$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.

Comments

Re:Is reverse engineering still legal ?

[hedwards]

Depends how you do it. It's oddly ironic how now when it hurts MS they don't think reverse engineering is such a good idea. Especially since they made most of their money based upon IBM clones.

Additionally, I like how they're claiming that this has something to do with product tampering.

Tampering

[Shotgun]

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.

Re:Tampering

[countSudoku()]

And what a bad choice of language, not surprisingly from a MS spokesweasel. "Tamper-resistant" comes from the time when people were adding poison and other bad ingredients to Tylenol and other products which lacked the little foil "tamper-proof" seal on the package. Tamper-resistant should be protecting ME from something BAD, and NOT for assholes to lock down my new device to their RROD shitbox. Using this fucking hardware any goddamn way we see fit, even if it makes no sense, is what I demand. Crack open that fucking thing and fuck Microsoft in their stupid asses with a Sony Move stick!

Safeguards, product tampering, law enforcement?!?

[noidentity]

But Microsoft isn't taking kindly to the bounty offer. "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,"

Once you sell one to me, it's my product, morons.

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.

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.

Ah the good old days

[Nursie]

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.

bounty

[DeadDecoy]

Is it me or is 2000$ kinda cheap to hire someone with the expertise required to extract out kinect's source?

Re:bounty

[rokstar]

I'd say that Microsoft making a statement like that will push people into doing it faster. Seems like nothing motivates nerds more than being told that they can't do something by a large company or organization. Forget about money, this is now about ego.

law enforcement

[DarthVain]

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.

Re:law enforcement

[spire3661]

MPEGLA would beg to differ. They can and DO dictate what is done with hardware after the sale. Even when the buying party has no formal contract with MPEGLA, they can restrict whatever you film with your equipment that you bought. Its wrong, it should be illegal, but so far they have been successful in cowing people.

Microsoft's position is tricky

[denobug]

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.

Re:Microsoft's position is tricky

[wierd_w]

While it might smack of 1984 paranoia, we ARE talking about a motion tracking camera, attached to a closed architecture and DMCA protected computing platform, equipped with broadband internet capabilities, communicating in a DMCA protected communication protocol.

No matter how "OMFG! AWESOME!" this thing is, unless I know for sure what software is being run, I consider it an unsafe product for my privacy.

Just imagine the "Fun", should Microsoft decide to roll out an update that causes the camera to 'passively' track and analyze images of logos it sees, so they can datamine their gaming public for "enhanced products and services", such as "Value added partnerships with partner companies" to offer "Special product offers" to said people? Suddenly, your XBOX becomes the equivilent of a secret shopper in your home, suggesting more Hostess, Dolly Madison, and Pepsi products.

Doesnt matter if the resolution is really crappy, grainy, and the framerate is slow-- it only needs to focus on what the person is wearing/doing in front of the TV. Even surreptitiously snapping and sending jpegs of "logo candidates" to microsoft for bulk processing once a week would be of IMMENSE value to advertising fuckwads. (of course, microsoft would make 'every effort' to prevent personally identifiable information, like your face, and to avoid capturing images of naked users of the Kinect motion controller for privacy reasons, and then trumpet these as being 'good faith'-- but they would still happily capture the logos on your shirt and pants, on the can of pop/beer you are sipping, and what bag of deep fried somethings you are snacking on for their "advertising partners")

But why stop there? This thing has several acoustic microphones too! Just IMAGINE the fun, should this device get co-opted by law enforcement! Why, they wouldnt NEED to "Mandate" cameras be installed in your house-- Why, they stupid sheeple would BUY IT, and INSTALL IT themselves! Just imagine the fun that the security theater types in Great Britain would have with this! The "Full monitor" mode could be activated based on "excessive motion", and or "Highly variable sound input matching XX baseline", and suddenly you are on candid camera while you spank your naughty child's butt. Better have a good explanation when child protective services shows up. (etc.)

So, simply because I have had my "healthy" distrust of corporations and their use of technology turn into a pathological paranoia, I GREATLY desire to see the ENTIRE kinect data stack and software algorithm tree reverse engineered like a Diebold voting machine. The problem is that I have a hard time convincing myself that this one is paranoia.

I want to know EVERYTHING this device does, how it does it, when, and why-- before I would even consider buying one.

Re:Is reverse engineering still legal ?

[kimvette]

Wrong.

Reverse engineering (section 1201(f)). This exception permits
circumvention, and the development of technological means for such
circumvention, by a person who has lawfully obtained a right to use a
copy of a computer program for the sole purpose of identifying and
analyzing elements of the program necessary to achieve interoperability
with other programs, to the extent that such acts are permitted under
copyright law.

Source: http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Re:Safeguards, product tampering, law enforcement?

[spire3661]

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.

Re:Is reverse engineering still legal ?

[mikael_j]

The BIOS wasn't, it was reverse engineered by clone makers.

Re:Kinect for Robotics

[BlueRaja]

What Microsoft said was they are "confident that every unit of Kinect sold to gamers will generate profit." That doesn't mean they are making a profit on each unit.

Re:Kinect _SOFTWARE_ for Robotics

[coniferous]

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.

Re:Is reverse engineering still legal ?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Winston, Inner Party members can turn it off - those propriety dictates that this be for no more than half-hour intervals.

Signed, O'Brien.

Corrections

[SuperKendall]

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...