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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.
Is reverse engineering for interoperability purpose still legal ?
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Presumably there is cryptographic authentication here that needs to be broken. Sounds like some student's differential power analysis school project is about to get a bit more lucrative... and legally risky...
This would actually be excellent for robotics! Those specs are about on par with Point Grey's Bumblebee2 stereoscopic camera (the cheapest standalone stereoscopic camera for robotics), which retails at about $3,000! It would be great to be able to make cheap robots with that kind of stereoscopic imaging power.
Tamper-resistant? You mean, they're trying to stop me from using it the way I choose. Like how the screwdriver manufacturers add elements to the steel to make it so that I can't sharpen the end and make a pin-punch from it? Jeeesh!! What arrogance.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Once you sell one to me, it's my product, morons.
What the hell, are these X-ray machines or something with radioactive material in them that would sicken the user if he opened it up?!? I had better be sure thisn't some strange dream.
Whatever happened to people selling devices to other people, so they could use them as they see fit?
Not providing drivers fro other systems, fine, whatever you like, not your responsibility. Working with law enforcement to prevent 'product tampering?
Screw you MS, really.
Is it me or is 2000$ kinda cheap to hire someone with the expertise required to extract out kinect's source?
BS.
I am not licensing this product. Your not renting it to me. I am not leasing it. I am buying it, and I'll do with it what I damn well please.
My recollection is that it was a 15-bit number with a single-bit used as a "mask" to outline the players in front of the camera. The early demos treated the 15-bit number as RGB, 5 bits per channel.
Twenty or thirty years ago these things were somewhat neat. Now they are corporate mole-hunts. The engineers who designed the platform already have plenty of drivers, written in ten different languages, and probably have software emulators to run in VMs with any of a dozen different kernels.
What they are doing is mining the community. If anything _really_ good or novel comes up they'll just take it in house, sit on it for a few months, and promptly edge out the submitter--that is standard corporate policy and is the default game played against research associates in any field. As an added bonus if any of the submissions look, smell, feel, or even sound like anything even remotely related to one of those dozens of software drivers that they already have in house then all they need to do is look at friend-of-a-friend links to see who in the research teams is "taking the work home" with them.
Reality 101.
On what grounds can Microsoft even begin to claim any sort of right to restrict reverse engineering this product?
If they are hoping to invoke the DMCA for circumventing a content protection mechanism, I'd like to point out that these things are essentially a couple of cameras and a mic shoved in a plastic housing. Any content captured by these cameras is, in no uncertain terms, mine as it is me 'performing' in front of them.
Culture is more than commerce
It is Microsoft using strong language to scare people.
Reverse Engineering the product to then produce and sell a similar product is one thing, using it as an input device for other things that it was intended for is a totally different ball of wax.
On one hand, yes, it is a hardware. You are please to use it as you see fit.
On the other hand, the key to Kinect is not the hardware components itself, rather it is the embedded code that brings everything together, process the data, and make the whole thing work. To that end they do have right to safeguard their code and software design to keep anyone from knowing exactly what they are doing, and how they are doing.
So I think it is not wrong if someone figured it all out by themselves how to use those components or use Kinet in its entirety in other purpose besides connecting to XBox. But I would venture to guess that whoever attempts to extract the code internal to the device would be subject to legal action, and like it or not, Microsoft's litigation would be legitimate.
It's the same business mode as a printer. Consumer printers are so cheap because they are sold at or near cost. They expect to make up the profits in ink sales, so there is motivation to intensely protect those ink sales. The Xbox 360 and PS3 were both sold well under production cost, with the expectation that they would make up for it in video game sales. People who bought Playstations, and ran Linux on them as part of a cluster, got their supercomputer subsidized by Sony.
Microsoft is losing money on these Kinect units, with the hope they will move more units of video games. It is of no benefit to Microsoft if people start buying them up and using them for other purposes. Complain all you want about how that business model is stupid or retarded, but that's what we get.
"Nice business model you have there." not!
"It'd be a shame if bad anything happened to it..."
Maybe, you know, properly license the thing if you're not willing to sell it ala cart. You've got lawyers, have 'em look it over. Don't be a bunch of overpriced retards.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Hardware-wise, Kinect isn't anything particularly special - basically few mics, simple visible light webcam, two stereoscopically arranged IR ones (take out IR filter from an ordinary webcam, replace it with non-exposed part of photographic film) capturing projected light pattern, very limited tilting.
