Hacking Kinect
After some initial resistance, Microsoft is now permitting hackers to create novel applications for its Kinect hands-free game controller, and less than three weeks after the device’s release, some fascinating projects are already starting to appear. An article in today’s NY Times lays out some of the early ideas. This video gives you a small sense of what’s possible. The author, Oliver Kreylos, has extracted images from two of the device’s cameras — the depth image and the color image, as he calls them, and uses them to reconstruct video that can be moved and reshaped in 3D space. In this video, Mehmet Akten uses the box to do some crude in-the-air drawing with his hands. At in this one, designers Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille use the device (apparently connected to a Mac) to make a projected puppet track hand movements. Not bad for a couple of short weeks! This technology may or may not be precise enough for useful work, but I’d sure like to see somebody try connecting it to an editing interface.
Splice Now 
November 22, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I think it all comes down to, with what you can edit faster. I mean you can promote “the virtual keyboard” as much as you want but if you arent able to edit faster – then in the end it wont be accepted. I think you can edit fast enough with the right keyboard settings. I think it will be possable in the near future that these interfaces melt together – and could speed up the editing process. Still if it makes editing very very easy (kinda like guitar hero did with a the guitarplaying part – i mean thats just an insult to an realy guitar player) it will reduce the quality of the creative work. I think what would make sense is, to intigrate a very simple editing program/app into the nextgen consoles (like imovie/Windows Movie Maker) so people could record and edit there game session and upload it (youtube,vimeo etc.). Again i think thats no realy editing. Its like playing guitar in guitarhero. Looks like editing in the end its just pressing buttons and not realy creative work ;)
November 24, 2010 at 9:18 am
Yea, speed is important, sure. But I keep hoping for an editing model that feels more like playing a musical instrument. That might or might not be faster but it would allow you to find your way through the material in a more organic, more connected, more instinctive way. For example, in MC when you are looping a trim and hit a mark button, the trim adjusts live. That’s more organic than actually manipulating the cut — you feel the rhythm and respond — and, at the same time, it’s faster, too.
Steve
November 23, 2010 at 1:06 pm
The exciting part about this, beyond the obvious democratization aspect of it, is what it promises for distance collaboration at lower cost. You’ll be able to do some part of what Cameron did on AVATAR (and what percentage that is will surely increase over time) wherever the talent lies.