The Kinect is absolutely the most jaw-dropping achievement in the "Virtual Reality Realm" that any mainstream console company has given to the masses of consumers. If you compare the Kinect to the PS3 Motion, or the Nintendo Wii, you will most likely agree. Microsoft really outdid itself when it began shipping these $150 add-on hardware units, which work through use of any Xbox 360. In only a few weeks, youtube was loaded with videos of "Kinect enabled robots." The article points out: "None of these projects were sanctioned by Microsoft ... Indeed, for the past few months, if you wanted to use the Kinect on anything other than an Xbox, you had to install homemade drivers cobbled together by a dedicated group of hackers..." It is truly amazing to witness what the network of sharing gives us, especially when the community is driven almost solely by self-motivation and dedication. On an even brighter note, Microsoft has changed any initial negative attitude towards all of this...which will most likely bring some ground breaking discoveries: "...Yet the company’s official response to all this activity has gone from hostility to acceptance to vigorous support. In June, Microsoft expects to release a software development kit that makes it easier for any academic or hobbyist to build Windows applications using the Kinect’s camera and microphones. The company is also granting access to the high-powered algorithms that help the machine recognize individual bodies and track motion, unleashing the kind of power that was previously available to only a small group of PhDs. (Microsoft is also working on a commercial version of its software development kit, which will allow entire new businesses to be built using the Kinect’s technology.)" Pretty interesting stuff...
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