Everything very interesting and useful happens on the CPU of X360...
It's not merely a case of drivers, you'd need highly specific software anyway. Might as well use 2 inexpensive webcams.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'm sure Microsoft put somewhere in the fine print of the EULA they can do whatever they want, and you can't. You can be sure of that.
Regardless of the business model, there is no place for this aggressive rhetoric. Microsoft needs to understand that when they sell someone a piece of hardware, it is no longer Microsoft's to control outside of allowing it on their network or not.
Good-bye
The razor and blade model works for razors and blades. Even if you want to repurpose them to slit your wrists, you have to buy the more profitable blades rather than the useless loss-leader razor.
It doesn't work so great for anything actually interesting that people might buy for reasons other than subsidizing your business model.
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Funny, but I was just ranting to a friend about how MS seems to be dropping the fucking ball with Kinect driver support in XNA, too. A console lives or dies based on software titles, and they don't seem to be interested in letting developers write code for their brand new toy. I have asked people in the know who work at MS about timetables for an API or SDK for Kinect, but they give this bullshit line about not being able to discuss future releases (Yeah, like a release date for a Kinect dev kit is really going to give the competition a leg up on you, MS.)
This is Microsoft giving developers the finger, yet again. If you aren't a 'preferred partner', you don't get to write code.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I had better be sure th'isn't some strange dream.
FTFY
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
More so since the "fancy camera" is all you'd get by hacking the Kinect's I/O.
But you can buy RGB-D cameras separately. There are several about to be released in the $100-150 range (or maybe released by now, I'm lazy, YOU google it). Not vaporware either - these models have been used in the research community for a while now. It would probably be more beneficial to go to the effort of obtaining one of those then doing some useful software work.
Microsoft is losing money on these Kinect units
^this one is really one of those [citation needed] cases
One that hath name thou can not otter
Not true at all. Look at the hardware spesification sheets... An arm processor and 512 megs of ram? Thats more then just a webcam and a couple of mics. There is some serious potential for having a hardware device that does some onboard processing.
I guess we should all consider ourselves fortunate to be enable to pay for the privilege of using their products. (Yeah right.) Either MS is truly delusional regarding their "Rights as Vendor" or somebody needs their bottom spanked over a poorly worded press release.
The most interesting (and at the same time inexpensive) that I heard about, ZCam TOF camera, was essentially bought & killed by MS...
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's the same business mode as a cheap printer.
FTFY. You can get printers that are not sold under that business model. Unsurprisingly, they cost more.
Price the toner/ink and the printer together. If you just buy a cheap printer you’re only looking at half of the equation. Find out what it uses, and how much it costs.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Back in June, a 'trusted source' reported that the Kinect cost $150 to manufacture. It seems they're selling at cost, with no profit per unit.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/35198/Source-pins-Kinect-manufacturing-costs-to-150
You can do what you like with it, but Microsoft still doesn't have to condone your actions or even support them in any way. Their intention with this product is X while your intention is Y, but how you achieve Y is up to you.
How can it possibly hurt Microsoft if there are customers who want to purchase and repurpose their hardware for something other than playing a game?
Which do you think is more in Microsoft’s best interests, selling a bunch of high-tech electronics in a molded plastic case for $150, or selling a piece of stamped plastic for $40?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I think most of the recent papers are associated with Intel. The models used there may actually be based on the same PrimeSense camera behind the Kinect. Ideally, this info should be in the paper using the camera. This isn't always the case, but someone who wanted to know badly could start flipping through papers until they find one which documents their equipment adequately.
I'll try to find out more...availability to hobbyists is an important question.
This kind of situation comes up all the time in the FOSS world.
Is there some sort of guide on how to structure a reverse-engineering project to ensure it's done properly?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
With that in mind, it seems probable that Microsoft is playing for time.
It seems pretty well standard that manufacturing costs of just about everything video game hardware related go down over time, for various reasons. If they're selling the Kinect at cost right now, they won't be in a year -- so if they can push off people repurposing the unit a little down the road, they can get to a point in which they're making a profit even if someone buys a Kinect and no 360/games.
Okay, I honestly forgot. Did Nintendo flip out when people started developing PC drivers for the Wii remote? I don't seem to recall them raising hell over someone making drivers for their controllers (and Nintendo WOULD be the ones to do so), but Microsoft is doing that for what is effectively a couple cameras?
