With Kinect Controller, Hackers Take Liberties @ NYTimes…

Companies respond to this kind of experimentation with their products in different ways — and Microsoft has had two very different responses since the Kinect was released on Nov. 4. It initially made vague threats about working with law enforcement to stop “product tampering.” But by last week, it was embracing the benevolent hackers.

Word of the technical sophistication and low price of the device spread quickly in tech circles.

Building a device with the Kinect’s capabilities would require “thousands of dollars, multiple Ph.D.’s and dozens of months,” said Limor Fried, an engineer and founder of Adafruit Industries, a store in New York that sells supplies for experimental hardware projects. “You can just buy this at any game store for $150.” … On the day the Kinect went on sale, Ms. Fried and Phillip Torrone, a designer and senior editor of Make magazine, which features do-it-yourself technology projects, announced a $3,000 cash bounty for anyone who created and released free software allowing the Kinect to be used with a computer instead of an Xbox.

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