PC World Philippines

Posts Tagged ‘ Xbox 360 ’

The Kinect Hack Compendium!

By Fei on March 7, 2011

By GeekTech Crew
March 7, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Since Microsoft released its Kinect accessory for Xbox 360, it’s become the “it” gadget for hackers. And we’ve seen so many hacks for it since its introduction that, well, we’ve kind of lost count. So to better keep track of it all, we’ve put together this catalog of all the Kinect hacks we’ve covered here on GeekTech.

Feel free to bookmark this page; it’ll be updated regularly as we cover more Kinect hacks. It’s listed in reverse-chronological order, so the newest items will appear at the top. Enjoy.

Last Updated: March 5, 2011

Kinect Hack Class Project Makes You See Ghosts

Mar 3, 2011: Over the course of about two weeks, Nisha Kurani, John Horstman, and their fellow students in Carnegie Mellon’s Special Topics in Interactive Art & Computational Design course hacked Microsoft Kinect cameras. Not for fun, mind you, but for class credit.

Comic Kinect Turns Human Interaction Into a Comic Book Fight Scene

Mar 2, 2011: Life would be better with flashy comic book sound effects. At least, that’s what one group of students thinks. Four students at Carnegie Mellon University worked together to create “Comic Kinect,” a Kinect hack that adds comic book-esque sound effects to ordinary contact. The software tracks users’ skeletons, and then adds graphics where they contact each other to simulate the look of a fight.

Kinect Powered Robot Could Help Earthquake Victims

Mar 1, 2011: A Kinect-powered robot could soon be helping locate earthquake victims, thanks to the engineering ingenuity of a group of U.K. students. The rescue-robot, developed at the University of Warwick by the geeky Warwick Mobile Robotics (WMR) team, could help significantly reduce the costs involved in earthquake rescue attempts.

Kinect Hack Prints Miniature Caricatures in 3D

Feb 28, 2011: There have been plenty of cool Kinect hacks since Microsoft released the motion-sensitive device, so it’s no surprise that the hacks are coming thick and fast, like this really cool 3D printout puzzle piece of yourself.

Kinect Hack Lets You Impersonate An Octopus Impersonating Humans

Feb 25, 2011: Despite Microsoft’s initial disapproval of amateur hackers tampering with the Kinect software and developing custom drivers, the developers behind indie game OctoDad have managed to hack their quirky physics-based puzzle game to allow full motion control; given that OctoDad is all about acting like an uncoordinated octopus strapped inside a human suit, we thought it might be fun to showcase the game in action. Despite blizzard conditions in Illinois the development team at DePaul University were kind enough to record a short video for us of their hack in action.

Android, Kinect Hacked to Work Together: Match Made in Geek Heaven or an Unholy Comingling?

Feb 17, 2011: Using openFrameworks and an Armadillo 500 FX Android tablet, HirotakaSter got the table to show the video feed from the Kinect’s camera. While this setup isn’t doing much more than display video at the moment, we’re pretty excited at the prospect of having a portable Android/Kinect system for hacks while on the run.

Go Super Saiyan, Dragonball Z-Style With Kinect Hack

Feb 3, 2011: Thanks to a new Kinect hack you too can now re-enact scenes from Dragonball Z–all from the comfort of your very own home. Dubbed the Kinect-Kamehameha, the new hack makes use of the Kinect’s motion tracking abilities, enabling you to get your Super Saiyan on in style – complete with oversized hair and energy balls.

Kinect Used to Shoot Music Video, Results Slightly More Normal Than Next Lady Gaga Video

Feb 2, 2011: Dan Nixon and Don Jones recently shot a video for the band Echo Lake, featuring its song Young Silence. The video itself it pretty cool, and seems to fit the song’s almost dream-like sound well. But the most impressive part? It was filmed using a Microsoft Kinect.

The Fast, Fun Guide to Three Microsoft Kinect Hacks

Jan 27, 2011: We follow the latest emerging trends in tech here at PCWorld, so we’ve been hooked on the Microsoft Kinect hacking scene. We decided to try some projects for ourselves and show you how easy it is to get started with Kinect hacks.

Holographic Kinect Hack From a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Jan 24, 2011: What can you hack a Kinect to do? What can’t you hack a Kinect to do? Control a robot? Check. Model the human skeleton? Check. Now MIT Media Lab researchers used a Kinect to capture holographic video, which they then were able to stream over the Internet.