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
But the bulk of the interesting stuff happens on the X360 - ARM cpu and (mostly for large buffer, perhaps?) memory don't have to be very useful with 1 MiB of flash onboard... after all, everything beyond firmware (and still quite basic processing) can be loaded from X360.
So, at best, there needs to be another machine loading the code anyway (OK, perhaps if one cares about the aesthetics it could be done even by some AVR & USB Flash, AVR acting also as I/O for the body...), and without the access to defining qualities of Kinect.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I'll bet that MS's plan for this technology is to use it in the next itteration of Winsuck. They don't want people puzzling out something they plan to announce and market... that would lead to a loss of profits when they bring about "Windows 7: Motion Edition". It would be fun if "TuxMotion" was old news by then.
Imagine this:
Someone, after the technical details are discovered, builds a very small box and slips it inline between the Kinect and the XBox360 as a kind of bridge. It is used to intercept, record and transmit the video data somewhere.
Now, this could become "home surveillance" or "a way to spy on your girlfriend" or "how to stalk your hot dream girl who happens to be a gamer but doesn't know you're alive." The possibilities are endless.
In the end, Microsoft made a thing and tried to lock it down. Problem is, if it is still useful to the XBox, then it can be used by other devices using the same techniques.
I won't be getting a Kinect... nope... not ever. When I do games, it's because I don't want to get up to do anything.
Even if $150 manufacturing cost is the case - don't forget how this "selling at cost" (not actually harmful in itself) will apply only in one market.
One that hath name thou can not otter
OK, so here is how they can solve the problem...
Since it is presumed that the Kinect will only "work" with Kinect enabled games, sell the Kinect at it's "discounted" price of $150 or whatever it's current sell price is when purchased with a Kinect enabled game. If the Kinect is sold stand alone (no game bought at the same time), then sell it for $50 more. Of course, you then have to make sure that all the Kinect enabled games are at least $50 to make sure that isn't an advantage route to getting just the Kinect for less.
R
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
How much different would these comments look if the article were about Apple and (new iDevice)? I'm guessing the f-bomb would be dropped much less frequently.
>But the bulk of the interesting stuff happens on the X360 What? That may be true, but you don't know that. Nobody knows that except microsoft. I kinda doubt it anyways. Microsoft has been going on and on about how it will only effect the Xbox 360s cpu in single diget numbers. > mostly for large buffer, perhaps What. 512 megs of memory is MORE then a buffer. That would be incredibly huge and totally useless. There is another purpose for that RAM. > So, at best, there needs to be another machine loading the code anyway Possibly. But there is that flash memory on the board as well.... Probably used for code. I have no way of confirming this of course.
Argh, Forgot my breaks.
>But the bulk of the interesting stuff happens on the X360
What? That may be true, but you don't know that. Nobody knows that except microsoft. I kinda doubt it anyways. Microsoft has been going on and on about how it will only effect the Xbox 360s cpu in single diget numbers.
> mostly for large buffer, perhaps
What. 512 megs of memory is MORE then a buffer. That would be incredibly huge and totally useless. There is another purpose for that RAM.
> So, at best, there needs to be another machine loading the code anyway Possibly.
But there is that flash memory on the board as well.... Probably used for code. I have no way of confirming this of course.
Reverse engineering is legal if you have deeper pocket than the plaintiff.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If old peripheral commercials taught me anything as a child, it's that the Kinect is probably filled with PURE AWESOME and would cause a person's head to explode and/or melt like they'd been exposed to the opened Ark of the Covenant.
MS, Sony or Apple products in my house and look at me weird when I tell them I run Linux Mint on my computers and not windows. You don't want me to do as I wish with the hardware I bought and now own, very well then you'd better be leasing it to me for 1/3 the price and you can have it after I'm finished with it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
MS said they dropped doing the heavy processing on Kinect itself... 1, 2, 3. What's left does at best "entry stages" of processing, which don't give you much... (especially since MS certainly keeps the juicy details of their approach secret, an approach to which entry stages are adapted).
512 megabytes of ram would sound big, yes, so I just checked - it's 512 megabits. Nothing too unexpected for a device dealing with lots of images.
And as I mentioned, the flash is 1 MiB; certainly nothing more than basic firmware.
