Hacked Kinect

Nintendo's Wii Remote came close, but never has a video game peripheral garnered such adoration from the hacker community than the Kinect. Since the release of Microsoft's controller-free gaming device last November, there has literally been thousands of fun and useful projec ...more

Video games and art have somewhat of a sticky relationship. Many video games have large teams of talented artists doing amazingly creative work, and yet the art community is only just beginning to utilize video games as art (sometimes). Perhaps if video games were shown not ju ...more

It's remarkable that a gaming device (from Microsoft, no less) designed for geeky gamers has incited broad innovation in medicine and robotics. But that Kinect has captured the imagination of hackers-with-MBAs-in-mind is downright amazing. Below, six videos demonstrating a va ...more

Our hacked Kinect series has demonstrated amply how the Kinect is changing the worlds of business, art, medicine and robotics. But where does it go from here? That will be determined by the thousands of dedicated DIYers out there doing work like you've seen here over the last ...more

In 2007, Nintendo introduced the world to motion control video games with the Wii. Microsoft and Sony built on Nintendo's phenomenal success and released their own motion control products for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 late in 2010: the Kinect and the Move. The Move is bas ...more

That Kinect you bought for your Xbox 360? More than just a game controller, it's a bonafide hologram generator! In the clip below, UC Davis researcher Dr. Oliver Kreylos demos the process. The fun stuff begins at the :44 mark. Kreylos explains, "By combining the color and the ...more

The world has been overflowing with Microsoft Kinect hacks, each more amazing than the last. The latest innovation, created by a group of engineers at USC, promises an exciting future in gaming (and gets gamers off their asses). The program is called FAAST, and allows for full ...more

ProjectKinectMagicMirror combines augmented reality and CT-scan imagery to create a virtual "X-ray machine." Another amazing Microsoft Kinect hack to add to the vault. The ingenuity is infectious... Get inspired. Make-your-own. Video: . More Kinect Hacks: Hacked Kinect Captur ...more

Thanks to Microsoft’s XBOX 360 motion-detecting system, Kinect, the world is becoming a play place for sci-fi style virtual reality. One of the latest hacks demonstrates the next best thing to regular old air guitar... virtual reality air guitar: Artist Chris O'Shea explains h ...more

The Kinect is sure to swarm the homes of Xbox 360 gamers this holiday season. Even though some of us are amazed at the hands-free gaming capabilities it offers, others feel it to be frustratingly limited. Adafruit Industries is one of them. They recently held a competition wi ...more

Nobody could predict the success of Microsoft's Kinect, not even Microsoft themselves. So, it was quite a surprise when it ended up earning a Guinness World Record for fastest-selling consumer electronics device, and an even bigger surprise to see people buying one that didn't ...more

It's no surprise that the Microsoft Kinect can provide far better motion tracking than the HoloLens currently can on its own, but at least one developer didn't want to wait for the company's own eventual implementation. Kyle G, founder and CEO of Wavelength Studios, projected ...more

Think beautiful bokeh photography + just a hint of TRON sensuality and you have photographer Audrey Penven's lovely series entitled "Dancing with Invisible Light: A series of interactions with Kinect's infrared structured light". Penven's process is quite interesting: "With ...more

Since the release of Microsoft's Kinect, there's been no shortage of useful and fun hacks. In the past, we've seen the Kinect modded for things like x-ray vision, World of WarCraft gameplay, air guitar and 3D video. And now there's even a use for all of you MineCraft gamers! ...more

It isn't a new gadget, but the EyeClops Mini Projector still makes a great stocking stuffer for Christmas Day. It's great for kids to play with, but for techies— it's sure to be something fun to hack and mod this holiday season. The EyeClops Mini Projector looks more like Wal ...more

This week, we take a break from the holidays and focus on one of our favorite pastimes: video games. With new releases, hacks, and Easter eggs coming out every day, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the choices available. Never fear: we're here to help you sort out the wheat from ...more

Since the early genesis of the brilliant Microsoft Kinect hack, inventive applications have been popping up nonstop. One of the most fascinating projects to surface recently falls within the realm of 3D printing. "Fabricate Yourself"—a hack presented at the Tangible, Embedded ...more

As a kid, my favorite thing to do at the Natural History museum was a midday stop, when my family strolled past an antiquated looking vending machine in the museum's musty basement. The Mold-A-Rama machine was oddly shaped, George Jetson-esque, and spewed out made-to-order, br ...more

Here's another cool hack using the Kinect, albeit one beyond the reach of most of us. Some students, staff, and professors at MIT have developed "hand detection" software using the Kinect's motion sensor. Below is a demonstration of this software. It recalls Tom Cruise's icon ...more

Screw gaming, let's get to the serious stuff! Here's an amazing video of a Kinect hack that lets one see what its camera sees - in 3D. Instead of 2D images of motion capture, we get the full spatial view. Think of the "bullet time" effect in The Matrix (freeze, rotate, conti ...more

It's been a long time coming, but Microsoft has finally released a software development kit (SDK) for the Kinect on Windows 7 PCs. The word "hacking" is no longer needed, thanks to the free beta download available at Microsoft Research that allows anyone with a Windows compute ...more

Walking, talking, life-size holograms aren't just for staging Hatsune Miku concerts and reviving Tupac, Michael Jackson, and other fallen stars. Holographic technology company VNTANA hacked the Microsoft Kinect to simplify the creation of life-size, 3D projections. For exampl ...more

Let's just say it's been a pretty bad year for spies and government agencies and an even worse one for the privacy of U.S. citizens. Edward Snowden blew the lid off the NSA's spy program, and the FBI was recently discovered to have the ability to access your webcam any time th ...more

With the nation facing a shortage of ventilators for COVID-19 patients and no apparent ramp-up in the production of new ones, engineers, medical resistents, and do-it-yourselfers are sharing plans for homemade versions. But before you go online to start ordering parts for any ...more

Update: The LG G8 ThinQ has been announced. You can read all of the official specs at our full article on the new phone. 2018 was another rough year for LG. The mobile division lost over $700 million last year despite releasing four flagship-caliber phones. LG, however, remai ...more

Back in 2008, media artist Kyle McDonald created a 3D interface that could track movement, which he turned into a virtual Tic-tac-toe game. Video: . In this tutorial, MAKE teaches us how to build one at home using cardboard, aluminum foil, an Arduino, and some basic parts from ...more

We've highlighted the projects of Wavelength Studios a few times over recent months for their work in the augmented and mixed reality space. Since receiving their HoloLens headsets, they've been hard at work on both development community projects as well as efforts for clients ...more

Facial recognition software is being more widely used with every passing day. Your local law enforcement is probably already using it, and it will be even easier for them now that the FBI handed out its own facial recognition software to state authorities. Even the fine folks ...more

The App Store has been around for almost 14 years now, and during that time, we must have seen over a million games come and go and stay and expand. But only a tiny fraction of those games have become blockbuster sensations because of the mighty App Store's reach on iPhone and ...more