Kinect hackers take control of the action !
Jan 18, 2011
Christopher Baker spent Boxing Day as a VJ – video jockey – for a warehouse party in Liverpool. Among the items being used was a Microsoft Kinect controller, normally used to play Xbox 360 games such as Kinectimals or Kinect Sports. But Baker wasn't playing games: the system was rigged up to a computer running software to interpret the movement data being gathered by the system. The software Baker had written monitored how the clubbers were moving and used that to affect the sound, creating a feedback loop between dancers and sound. "It was popular with the clubbers because they could interact directly with the sound and were immersed in the experience," he says. Baker, who works at Apposing, a mobile app development company based in Liverpool, is one among hundreds of people who have embraced the Kinect not for its potential in gaming (though that is substantial), but because, unusually for an Xbox accessory, its outputs can be put to different – and in some cases revo...
