Hacker Unlocks Kinect’s 3D Camera, Augmented Reality Next

By Matt Peckham

Another week, another hacked Kinect story. At this rate you’d think Microsoft actually intended the device for homebrew. It’s like watching America’s Got Talent for geeks. Or voyeurs.

The latest hack’s a head-spinner in both the strict and figurative sense.

Imagine running a realtime 3D feed of yourself plunked in front of your computer, a spatially precise video stream you could snap out and spin around at leisure.

Drawing on Kinect’s dual cameras, a UC Davis researcher managed to tap the motion sensor’s depth-tracking prowess with software that scans in objects and reconstructs them in realtime. One camera grabs live video, the other gauges depth, and presto, a camera that captures your good and bad sides simultaneously.

Read the whole story here.