Open Kinect Project: 2000USD Bounty for Open-Source Kinect Drivers Options

[readmore]

I would bet money (if I had any) that tons of people will find ways to make Kinnect work with PC with less lag then the 360, and that my friends is why MS is being a big baby.

Seriously I don't know what's with MS these days. Poor quality design, poor quality QA, poor quality programming, and poor quality game Devs. Not to mention stubborn upper management/directors. Whoever in MS has this motion control boner needs to be sacked. No wonder Apple runs circles around them in terms of quality (minus the ipone 4 antenna snafu). If something doesn't work then just scrap it or delay it so you have a quality product. I mean I'm just a regular guy and I know that, so who the heck is running that company???

I think MS needs to clean house. People working for MS probably treat their jobs like government workers; full of self-entitlement and think they can ride on a blank check. It is showing in their products.

I really hope the community of modders/hackers grab hold of this and shove it in MS's face.

/end bitter rant
//still can't believe MS is selling Kinnect as a piece of gaming hardware

[newf]

I would bet money (if I had any) that tons of people will find ways to make Kinnect work with PC with less lag then the 360, and that my friends is why MS is being a big baby.

Seriously I don't know what's with MS these days. Poor quality design, poor quality QA, poor quality programming, and poor quality game Devs. Not to mention stubborn upper management/directors. Whoever in MS has this motion control boner needs to be sacked. No wonder Apple runs circles around them in terms of quality (minus the ipone 4 antenna snafu). If something doesn't work then just scrap it or delay it so you have a quality product. I mean I'm just a regular guy and I know that, so who the heck is running that company???

I think MS needs to clean house. People working for MS probably treat their jobs like government workers; full of self-entitlement and think they can ride on a blank check. It is showing in their products.

I really hope the community of modders/hackers grab hold of this and shove it in MS's face.

/end bitter rant
//still can't believe MS is selling Kinnect as a piece of gaming hardware

I tend to agree. I've prettty much used MS products my entire 35 years of computing, professionally and personally. I've even defended them in many situations over a lnux or unix product. But over the past 10 years they have completely lost their minds, shabby products, price gouging etc. I get they need to make money like any company but it's gotten to the point of pathetic, really pathetic.

I have ZERO use or want for a Kinect unit for my xbox. I already got a Wii that collects dust now.

However, I'll just say this - Kinect + XBMC

I'm am sure MS is thinking Kinect + Media Center, but media center is horrible, poorly designed piece of $%@#$%@%. It amazes to this day how a huge company with the software engineers they have, and the hardware already in peoples living rooms, that they can not do a better media center.





This post has been edited by newf: Nov 5 2010, 01:47 PM

[Tatsh]

I tend to agree. I've prettty much used MS products my entire 35 years of computing, professionally and personally. I've even defended them in many situations over a lnux or unix product. But over the past 10 years they have completely lost their minds, shabby products, price gouging etc. I get they need to make money like any company but it's gotten to the point of pathetic, really pathetic.

I have ZERO use or want for a Kinect unit for my xbox. I already got a Wii that collects dust now.

However, I'll just say this - Kinect + XBMC

I'm am sure MS is thinking Kinect + Media Center, but media center is horrible, poorly designed piece of $%@#$%@%. It amazes to this day how a huge company with the software engineers they have, and the hardware already in peoples living rooms, that they can not do a better media center.

Don't know why MS thinks 360 + streaming over internet/your computer but ONLY with Windows media center (technically) + DVD = media center. How about adding some more formats in the nth update (preferably MKV, support for 5.1 AAC in MP4)? I know MS wants total control, they lost the HD-DVD format war in which they had investments in, refuse to do anything related with Blu-ray, and as far as a web browser on 360 you know they'd only give us a piece of crap IE derivative.

In terms of game quality, developers STILL feel no incentive because they get paid nothing in comparison to the publishers and retail stores. Out of that $60 you spend, $8-12 will go to the developer company. But more will go to both the retailer and publisher.

[Martinchris23]

How about adding some more formats in the nth update (preferably MKV, support for 5.1 AAC in MP4)?