One that hath name thou can not otter
>MS said they dropped doing the heavy processing on Kinect itself...
There is still that arm processor. It's being used for something. It could be used for something different.
> so I just checked - it's 512 megabits
Thats still too much for buffer. 512 megabits is 64 megabytes. Still more likely that it's for processing
We are arguing about symantics. my point is: This is more then just a couple webcams and a couple of mics. We could debate about the symantics till the cows come home, but at the end of the day there are no hardware solutions that quite reproduce what the kinect does. It's worth hacking.
It seems to me that Microsoft should smile and nod about this, or embrace it. The Kinect is $150 piece of hardware. There are loads of the nearly 20 million Xbox 360 users that will buy one I'm sure. Imagine now if schools and companies and research firms and hobbyists that don't own a 360 could use it for other things (intact and untampered with.) That seems like a means of capturing $150 a pop from people that do not own (or intend to own for that matter) an Xbox 360.
Sure, it does and gives something...but nowhere near as attractive as its capabilities as a full product would suggest. Probably nothing too hot, especially with the amount of modifications and new software required (getting our hands on the basic processing Kinect does and sends (probably depthmap) should be hard enough considering it's certainly integrated with & code loaded from the X360 side - so, probably just a basic ARM board with slightly atypical webcams, in practice; which still needs new code loaded from somewhere)
Generally, I'm also fed up that it turned out not to be a TOF camera (almost seems like MS bought ZCam only for their software & perhaps to kill off possibly competing product...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Until someone reverse engineers it how do we know that it isn't just a few webcam chips connected via USB? Much of the clever stuff may actually be done in software? either on an embedded circuit (good) or on the XBox 360 (bad). I doubt Microsoft would release a hardware controller and not allow upgrades to fine tune it at a later date.
If indeed the unit is just outputting motion data then it will be useful, but it will be a bit pointless if all you get is a few mono images. You could knock something up with a few webcams now that does it.
There's an open source project called Skamleton (http://skamleton.sf.net/) that tries to track people using just common webcams. Though the project is fairly new (and full disclosure, I work on it), it is already working and we're improving it. This is one of the earlier videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snUgm8lNsaY We're looking for developers (who isn't?).
Microsoft needs to understand that when they sell someone a piece of hardware, it is no longer Microsoft's to control outside of allowing it on their network or not.
That's just not true anymore. They've managed to pervert copyright law from the constitutional purpose of "to promote progress" to one of absolute control of anything, including ideas, anyone makes.
Who is John Galt?
Microsoft needs to understand that when they sell someone a piece of hardware, it is no longer Microsoft's to control outside of allowing it on their network or not.
Yes, please keep pointing this out to them until they realize they need to start licensing hardware to us. /sigh
Hey Microsoft, instead of fighting your customers like the RIAA (which has worked so well for them), why don't you just offer a version with drivers and charge double or triple?
The Kinect is amazing, I'd easily pay $300-$450 for on if it meant I could control my PC like the Minority Report but I'm not paying $150 to dance in front of my Xbox
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Microsoft just wants me to pay for it...
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.
I don't see how you come to that conclusion, at all.
Apple is the one that doesn't really take many countermeasures against jailbreaking. They've not made a fuss about AppleTV or iPhone jailbreaking.
Now here in this same story you find a dour letter from Microsoft about misusing the Kinect. And in Windows Phone 7, you have exactly the same degree of lockdown you do with the iPhone.
I could see an argument for saying both companies are just as locked down, but to say Microsoft is substantially better just ignores what they are doing, in any space they compete in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I once had an interesting conversation with one of the executives of Lappset ("Lappset Group Oy is one of the leading manufacturers of playground equipment worldwide. Our products bring joy to millions of children and adults in more than 40 countries."). If you look at the list of countries that they operate in you'll find out it contains nearly all European countries, Australia, Israel and several countries in Asia... But not USA. He explained to me that this is because Lappset prefers the situation where their marketing and engineering departments are larger than their legal department. They (as a large, multinational playground equipment manufacturer) fear that if they would go for the north american markets, the amount of lawsuits would skyrocket and it just isn't worth it for them.