Kinect Hack Makes Robot Mimic Its Master

Jan 17, 2011: This humanoid robot has been programmed to copy your every move via the Kinect. It does this by using the Kinect (connected to a PC) to map the human body; it then sends that data to Japanese robot Website V-Sido. Thanks to the Kinect and V-Sido, the robot-to-human coordination is pretty flawless.

Kinect, Wii Used to Play ‘Call of Duty’ in Epic Gadget Mashup Hack

Jan 11, 2011: So, you want to play some Call Of Duty on your PC? You could do that the old fashioned way, or you could spice things up a little by hooking your PC up to Microsoft’s Kinect and Nintendo’s Wii Remote for some added FPS awesomeness, One avid gamer has done just that, sharing the impressive results on YouTube for all to see.

Magic Mirror Shows You Your Own Skeleton

Jan 3, 2011: Another day, another Kinect hack. The Microsoft motion-control camera is fast becoming the go-to Augmented Reality accessory for the geek set. This week’s demo has a decidedly medical bent; the magic mirror project lets you see a real time view of “your” skeleton like a real-time x-ray.

World Of Warcraft Meets Kinect, WoW Players Get a Serious Workout

Dec 31, 2011: Here’s a Kinect hack via OpenNI (an open source framework tool for Kinect) constructed by Evan Suma, a researcher at the University of Southern California and his team. It’s called FAAST (Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit), and it allows for basic commands and movement to be done via body motion and sound in the game.

‘Minority Report’ Meets Kinect Thanks to MIT

Dec 9, 2010: I’ve wanted a Minority Report-esque way to control my computer for years, especially since a lot of my astronomy image-processing workflow involves countless mouse clicks and there’s no way to automate the process. But I shouldn’t have to wait much longer, thanks to a team at MIT that has created a hand-detection system out of Microsoft’s Kinect camera. By detecting where your palms and fingers are, the Kinect lets you scroll through images, select them, and even enlarge them at will, using one or both hands. No clumsy gloves required!

8 Great Kinect Hacks

Nov 29, 2010: Kinect hacking is taking off at blinding speed. Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller for XBox 360 is less than a month old, and it’s been barely two weeks since Adafruit announced a winner in their Open Kinect competition. Since the, Microsoft has tacitly endorsed opening up the Kinect as a platform, and it seems like there’s a new Kinect hack every couple of hours. It can be tough to keep up with a phenomenon that’s gone from nothing to a full blown scene in less than a month, so as a service to you we’re rounding up GeekTech’s favorite Kinect hacks.

Kinect Hacked to Work With Windows 7

Nov 8, 2010: Kinect, Microsoft’s motion gaming accessory has been hacked–mere days after its release.

Use Your Console Gamepad With Your PC

By Fei on January 28, 2010

By Patrick Miller
January 28, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Mario can’t rescue the princess without his Fire Flower. Mega Man can’t beat Dr. Wily without his Mega Buster. If you’re going to save the world, you need the proper equipment–and a keyboard and mouse just won’t cut it. Fortunately, you can get pretty much any mainstream console gamepad working on a PC, so you won’t have to shell out megabucks for an X-Arcade TankStick to bring back your gaming glory days.

Current Controllers: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii

First off, if you haven’t tried using your Wiimote on your PC, you’re missing out. We’ve got a how-to on using your Wiimote with your PC already, but the abbreviated version is: Get GlovePIE.

Xbox 360 controllers also aren’t too tricky to get working, since they’re made by Microsoft. If you have one with a USB cable already, it should work when you plug it in, but if you’d rather not be tethered to your PC you’ll need to grab an Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver ($25), which will let you use up to four Xbox 360 gamepads and headsets at a time so you can brawl with your buddies.

Stalwart Sony fans will have to install a driver for their PS3 pad–although the pad is automatically detected when you plug it in via USB, it won’t work. You can find different homebrew drivers out there, but the most feature-heavy version comes from MotioninJoy, which supports both Sixaxis and DualShock 3 gamepads for Windows XP/Vista/7 (32-bit and 64-bit). MotioninJoy’s instructions are a little tricky to follow, but here are the basic steps:

- Download and install the MotioninJoy package.
- Restart your PC, and press F8 during startup (after the BIOS is done loading, but before Windows starts) to open the Advanced Boot Options menu, and pick Disable Driver Signature Enforcement. (Doing this could potentially open up your PC to a security risk, so don’t make it a habit.)
- Plug your PS3 pad in.
- Once you’re done booting up, open the MotioninJoy folder in your Start Menu, right-click on Install MotioninJoy Driver, and choose Run As Administrator.
- Open the DS3 Tool app from the MotioninJoy folder and start configuring your PS3 gamepad. Bluetooth support is still a little bit shaky, but USB should work fine.

