Amazing Kinect hacks

Kinect, the motion-sensing camera for Xbox 360 that turns you into the controller, hides a lot of very clever technology under its sleek black hood. For most of us that doesn’t mean a thing as long it plays great games. For others, though, Kinect represents nothing less than the opportunity to pull the device apart, investigate its innards and put it to new and exciting uses that Microsoft probably never dreamed of.
The speed at which this has happened has been surprising too. Kinect is barely a month old yet the internet is already awash with university projects and madcap investigative initiatives that not only find new ways to flex Kinect’s powerful technology but point the way forward for its future – both within games and, perhaps, beyond.

Put another way, the likes of Kinect Sports and Dance Central are going to look very old fashioned very soon. Here then is a selection of some of the best – or wackiest – new uses for Kinect. It could be taking the dog for a walk in a couple of years. You think we’re kidding...?


Minority Report for real
An enterprising hacker has used Kinect to bring a keyboard-less, multi-touch future a step closer to reality. Just like in the movie ‘Minority Report, in fact. His precognitive crime-fighting skills remain to be proved, but he's a dab hand at manipulating Windows 7:


YouTube - Kinect Controls Windows 7


Kinect takes flight
Strap Kinect to a toy helicopter and what do you get? The ‘Kinect Quadrotor’ from Berkley University’s Hybrid Systems Lab can not only fly around on its own but can see objects in its away and avoid them. It’s either a spooky portent of things to come or a bunch of students larking about. You decide:


YouTube - Quadrotor Autonomous Flight and Obstacle Avoidance with Kinect Sensor


Step into a new dimension
Kinect can already track your movements in 3D, but one man has taken things a stage further by linking two Kinects together. The results are a bit ropey, visually-speaking, but are impressive nonetheless – especially when the little monster from Doom appears on his desk:


YouTube - Kinect Augmented Reality hack with Doom 3 character


Virtual Invisibility
You’re not just the controller with Kinect, you can be the Predator! Two Kinects are paired with the freebie ‘openFrameworks’ software to make this user completely invisible. If you don’t like the results maybe you’ll appreciate the cool jazz soundtrack:



YouTube - Optical Camouflage Demo with Kinect: artandmobile.com!


The sound of Music
Clever fellas have programmed Kinect to produce a virtual keyboard that can be scaled in size and played on any flat surface. It’s not as slick as Tom Hanks’routine in the movie ‘Big’, but we wouldn’t be at all surprised if this interpretation of Kinect’s capabilities finds its way into a real game:


YouTube - OpenKinect - Keyboard Anywhere!


No strings attached
Here Kinect picks up hand gestures and arm movements to control a large, comical bird-puppet. Home-theatre applications are immediately apparent, or maybe this is something for budding ventriloquists? Either way, Microsoft needs to start using this tech now!


YouTube - Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet

That windows 7 thing is really nice :D I need to try it ^^

Wow.. humans are just simply.. amazing..

i want wall pupettes :)

I want the wall puppet too and the piano maby they can make the piano a keyboard for your computer

Microsoft developers just got over-the-top innovative.

I had no idea Kenects was so cool

Now i just wanna buy the kinect and use it ^.^

I wonder if someone had a wireless mouse for the first video....

Cool, I plan to get one soon

This would be amazing if there was a 360 kinect on my ceiling, and everything i would touch would play a sound, and activate something :D

Wow, that's pretty crazy stuff. Especially liked the one with the Doom 3 monster. Pretty amazing what some people are capable of.

Very cool stuff. Microsoft really has outdone themselves this time, this device is just so much more then a wireless controller. Normally no one could experiment with this kind of stuff because it would cost so much, but since they developed it and all and making a bundle of it through games and all, this comes dead cheap for all those who want to try it out.

The Windows 7 one looks just about amazing..

and only one out of five has anything to do games (just barely)

kind of makes me wonder if the kinects hardware is wasted as a attempt to weasel into the wii's market share

all the camo one needs is someone dressed like Motoko or Batou

I need to order me one of them :)