A few days after its US release, Kinect for Xbox 360 was hacked and it now supposedly works on computers running Windows 7 operating systems.
A company in New York, Adafruit, announced that it will offer a bounty of 2,000 dollars to whoever created a driver that would allow Kinect to work on something else than Xbox 360.
The reward may have been claimed, as a video on YouTube was showing the Kinect camera tracking the motions of a Windows 7 based PC user and data from Kinect’s accelerometer.
Microsoft’s reaction to the news was not a positive one. The company emphasized that they do not condone the modification of their products, according to Redmont Pie. Microsoft also added that Kinect has built-in safeguards that make it resistant to tampering.
As for the motivation of Adafruit, they said that Kinect is simply amazing and its use should not be exclusive to Xbox 360 users.
According to Microsoft plans, Kinect was only planned to work on PCs when Windows 8 came out.
The motion-sensitive gadget was released only a few days ago in the US, on November 4, and it will also be launched in Europe on November 10.
Kinect’s competitors are Wii Remote with Wii MotionPlus for Wii and the PlayStation Move motion control system PS 3 home consoles.
