Before annoyed, now excited by Kinect hacks

Earlier Microsoft said that i would work closely with law enforcement to keep the Kinect tamper-proof. But now it reversed it stance saying it is left open for tech nerds to go ahead with their creativity.

Microsoft told CNET on November 4 that it “does not condone the modification of its products.”

Kinect became target of many developer since many were excited because of its controller-free gaming and motion sensing and prize offered by open source community and in one case by one of the Google Engineer Matt Cutts.

Initially, Microsoft was not pleased with the popularity of Kinect hacking. “With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering,” the company said in a statement to CNET on the day of the device’s U.S. launch. “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.”

But on Nov 19 during broadcast of National Public Radio’s Science Daily program, director of incubation for Xbox Alex Kipman said that the Kinect was left open “by design.”

The full excerpt is below:

“Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside of the Xbox and was able to actually use them. Which hasn’t happened. Or, it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That’s what we call hacking, and that’s what we put a ton of work and effort in to make sure doesn’t actually occur.

“What has happened is someone wrote a open source driver for PCs, which essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn’t protect by design, and reads the inputs from the sensor.”

Src: [mashable]

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