Microsoft Denies ''Hacked Kinect'' Reports

[exfileme]

Microsoft said that the Xbox 360's Kinect wasn't hacked.

Microsoft Denies ''Hacked Kinect'' Reports : Read more

 

[chickenhoagie]

so perhaps microsoft is right..I do suppose the term 'hack' is thrown around pretty loosely these days..

 

[Guest]

Hack does seem to have a negative connotation to it. When this is really nothing more then what people have been doing with wii motes and computers.

 

[festerovic]

hack saws and hack jobs have nothing to do with hacking, it can still be a hack. The definition has changed a little since "Hacking the Gibson"

 

[Hupiscratch]

Whoa, where can I find the PlayStation Eye drivers?

 

[nottheking]

Technically, I'd define that as a "Hack." The definition of a hack is generally on the basis of modification, typically in getting a piece of hardware or software to do something other than what its creators intended. In this case, I suppose the Kinect ITSELF might not be fully hacked, because it itself is unmodified... However, it is certainly not doing what Microsoft intended.

Of course, this sort of thing was inevitable. If Microsoft didn't want people making their product do things that they hadn't intended, they shouldn't have released it. At least in the United States, >100-year-old legal precedent allows the purchaser of a product to do almost anything they desire with it.

 

[JeBuSBrian]

[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]If Microsoft didn't want people making their product do things that they hadn't intended, they shouldn't have released it. At least in the United States, >100-year-old legal precedent allows the purchaser of a product to do almost anything they desire with it.[/citation]Microsoft didn't say they wanted to limit how people used Kinect. They simply don't want the bad press associated with the term "hack". I have no doubt that we'll soon see Microsoft MVPs publishing information regarding using Kinect with Win7. MS won't say anything about those, either, because generally, an MVP wouldn't use the term "hack", they'd simply refer to it as a device driver. Microsoft was simply saying that their device wasn't hacked, so the lay end-user need not worry.

 

[belardo]

So in reality, he made a wrapper for the thingy.

 

[eddieroolz]

I wouldn't really call it a hack, but rather a modification.

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

Hacking (English verb to hack, singular noun a hack) refers to the re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer.

Looks pretty apt to me.

 

[mauller07]

To be honest i do believe the term hack does not apply, there was no modification to the system or software on the xbox or kinect, it is more addition of third party device support ie windows pc

you dont say you hacked a device when writing a driver for it to support say linux.

 

[g00fysmiley]

i agree, by definition what he did was in fact a hack... but understandably they don't want people to think its been hacked in some sort of way that comprimises your security just by owning one .. there are consuymers ike that who woudl say oh i heard that got hacked and makes all your info vonerable by virtue of having it i can't get that for my child its unsafe

 

[Travis Beane]

What I don't understand is why you can't use it with a PC in the first place. You can use most Xbox 360 accessories with a PC legitimately.
Buddy think he could do some better drivers for using a PS3 controller on PC via bluetooth though? The current ones out there are buggy.

 

[verenos]

He did not hack the Kinect. He hacked Windows via a custom driver to use the Kinect plain and simple

 

[magicandy]

Now the real question: Can MS take legal action? Is this simply "unsupported", as in MS will not take customer support claims based on it, or is it just plain against the EULA? I don't own Kinect so I haven't seen the EULA, but if it explicitly states that you can't make drivers for other devices, then Alex P might find this to be the end of his community hacking endeavors.

 

[bv90andy]

[citation][nom]chickenhoagie[/nom]so perhaps microsoft is right..I do suppose the term 'hack' is thrown around pretty loosely these days..[/citation]
Doesn't "hack" mean to make something do something or work in other ways then it was designed to? That's the definition I know and I think the term was used correctly.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

It's a network attached camera (that can see in the dark) and a microphone stuck dab in the middle of your living room like an Orwellian telescreen. MSFT certainly doesn't want a "hack" to be misportrayed as something it isn't.

 

[fjjb]

i think the term crack is WAY more controversial than hack.

 

[Guest]

It's still a hack, because the driver had to be reverse engineered. If the protocol was freely available what we would have here is just someone writing a USB device driver, but it wasn't freely available, it had to be 'hacked'.

I agree that the term is rather vague and loosely thrown around these days, but under the basic definition of 'getting something to work in a way it wasn't intended', this is definately a hack as the intended use is for it to be plugged into a 360 and used for games.