3 ms·

God forbid they actually open-source their own drivers, and save the community a shitload of work, if this is so magically inspiring for them.

zhyder 16y ago
I'm quite happy with them never releasing the drivers as long as they don't do extra work to prevent hackability. 1. It may take as many man-hours for MS to clean up their drivers for open source consumption as it takes the community to hack bits together. 2. By hacking away from scratch the community is free to explore new ideas that Microsoft hasn't even imagined, whereas the existing drivers will likely be limiting.
sgk284 16y ago
In all fairness, Microsoft spent years buying up every major researcher in artificial vision and many other fields(to the point that Universities started complaining)and spent tens of millions developing this tech. It's something that Sony and Nintendo won't be able to duplicate without lots of money and at least another few years of R&D. I mean sure things can be reverse engineered, but open sourcing this would instantly put Sony and Nintendo in a position to simply make their own hardware and call it a day. I'd love to see the drivers open sourced, because that's where the really interesting things are going on... but that's simply not realistically going to happen. Microsoft really moved the field forward on this one, I completely understand their desire to make some of that money back.
- zacharycohn 16y ago
  Sony already released their "Move" system, which many argue is better than Kinect..
  - DannoHung 16y ago
    Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Move work on completely different principles? I mean, I thought the point of move was the six axis accelerometer combined with the sensor picking up the ball of light?
  - gloob 16y ago
    In all likelihood I'm just putting my own ignorance on display, but I'd never heard of Move before the Kinect came out. Disclaimer: I'm Canadian. XBox won up here.
- wmf 16y ago
  Much of the "magic" of Kinect is performed inside the Kinect, so open drivers still require you to buy a Kinect.
GHFigs 16y ago
save the community a shitload of work Even in the parallel universe in which Microsoft has this obligation it is fulfilled many times over by making the product in the first place.

zhyder 16y ago

I'm quite happy with them never releasing the drivers as long as they don't do extra work to prevent hackability. 1. It may take as many man-hours for MS to clean up their drivers for open source consumption as it takes the community to hack bits together. 2. By hacking away from scratch the community is free to explore new ideas that Microsoft hasn't even imagined, whereas the existing drivers will likely be limiting.

sgk284 16y ago

In all fairness, Microsoft spent years buying up every major researcher in artificial vision and many other fields(to the point that Universities started complaining)and spent tens of millions developing this tech. It's something that Sony and Nintendo won't be able to duplicate without lots of money and at least another few years of R&D. I mean sure things can be reverse engineered, but open sourcing this would instantly put Sony and Nintendo in a position to simply make their own hardware and call it a day. I'd love to see the drivers open sourced, because that's where the really interesting things are going on... but that's simply not realistically going to happen. Microsoft really moved the field forward on this one, I completely understand their desire to make some of that money back.

zacharycohn 16y ago
Sony already released their "Move" system, which many argue is better than Kinect..
- DannoHung 16y ago
  Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Move work on completely different principles? I mean, I thought the point of move was the six axis accelerometer combined with the sensor picking up the ball of light?
- gloob 16y ago
  In all likelihood I'm just putting my own ignorance on display, but I'd never heard of Move before the Kinect came out. Disclaimer: I'm Canadian. XBox won up here.
wmf 16y ago
Much of the "magic" of Kinect is performed inside the Kinect, so open drivers still require you to buy a Kinect.

GHFigs 16y ago

save the community a shitload of work Even in the parallel universe in which Microsoft has this obligation it is fulfilled many times over by making the product in the first place.