Updates to this story
A $2,000 bounty is being offered to the first developer who creates an open source driver for the Kinect, despite the proposal meeting with Microsoft's staunch disapproval.
The original bounty was $1,000, offered by Adafruit Industries, an open source electronics seller and advocate. However, when Microsoft found out about the bounty and voiced its dissatisfaction Adafruit decided to double the offer.
“Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNET. “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.”
The bounty appears to have caused a rift between the two companies, with Adafruit not taking kindly to Microsoft's response. “Don’t make us up it to $3k,” it threatened, which surely won't go down well at Redmond.
Prospective bounty hunters are require to develop drivers for the Kinect for any operating system, but they must be fully documented and issued under an open source license to be eligble. Developers must also write an application demonstrating the driver and showcasing video and depth.
The outcome of such a driver, should Microsoft not take actions to prevent its circulation, could allow the Kinect to work with other systems beside the Xbox 360, such as a rival console or even a PC or Mac, giving new possible uses for the motion capture hands-free device.
The Kinect was released in the US on 4 November, with the European release set for 10 November.
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I think Kinect is cool but I don't have an XBox. :(
If there were decent Linux drivers, I might actually want one of these things. (And I suppose I'd want to buy it from Adafruit, if at all possible. :) )
And how does making an opensource driver modify the product?
smart move there MS.
That MS can do that to equipment for the information highway and barely raise an disinterested mutter shows just how they managed to keep people in the 19thC with their approach to business .
Reminds me of the Emo story: When I was young my Dad always kept a door locked and wouldn't let me through it. When I got older he unlocked the door and I saw amazing things that I'd never imagined - like the sky and trees and birds...
Need a software? Instead that 1000 people will buy a very expensive special software, make a bounty pool, if the 1000 people would bet about 10$, that's 10,000$ for the developer.
Ultimately Microsoft would only make money from Kinect for this, maybe they need to release a Windows driver?
Come on, how likely is it that a cool piece of new hardware would be totally left alone by hardware hackers? If that were the case, it would have been a disinteresting product, dead on arrival. Look at what people have been doing with the Wiimote. Has that been harmful to Nintendo? I really don't think so.
Microsoft's use of the words "safety", "security" and "protection" are all to be interpreted as meaning "lock-in". They are playing a losing game in a sport that is going out of fashion.
The Kinect is made for Microsoft's XBox and if it gets used outside of that platform then it's purpose has been subverted. They do not care if they sell 100 million Kinect units, it is about XBox and keeping Sony, and to a lesser extent Nintendo, without a dominant position in the console market.
What Microsoft said was exactly what you would expect them to say based on the business model mentioned above.
It will cost them millions. They've spent two years working on this thing, just to have it support other consoles instead.
Microsoft is upset with the idea of selling more Kinect devices because they sell them below cost, just like the XBox360. Thus they make money by you buying games, not hardware. If you can use the Kinect on your PC, Microsoft "can not" (necessarily) sell you the games to make their money. So you are taking money out of Steve Ballmer's pocket, and he already lost his bones for the year!
Tampering? Yes, as the Kinect employs DRM to authenticate with the XBox360 (part of the trusted computing), and thus to write a driver, one would have to break the DRM, thus, invoking the DMCA, and thus the hoards of Microsoft lawyers on you and Adafruit. Oh, and that would incidentally force Microsoft to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-redo things on XBox to prevent unauthorized devices. I mean, seriously, Microsoft is trying to prove they an make an unhackable computer that they can hand the hacker.
Expect lawsuits over this, and firmware updates and a few games that do not work with certain systems because the firmware suspects a homebrew Kinect.
Unlike their software which you dont really buy as much as rent, there is nothing they can do about it.
If I want to buy a Kinect and put it in a blender, they cant do a thing.
If I want to take it apart and glue all the parts on my forehead, they cant do a thing.
if I want to use it as a sexual aid, still nothing they can do it.
Its mine and once I paid for it .
I know they sell at under cost because they want to recoup their money on games.
As for stopping drivers..... they cant stop movies and music on Bitorrent, they wont stop the drivers from circulating around too.