Playing Devil's Advocate, where are you legally downloading MKV's from? If you're authoring them, why not choose a compatible codec (such as WMV)?

[BruinsFan]

What is the big fuss about getting Kinect to work on the PC?

It's a web cam that also has infrared. Buying a webcam that has night vision would be very similar.

At one point, there were hardware chips which did most of the calculations on Natal. Since then, MS decided to cut costs and make the processing on the software side, rendering the Kinect hardware nothing more than a camera with infrared.

Am I missing something?

[readmore]

What is the big fuss about getting Kinect to work on the PC?

It's a web cam that also has infrared. Buying a webcam that has night vision would be very similar.

At one point, there were hardware chips which did most of the calculations on Natal. Since then, MS decided to cut costs and make the processing on the software side, rendering the Kinect hardware nothing more than a camera with infrared.

Am I missing something?

I'm not a hardware or software guy but I think Kinnect does more then just Cam with infrared. There was a video on the site in an earlier article that showed the million points of light Kinnect uses to read it's surroundings so there must be more going on there. I know MS opted to do most of the processing though the Xbox but the hardware is still in the device; it's just that it's all software driven I think.

confusing.....

[ddxcb]

Its the chatpad all over again

[megaman007]

I was under the impression that MS intended this device to work with 360 and Windows, didn't they say that in an interview before? Seems silly to not officially support Windows with it, given the cost and that 360 controllers are natively supported on Vista/Win7.

[iateshaggy]

yall better watch out, if u make drivers m$ will call the cops on you, not sure for what, but they believe it is illegal to take your stuff apart. if they let this go, then people might start using open source operating systems on their pc's as well w/ open source drivers for their web cams.

[DARKFiB3R]

Nobody has even managed to get the chat pad working on the PC yet, but I suppose there wasn't that much demand/incentive.

[iwanttheagrocrag]

"Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.”

I give it a week before its got an open source driver!!! probably less

This post has been edited by iwanttheagrocrag: Nov 5 2010, 04:37 PM

[gamesquest1]

ok nice idea but as someone else stated the kinect device atually doesnt do any of the processing any more so any software would have to be doing all the processing of the infrared lights, im not saying its not possible just that if MS hadnt of removed the exra processing unit out of the beta kenects it would be a driver and basic software, right now its probably gonna take a lot of effort making the software to go along side the driver

expect a driver very soon, but no actual functionality for quite a while....except a webcam....a big fat webcam XD

This post has been edited by gamesquest1: Nov 5 2010, 04:54 PM

[BruinsFan]

There was a video on the site in an earlier article that showed the million points of light Kinnect uses to read it's surroundings so there must be more going on there.

Hmmm.... maybe there is an on-board chip that translates the million points of light into meaningful data?

ok nice idea but as someone else stated the kinect device atually doesnt do any of the processing any more so any software would have to be doing all the processing of the infrared lights, im not saying its not possible just that if MS hadnt of removed the exra processing unit out of the beta kenects it would be a driver and basic software, right now its probably gonna take a lot of effort making the software to go along side the driver

expect a driver very soon, but no actual functionality for quite a while....except a webcam....a big fat webcam XD

Exactly, if someone was to start a project around similar functionality to Kinect's software, why would they use the Kinect hardware? It would be much easier to develop on an open platform with a custom setup of a webcam and infrared reader. Only once that is completed, maybe look into getting it to work with Kinect's hardware.

TBH, it seems like a waste of time to even bother.

[Tatsh]

Well, if it happens, I hope there's a Linux version that can run on x86 and x86-64 at minimum. And next year comes the iPad with USB; jailbreak that and make it work on it (would be pretty cool).

[Exobex]

Perhaps they're afraid that if people dig into it enough they'll not only make a homebrew driver that's compatible with Kinect, but do the reverse - make a homebrew Kinect that's compatible with the 360!

Otherwise, what's the problem? If someone turns Kinect into a multitouch input device, that'll in turn sell more multitouch-compatible operating systems. Such as Windows 7.