Another example is cosmetics. I recently happened to read some labels from my girlfriend's make up (I think they were eyeliners or such). The label had some general content and then something along the lines of "USA: Do not eat. If you consume this product, seek medical..." or something. Apparently the manufacturer felt that they had to warn against eating the cosmetics or they would be sued in USA but there wasn't risk of that in Europe... The warning was clearly labeled to be USA-specific.
It always amuses me that in theory the American ideology is "Personal freedom! Personal responsibility! No nanny states!" but in practice, people try to blame everything on other people (and actually succesfully win lawsuits in such cases). In the rest of the world we think "It is not nice if a child falls down from the swings or such... But that can always happen, whether the child was especially reckless or just had some bad luck..." but I don't think that the thought of suing the swing manufacturer, the land owner, the city, etc. would ever even occur to people (unless, of course, the equipment would really have been very badly flawed).
Now, obviously I realize that those stereotypes don't apply to all 3E8 americans. But they certainly seem to apply to quite a large portition of the people. I guess your system encourages to that: In most of the world, if you sue a large company, they are ordered to pay you a small compensation and a multimillion dollar fine to the government. In USA, they would be ordered to pay the multimillion dollar compensation to the person who sued them. Of course that encourages people to get greedy...
>>> "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."
Law enforcement? Really? wow. Its just a game controller guys.
Its great. Whenever I start getting tempted to spend money, somehow Microsoft always knows to say/do something extra stupid to re-strengthen my commitment to never buy any Microsoft or Microsoft-based products.
I wonder if Microsoft even have a clue about how much damage their arrogant attitude is doing to their potential market?
>> Once you sell one to me, it's my product, morons.
Are you _sure_ about that? Its certainly not true with their software (read the EULA).
This video makes the prospect for an open source Kinect driver a little more exciting: YouTube - Kinect with nightshot
Apple is the only company that has locked those down in the first place. Microsoft just added a walled garden app store; historically it was pretty wide open.
Yes and "historically" Apple has computers you can open and work on easier than PC's. Nothing really matters "historically", what matters is what they are doing NOW. And in that way Microsoft is just as closed as Apple.
And comparing the AppleTV to an Xbox is a superficial comparison.
It would have been had I compared an AppleTV to an XBox. Instead I was lumping it in with other IOS devices as things Apple doesn't really do much to stop jailbreaking on.
Apple also doesn't doesn't support blue ray(sic) because Steve wants to push his online distribution model.
Apple doesn't support blu-ray in part because of the licensing, although I'm sure the aspect of selling videos through other channels comes into play as well.
Similarly, they disallow flash on their devices without valid reason.
Well actually the reason is a dramatic drop in battery life. And Apple doesn't "disallow" Flash on anything except for iOS devices - they've just stopped including it by default in some computers. Which to bring the whole thing full circle, is exactly what Microsoft does with Flash...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
[I'm a Unix/FLOSS guy.]
Damn, this reads like sado-masochistic self-mutilation. Why buy that crap when the manufacturer hates you?
Damn.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I shave with a double-edged razor. Blades are $25 for 100. Just so you know.
The people working on projects such as Opengazer headtracking, use cheap commodity webcams to ehable communication and control (e.g. wheelchair) for people with spinal chord injuries and other conditions which prevent other input methods from being practical. The technology used inside Kinect would be ideal for this but if Microsoft insists on utilizing taxpayer funded law enforcement agencies so that they can profit from this device's gaming functionality, I guess the rest of us should just sit back and let them do that, right?
After all, a device intended for gaming should be used only for that purpose and not for inappropriate and unprofitable activities such as enabling a disabled person to communicate and interact with their world.
Its simple. This device costs a LOT less than a similar set of cameras+processing hardware from someone like PrimeSense (OEM for the kit in the Kinect). If you could use it for something other than playing games, there is suddenly a LOT less reason to buy the expensive kit.
Ok, the first link was a software case, and has nothing to do with this case. The second link is a technique whose sole purpose is to circumvent copy protection. This is illegal under the DMCA. Without the DMCA the activity would be perfectly legal.
The drivers in this case would not be used to circumvent copy protection, so the DMCA would not apply.
How, exactly, is reverse engineering (an activity proven legal with much case history) the Kinect illegal?
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
welcome to software. you do not *buy* software from Microsoft (or from most other vendors for that matter) you license it. Thats why the EULA stands for End User *License* Agreement. These are the sets of rules you agree to abide by if you wish to retain license of their product.