Classic Gamepads: PS2, SNES, Genesis, and Beyond

If you’re looking to get your Playstation/Playstation 2 controller working, your best bet is a Playstation-to-USB converter, but if you pick the wrong converter you might notice lag or compatibility issues. The Stepmania.com Wiki has a good listing of these converters (as well as GameCube-to-USB converters), though it’s written specifically with Dance Dance Revolution fans in mind.

Just don’t grab one without reading a few reviews first. Generally, these will either have manufacturer-supplied drivers included on a disc or for download, and they’ll be usable with any HID-compliant game software.

Even the grizzled gamers who just can’t bring themselves to play an NES game with a Playstation pad have options. Though a handful of companies make updated versions of classic pads with dimensions similar to the originals, RetroZone caught my eye because it offers adapters for NES, SNES, N64, Atari, Vectrex, and Sega Genesis pads as well as converted NES/SNES USB pads if you don’t have your old gear any more. The adapters typically run for about $22, while the pads are in the $35 range.

But what about gamepads for truly vintage legacy games (which might not support HID devices)? No gamepad how-to would be complete without a link to JoyToKey, a freeware utility that lets you take inputs from any USB gamepad and map them to keyboard inputs, so older PC games won’t be left out from the action.

All you have to do is download JoyToKey, install it, plug in the gamepads you want to use, and assign each button to your desired keyboard input. It takes a little trial and error (the buttons are typically named unhelpful things like Button 1 and Button 2 instead of X and Y or Square and Triangle), so be prepared to spend a few minutes testing it.

Yes Reggie, Wii Netflix Without HD is a Problem

By Fei on January 19, 2010

By Matt Peckham
January 19, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Dear Nintendo, while I respect your president Reggie Fils-Aime’s decision to shrug off the Wii’s inability to do high-definition video as “no loss” in an interview with CNBC, I’m not sure you’re taking the long view.

And if recent HD usage survey results are accurate, you probably should be.

According to a November 2009 Knowledge Networks survey, 43 percent of people “watch HD programs every day,” up from just 26 percent in 2007. That’s a 65 percent increase in two years, significant enough to lead Knowledge Networks’ president to note “This sends a message to advertisers that HD is becoming the new norm for those with HD access across all program types.”

People apparently–and increasingly–want high-definition content. And you know what? Yes, only part of Netflix’s total catalog may be HD-ready today, but what…you think Netflix plans to wait for the Wii to catch up with an HD part? Care to wager how much Netflix’s HD library is going to grow in 2010 alone?

Think about your competition. Microsoft and Sony offer HD streaming content today. Both have deals with Netflix (Microsoft’s is integrated, but even Sony’s disc-based program includes the HD option). Yes, you need a fast connection to qualify for a high-def feed, and no, it still doesn’t look as immaculate as full-on Blu-ray (or for those of you who haven’t switched, HD-DVD–requiescat in pace). But it’s clearly a superior option, and for people slowly (or does that survey now imply ‘quickly’?) awakening to the perquisites of HD video, possibly even a deal-breaker.

Which means:

If you already have a 360 or a PS3, Netflix on the Wii isn’t a reason to buy one. If you have a 360 or a PS3 as well as a Wii, it’s not a reason to use the Wii (unless you want to service another room somewhere). And if you have none of the above but want to buy a Netflix compatible, HD-ready console that complements your existing high-def TV setup, your options are Microsoft or Sony, not Nintendo.

Reggie Fils-Aime’s response in that CNBC interview:

The vast majority of content that’s available for streaming on Netflix is not HD content, so there really is no loss for the Wii consumer, the fact that they can’t get any HD content through our system.

Accurate but shortsighted. As noted, Netflix’s HD development plans are hardly in stasis. But what’s worse, Fil-Aime has to go and conflate two spectacularly different forms of entertainment:

The consumer has voted, over 26 million consumers have bought a Wii. So the consumer is saying that the quality of the visual is not nearly as important as the overall entertainment, the overall value of that experience.

Earth to Nintendo: Movies aren’t games (last I checked, Netflix wasn’t streaming Mario or Donkey Kong). You don’t interact with a movie or TV show the way you do New Super Mario Bros or Wii Fit Plus. Video’s value is its visual content. And in that particular game, speaking as an unabashed videophile, HD matters–more each day.