A “Microsoft” Hide and Seek

What do you do when In a game of hIde and seek you hIde In one of those new places and then get caught almost ImmedIately? You eIther say that you dIdn’t really bother to hIde properly or you say that you actually wanted the game to end. MIcrosoft’s new technIcal strategy depIcts a sImIlar scenarIo. A few days after MIcrosoft launched the famous Xbox KInect, It was “hacked” or how MIcrosoft puts It, “adapted”.

InItIally, Xbox KInect was actually an add-on to the Xbox console. ThIs IndIrectly meant that those who wanted MIcrosoft’s controller free gamIng experIence, they had to buy Xbox anyway. But not after thIs guy MartIn, openly declared that he has hacked KInect. What he actually dId was to make KInect compatIble wIth hIs PC wIth an addItIon of a drIver. It was defInItely IngenIous, because he just bought the KInect and no Xbox. ReactIon came from MIcrosoft fIrst In the form of a threat to sue MartIn and then In the form of praIse. Under the law concernIng hackIng, addItIon of a new drIver does not qualIfy as hackIng because It does not change the orIgInal desIgn of the devIce. MIcrosoft realIzed that they dId not have a case faIrly quIckly and so they changed theIr strategy.

AccordIng to the telegraph, MIcrosoft awarded a prIze for thIs adaptatIon and claImed that theIr desIgn was an “open-sourced” one. So much so, Alex KIpman, the program manager for the company claImed that such an actIon was not really able to change theIr algorIthms because MIcrosoft has not made them vulnerable.

How thIs affects the further hackIng of Xbox KInect Is yet to be seen.