$2,000 Bounty For Open Source Xbox Kinect Drivers 274
ptorrone writes "Open source hardware company Adafruit Industries is offering a $2,000 bounty for the first person or group to upload driver code and examples under an open source license to GitHub for the Xbox Kinect released yesterday. The Kinect sensor outputs video at a frame rate of 30Hz, with the RGB video stream at 32-bit color VGA resolution (640×480 pixels), and the monochrome video stream used for depth sensing at 16-bit QVGA resolution (320×240 pixels with 65,536 levels of sensitivity). The open hardware group would like to see this camera used for education, robotics and fun outside the Xbox."
The bounty was originally $1,000, but Microsoft's dour response induced Adafruit to double it. ("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.") In addition, the Xbox 360 dashboard update that preceded Kinect's launch contains upgraded anti-piracy restrictions.
Re:bounty (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what I thought at first. But then, I thought that people are likely to try to get a driver for that just for fun, and for free. Putting a bounty is a way to push people into doing it faster and releasing it publicly.
Re:Safeguards, product tampering, law enforcement? (Score:3, Interesting)
The razor and blade model works for razors and blades. Even if you want to repurpose them to slit your wrists, you have to buy the more profitable blades rather than the useless loss-leader razor.
It doesn't work so great for anything actually interesting that people might buy for reasons other than subsidizing your business model.
Howto : set up a clean-room project ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there some sort of guide on how to structure a reverse-engineering project to ensure it's done properly?
Re:bounty (Score:2, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I write on the Adafruit blog, and I work with them, but I am not connected in any way with the OK Prize that they're offering. I just want to give my own perspective here.
It's not about the $2000. Granted $2k isn't a fortune or anything, but it's significant. As many have said, there are quite a few people who would do this for free, just because it's a challenge. That said, it would be nice to get some shekels for your hard work too, wouldn't it?
I personally feel that Adafruit did this as much to make a point as to provide a monetary reward. I think Phil and Limor both believe very strongly in the idea that if you purchase a product, you should be able to do whatever-the-hell you want with it. There are others who feel differently (particularly some manufacturers), and would seek to restrict the use of "their" products, even after they have been bought and paid for.
I viewed this "bounty" more as a challenge to the idea of restricted products than as a reward for being clever, though that is an equally noble idea.
They have "thrown down the gauntlet" so to speak, and I think it's pretty damn cool that they did. Of course, Microsoft just stamped their feet and pouted.
Re:Is reverse engineering still legal ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft controls my Ubuntu install?
Who knew?
Corrections (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is the only company that has locked those down in the first place. Microsoft just added a walled garden app store; historically it was pretty wide open.
Yes and "historically" Apple has computers you can open and work on easier than PC's. Nothing really matters "historically", what matters is what they are doing NOW. And in that way Microsoft is just as closed as Apple.
And comparing the AppleTV to an Xbox is a superficial comparison.
It would have been had I compared an AppleTV to an XBox. Instead I was lumping it in with other IOS devices as things Apple doesn't really do much to stop jailbreaking on.
Apple also doesn't doesn't support blue ray(sic) because Steve wants to push his online distribution model.
Apple doesn't support blu-ray in part because of the licensing, although I'm sure the aspect of selling videos through other channels comes into play as well.
Similarly, they disallow flash on their devices without valid reason.
Well actually the reason is a dramatic drop in battery life. And Apple doesn't "disallow" Flash on anything except for iOS devices - they've just stopped including it by default in some computers. Which to bring the whole thing full circle, is exactly what Microsoft does with Flash...
Re:Ah the good old days (Score:3, Interesting)
That's rather silly. If they don't want to subsidize other uses, I guess they should sell the product for a profitable retail price.
They are free to police their online games as they like. There are even legitimate reasons to do so.
Yes, tricked up balls and bats are not permitted in a regulation game. However, if you modify a baseball bat for home defense, propping up your hood, or any other purpose including looking really impressive in a non-regulation sandlot game, MLB will not try to stop you.