Microsoft Does a U-Turn on Kinect Hacking

Ever since DIY electronics company Adafruit Industries successfully unlocked Xbox 360's Kinect motion controller to the open source community, there has been a barrage of awesome implementations of the motion controller in practical applications.

As expected, Microsoft, wasn't amused, and issued threatening statements over the development. Speaking to CNET, a Microsoft spokesperson had said, "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

The threats didn't deter the open source community, which went on to release some impressive examples of the capability of the motion controller. Microsoft has apparently realized the futility of their approach and effectively endorsed the open source viability of their Kinect platform. In a complete contradiction to their stand so far, Microsoft's  Alex Kipman issued a statement saying, "The first thing to talk about is, Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside of the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn't happened. Or, it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That's what we call hacking, and that's what we have put a ton of work and effort to make sure doesn't actually occur. What has happened is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn't protect, by design, and reads the inputs from the sensor."

That clears up the scope for any reverse engineering lawsuits from Microsoft, but what Shannon Loftis, the Studio Manager of Microsoft Game Studios, said pretty much clears up any ambiguity regarding the legality of the Kinect hacks. Speaking on the Kinect mods, Shannon elaborated, "As an experience creator, I'm very excited to see that people are so inspired that it was less than a week after the Kinect came out before they had started creating and thinking about what they could do." Microsoft may have issued a typical corporate kneejerk reaction to the open source exploit of the Kinect, but it has since then realised the potential of this endeavour to generate more sales. Like they say, better late than never.