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Google Engineer Sponsors New Kinect Bounties

Posted by Soulskill on from the dead-or-alive dept.

ashidosan writes "Hot on the heels of the Adafruit competition, Matt Cutts (a search spam engineer at Google) is sponsoring two more $1,000 bounties for projects using Kinect. 'The first $1,000 prize goes to the person or team that writes the coolest open-source app, demo, or program using the Kinect. The second prize goes to the person or team that does the most to make it easy to write programs that use the Kinect on Linux.'" Relatedly, reader imamac points out a video showing Kinect operating on OS X.

12 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. That's good by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When the driver was hacked I thought it was cool, but it would probably be a long time before someone actually used it for something nice. This might attract a few people.

    1. Re:That's good by mcvos · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've got a couple of (really simple) ideas for how to use it.

      Actually, only one is really simple. I think my 1.5 year old son would love to see a big rabbit on TV that would simply replicate his every move. Not much of a game, but a cool tech demo, as well as something for my son to enjoy.

      The other (much more ambitious) idea, is to mix it with an HTML 5 demo I already was considering. I'd need some way to turn Kinect events into mouse events, I guess. Something that a browser can handle, in any case, so I think that means mouse events. Something multitouchy would be nice, but I don't think browsers support that, do they?

    2. Re:That's good by thetartanavenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      The other (much more ambitious) idea, is to mix it with an HTML 5 demo I already was considering. I'd need some way to turn Kinect events into mouse events, I guess. Something that a browser can handle, in any case, so I think that means mouse events. Something multitouchy would be nice, but I don't think browsers support that, do they?

      Step one is complete: http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/11/hacked-kinect-taught-to-work-as-multitouch-interface/. Now they just need to create an html5 demo.

      --
      Who need's speling and grammar?
    3. Re:That's good by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      not really. I can think of a few uses.

      The open source Gametable http://rptools.net/ rptools could use this to translate tabletop real minnatures to virtual for distance gaming or as a UI to move your object and it moves the token on screen for a top down projection.
      etc.....

      IF I actually spent time on it, I could come up with a lot of them. Gesture door lock, alarm sensor that can reliably distinguish between a human and an animal, etc....

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. I thought microsoft didn't innovate? by js3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    seems everyone wants a piece of that kinect thing they created.

    --
    did you forget to take your meds?
    1. Re:I thought microsoft didn't innovate? by Christopher+Fritz · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not that I'm agreeing with the premise that Microsoft never has any innovations of their own, but in the case of Kinect, PrimeSense developed the hardware. I don't know if Microsoft further developed it, or provided requirements for PrimeSense to develop it into something to use for the XBox, but it didn't begin with Microsoft.

  3. Ok, Google: by balaband · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are committed to improve user experience and implement cool toys in Linux?

    Then do something about better graphics drivers (help the guys developing them, or put pressure on manufacturers to open specs). You are going to need it for Chrome OS eventually, and you will gain a lot of good karma from the geeks around the world.

    1. Re:Ok, Google: by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I strongly suspect that Google either considers the matter of Linux drivers largely solved(ie. Intel anything except that GMA 500 crap will work fine, just not very fast in any OS, NVIDIA spits on OSS; but mostly knows how to make the trains run on time within their binary blob world, AMD/ATI has made substantial commitments to improved openness and to their closed source stuff not sucking) or something to be solved with much larger piles of money, quietly "We have every expectation of shipping 1-2 million ChromeOS devices a quarter. It is our comittment to our customers, and a requirement of our product design, that the graphical experience be both rich and rock-solid..." *raises eyebrows significantly at meeting room full of competing vendors*.

      While I would certainly like to see them buy the Nouveau guys some beer or something, I suspect that, for the purposes of an entity like Google, graphics is either a solved problem, or an area where they don't need to go with penny-ante public announcements.

      (In addition, of course, this current competition is sponsored by a guy who just works for Google. Obviously it is unlikely that Google is going to sack him for it, but their only support for the competition is by the indirect means of paying the guy's salary for work he does for them, leaving him with the cash to offer a prize. This isn't a Google competition.)

  4. Re:Watch! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I suspect that MS knows that they don't have a leg to stand on against the present activity(all the copyrighted code/DRM protected stuff/patented wizbangs are in the firmware, and writing a driver that just receives the data the firmware generates is the sort of thing that even the DMCA explicitly protects). I assume that their frankly nasty bluster so far has been about two things 1. management of the fears of Joe User: Joe hears "hackers hack Kinect", Joe assumes that his Kinect is now watching his children on behalf of Romanian cybercriminals. MS doesn't want that, so they talk big about how secure and law-enforcement-cooperating they are. 2. Overton window shifting: If you want a specific, and novel, legal result, you generally have to prepare the groundwork for it by modifying the discourse. You do this by the crude; but often successful, expedient of repeating your currently-false-but-desired-to-be-true worldview in public, a lot. If "unapproved use = tampering = evil" has been repeated a few thousand times by the time that DMCA 2: Son of DMCA comes before congress, it will be much more likely to make it in.

    Now, if somebody does something directly competitive with PrimeSense, on a commercial scale, you may well see the claims start flying that any working Kinect driver must be implementing 127 patented algorithms and is otherwise all kinds of illegal; but that probably isn't worth the cost of process servers for the current scruffy band of international hackers...

  5. Re:Watch! by JohnBailey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bet Microsoft will be all over the courts trying to stop this thing, and you know what?!.. I bet this news will sell thousands more units, knowing we can screw around with it in our own way.. they just don't get it.

    Why?

    The parts have been shown to cost about $50. Add a few dollars per unit manufacturing, packaging, transport.. And you have a nice little profit. So despite the whiner chorous insisting it is selling at a loss.. It isn't.

    Each one sold, is more money for Microsoft.
    Each one sold puts an MS logo in front of the buyer.
    Each one sold increases the chances of games being written including the kinect for the xBox. And more enthusiastic reception if and when they release a Windows SDK for it.

    So..Other than some vague paranoid "because it's Microsoft" excuse.. Why the flying fuck would they stand in the way of this thing selling?

    --
    It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
  6. Re:huh? by mcvos · · Score: 4, Funny

    We'll be able to plat tux racer with hand movements?

    Actually, that was my third idea for a Kinect application: a racing game where you steer with a pretend-wheel in the air. And if possible, accelerate by going "BWBWBWBWBWB" with your lips. That'd be really cool.

  7. Re:Watch! by Timmmm · · Score: 3, Informative

    The parts have been shown to cost about $50

    Utter bullshit. That's just the BOM for the 'major' chips. It doesn't include PCBs, small components like capacitors and voltage regulators, the housing, lenses, cables, connectors, tilt servo. Nor does it include the cost of assembly, transport and packaging.

    I suppose you think nice restaurants are a rip-off because the price of eggs and flour is so low.