Kinect Hacking

Microsoft's Kinect camera for the XBox has been one of the more popular hacking targets recently, mostly due to the bounty for an opensource driver by adafruit & Johnny Lee. Here's a brief timeline:

• Nov 4th, 2010: Kinect release USA
• Nov 10th, 2010: Kinect release EU
• Nov 10th, 2010: libfreenect opensource driver released
• Nov 11th, 2010: very first "Kinect Hack" with libfreenect by myself :-) (see below)

I was able to create this so quickly because the data delivered by the Kinect is nearly identical to that from a camera-based touch screen. So all I had to do is plug this into libTISCH and the result: Multitouch with hacked Kinect.

The press also had some things to say about my hack:

• Engadget: Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface
• adafruit: Hacked Kinect used as a multi-touch interface
• Gizmodo: Minority Report, Courtesy of Kinect
• Hackaday: Kinect and TISCH combined for multitouch
• Ars Technica: Hacked Kinect used to manipulate images, more to come
• BBC: Microsoft Kinect 'hack' opens up possibilities