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$2,000 Bounty For Open Source Xbox Kinect Drivers
ptorrone writes "Open source hardware company Adafruit Industries is offering a $2,000 bounty for the first person or group to upload driver code and examples under an open source license to GitHub for the Xbox Kinect released yesterday. The Kinect sensor outputs video at a frame rate of 30Hz, with the RGB video stream at 32-bit color VGA resolution (640×480 pixels), and the monochrome video stream used for depth sensing at 16-bit QVGA resolution (320×240 pixels with 65,536 levels of sensitivity). The open hardware group would like to see this camera used for education, robotics and fun outside the Xbox."
The bounty was originally $1,000, but Microsoft's dour response induced Adafruit to double it. ("With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. 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.") In addition, the Xbox 360 dashboard update that preceded Kinect's launch contains upgraded anti-piracy restrictions.
Ironically Microsoft out of all of the companies out there right now is the MOST trustworthy.
Microsoft just wants me to pay for it. They are annoying in the degree they go to make sure its paid for but for the most part if you bought it they're cool. You are still the customer when it comes to Microsoft.
Apple? They want to sell things too, but they are also control freaks that would want to make sure you are using it the way they want you to.
Google? They want to monitor and record everything I do and then sell that information to generate advertising revenue. Giving them a camera into your home and microphone.... "We saw you had trouble getting it up last night. Cialis can help with that..."
I kid of course, but in a lot of respects I really am finding that Microsoft is becoming the least objectionable option out there. They haven't really changed, but they just want my money -- I can live with that. They aren't really interested in controlling my life or recording it and selling it to the highest bidder.