With a host of improvements rumoured for the next Kinect, it’s a little surprising to see that there’s still room for the current Kinect to get better: Microsoft has added face tracking capabilities to Kinect through a software update. Which means, Kinect will be able to read and react to your facial expressions.
I can’t get enough of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, no matter how old the 80s ultimately make me feel. So it’s ultra-cool to see some enterprising geeks designing a touch board for the Microsoft Kinect that can actually play the theme on little more than a sheet of regular paper.
Microsoft say they are now actively courting developers to hack the Kinect. To make this happen, they’re giving non-commercial users inside access to the technology.
newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/3EeJCln5KYg&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams":[] ,"width":500,"height":332.5,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );Remember Star Wars Kid? He needs to come of retirement and get acquainted with Yankeyan’s lightsaber Kinect hack.
newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=16734124&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1","customParams":[] ,"width":570,"height":375,"ratio":0.75,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"vimeo","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );
We’ve seen the Kinect get hacked already, but we’re still tickled by this little mod which allows you to run the Microsoft gadget on Mac OS X. Yes, the idea alone feels oh-so-very-wrong, but how can you resist such fun?
Europeans, Africans and those in the Middle East must wait just six days longer than the Yanks for the Kinect setup, with Microsoft telling of a November 10 release date. It’ll come in at £130 ($223), in the UK at least. [TechRadar]
It’s not just your clumsy leg-kicks that Kinect will understand, with a newly discovered patent showing that it’s actually capable of understanding American Sign Language, or ASL. Is this another way to input text to the game?
