a depth sensor, RGB camera, multi-array microphones and a motorised pivot, so it can track you around a room.
Yesterday, Slashdot reported that Adafruit reported that they HAVE A WINNER! Some very “hacky” open source Kinect drivers were released by a guy called Hector a meagre 3 hours after the European Kinect launch, and can be acquired here if you’re technically minded. Hector says he intends to invest the $3,000 bounty into further hacking. Isn’t that sweet? Watch Hector’s video of Kinect running on a PC below.
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