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Kinect meets a Pufferfish display, produces wonderfully creepy all-seeing eye (video)
As Kinect hacks go, this one's not going to bowl you over with its technical complexity, but the effect of what it does is quite dramatic. One of Microsoft's sensor-rich, camera-laden Xbox accessories has been repurposed to communicate with a Pufferfish spherical projection display -- via the magic of WPF and openni -- with its motion tracking algorithms serving to control the image on the giant ball. Naturally, the first thing the tweakers behind this mod thought up was a Tolkien-inspired eye that follows people around the room. Sadly, the single Kinect box isn't enough to provide 360-degree coverage, but it's probably just a matter of time until they splice an array of them together and creep us out completely. Video after the break. Update: You asked for the eye of Sauron and now you've got it. Second video added after the break.
Wiimote re-purposed for glove-based multi-touch system
Our new hero Johnny Chung Lee has already put the Wiimote to use for various multi-touch and multi-point systems (not to mention head-tracking), but it looks like others are slowly starting to follow in his footsteps, and the folks at Cynergy Labs have now produced one of the most polished "hacks" to date. Dubbed Project Maestro, the setup is built upon Microsoft's Windows Presentation System (or WPF) and uses a pair of Minority Report-style IR gloves to give you "multi-touch at a distance." That, as you can see in the video after the break, allows for an interface not unlike Microsoft's Surface -- without the "surface," of course. Unlike Johnny Lee's projects, however, the goods behind this one aren't available to the public just yet (for free or otherwise), but hopefully that'll change before too long.[Thanks, Henry]
