Google engineer announces Cash prizes for Kool Kinect hack

One of the public noted Google engineer Matt Cutts, on his blog announced a cash prize for the best open-source and Linux-based projects built on Microsoft’s Kinect.

Kinect is an motion-sensing camera designed for Xbox 360.

Cutts thinks the Kinect is exciting, he writes, “Before I joined Google (Google), I was a grad student interested in topics like computer vision, motion self-tracking, laser scanners–basically any neat or unusual sensing device… If I were still in grad school, I’d be incredibly excited–there’s now a $150 off-the-shelf device that provides depth plus stereo and a lot more.”

So he is offering $2k bounty in prizes to the geeks who can come up with the coolest hacks for the Kinect.

A $1,000 prize will be given to the developer or developers who create the best open-source program or demo using the Kinect. A second $1,000 prize will be awarded to the dev or devs who make it simplest to write Kinect programs on Linux (Linux).

2.5 million units of the Kinect sensor have been sold as of November 29, 2010, of which 1 million were sold within 10 days of its North American launch.

Src: [mattcutts.com/blog]

Google engineer announces Cash prizes for Kool Kinect hack