OTOH, hardware cannot be licensed, only sold or leased, and no such terms can be placed on something that is sold.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
There are some pretty low-end ARMs these days... Not sure where the Kinect's ARM falls.
I'm having difficulty finding specs on either the Marvell AP102 or the PrimeSense SOC. Keep in mind there are now ARMs (LPC1111) that cost on the order of $1 each. The AP102 is probably much beefier, but not THAT beefy especially compared to the Xbox 360's host CPU.
So having an ARM processor really means nothing these days in terms of how much processing is being done.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Not one iPhone has been bricked from jailbreaking.
There was one case where carrier unlocking had a bad reaction to one update from Apple. But as noted, that was a carrier unlock, not jailbreaking... and it has never happened again despite every model since having carrier unlocks eventually.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Kinect has a processor and ram... which means it has firmware which you might want to copy, or at least used as a lock to prevent "unauthorized" use, like in the printer cartridges.
Microsoft is claiming they have some kind of liberal, new property right even after they sell something to you. Just like when the government tells companies what they have to do.
Actually it's the PS3 that has offline updates and downloads, and even then, only when you buy the Playstation Plus service and activate the feature as it's disabled by default. (And, it only downloads the update, you still have to update it yourself.) The Wii checks for "messages" but does not download or update anything unless you're there at the machine. The Xbox 360 does not wake up to install or download things, it does it when you log into Xbox LIVE.
Sorry for bringing facts into your rant, I know that's not what you're supposed to do on teh intarwebs. But it might be interesting information for someone who doesn't know anything about the wake up features of the current gen consoles.
The way I see it, whether your backups are legal or not - just pick up a second console, don't connect it to XBL. Granted, the only X360 I've owned was not hacked, so I don't know much about this, but it seems simple enough. Sure, it's a few hundred bucks, but new games will run you 50 to 60 bucks. So get yourself some (legal, mind you. Yep, definitely legal) backups of 5-10 games and it's paid for itself.
Manufacturing costs are only part of it. You'll also need to add testing costs, packaging, shipping/insurance, the retailer's margin, and of course the amortised cost of development. If Kinect costs $150 to build, then MS are certainly taking a decent loss on each sale, and would be understandably unhappy if a buyer was unlikely to buy any games to go with it.
From their perspective it's worth paying a little extra on security 'features' to lock in more buyers. I'm sure they've not forgotten the :CueCat. But of course, the extra challenge only gets more hackers interested...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I noticed a common theme is the comments I can't say i disagree with it, but i also can't say i totally agree with it. That is considering what it seems is generally seen here as anti-consumer, From what i can gather the only bit of security (apart from the proprietary communication protocol) they added where security screws to take it apart, The summary did mention they update the dashboard software, but that is about software for the xbox 360 system and really has nothing to do with the Kinnect in the sense of getting an open source driver.
Another way one can put your complains "Microsoft is using a weird screw for its Kinnect they must hate consumers" come one guys it is not like the only screwdriver for it is locked away in Microsoft's secret vault you can buy one as easily as they did, do you say the same thing about nintendo and the tri-wing.
Also isn't part of the fun of these hacking challenges the fact that you are working through the puzzle that the producers hoped no one would try to or be able to break.
Now if in the adventure figuring out this driver we find out that if you successfully connect this to a computer the built in arm chip stores it some where and then the next time you plug it into your xbox it flags your xbox as hacked and bans you from xbox live, then we have an issue which being consumer friendly.
Obviously, once such a free open driver becomes available, there's nothing technical stopping, for example, Sony from updating PS3 firmware to support the Kinect. Clearly, this would be bad for Microsoft. Microsoft should delay this problem by giving away enough driver code with an academic licence that academics can get the Kinect to play with their robots, before the people with the will and the means to develop their own code do so, and Microsoft loses their intellectual monopoly on the device. This could also easily solve the problem of Microsoft losing money on devices sold below cost to people who have no intention of connecting them to an Xbox and buying games, if any interesting applications are developed before production costs drop - they will own intellectual rights to key parts of the software. If they don't try to sell this to everyone and anyone before someone develops a copy-cat device in a year or two, they're making a huge mistake.
The Licence applies only if you accept the EULA. If I dont, I can still hack the device OK can't I?
Blades cost almost nothing to produce. I shave with a straight razor so fuck your blades, I found a smooth rock somewhere.
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