http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/12/johnny-chung-lee-joins-pr...

http://www.develop-online.net/news/35198/Source-pins-Kinect-...

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/11/04/what-kinect-looks-like-...

Note: I'm not making any statement about the possible awesomeness or lameness of the system. All I'm saying is the parts aren't expensive.

I think the real point in the original comment was that "serious" business is unlikely to build products competing with 360 on other platforms based on an open source driver for Kinect. E.g. Activision are extremely unlikely to build video games for PC based that require a Kinect.

While there might be a small cost to Microsoft in selling a few Kinect bundles to hackers who don't have, and therefore buy games for, XBox 360 in the grand scheme of things it's hardly a threat to Mircosoft's new business model and this is just the standard corporate answer to anyone tampering with their products.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2006/09/7752.ars

Selling hardware may not actually hurt them, but it obviously their goal is to create a platform on which to upsell games.

It's anticompetitive, distortionary, harms interoperability, and tempts businesses into spending endless amounts of money in an arms race that could better be spent making their products better.

So, I have a hard time sympathizing with arguments that boil down to "if company X makes cool peripheral Y, I am entitled to use it in way Z that is contrary to X's business interests".

My unfounded suspicion is that if the tables were turned, and Microsoft focused its (considerable!) systems research capabilities on, say, disrupting Wattvision's business model, Hacker News wouldn't be leaping to the defense of forced interoperability.

So I'm not particularly sympathetic to people feel like they shouldn't have to pay for a copy of something just because the marginal cost is zero. Leaving aside details like perpetual copyrights on the installment plan, we have a decent legal framework that only works if everyone contributes (cf. taxes).

But game consoles, to borrow your phrasing, are a field notorious for generating a feeling of entitlement among corporations. Same with printer cartridges, mobile phones, and, yes, razorblades. There is no societal need for these pricing schemes when we have an efficient consumer credit market, and they're frankly anticompetitive.

Society benefits from competitive markets, and competitive markets work best when things are forced to be priced at what they're worth. So I would argue that society benefits when loss-leader schemes are rendered infeasible.

Er, yes? Claiming the opposite eviscerates property rights even more than the DMCA already does.

My unfounded suspicion is that if the tables were turned, and Microsoft focused its (considerable!) systems research capabilities on, say, disrupting Wattvision's business model, Hacker News wouldn't be leaping to the defense of forced interoperability.

Barring antitrust issues I have no legal or moral issues with that.

I see the right to design, build, and offer a product to the market under whatever terms I'd like.

These rights are in conflict, and I see that, but let's not pretend that there's no other side to this.

Patents exist not to lock out competition or allow total control over an invention, but as a method for making sure your work isn't stolen (for a limited time) and thus give you a commercial incentive to innovate. It is outright abuse to say that it gives anyone the right to dictate how devices are used, but is sadly an abuse that has become the status quo.

Edit:

Kinect is part of Microsoft’s continuing quest to bring to market natural user interface (NUI) technologies, like touch, voice and gesture-recognition. Maybe it’s also part of a grand plan to force users to continue to exercise (even if that just means by waving a hand) while being increasingly tied to our PCs?

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-kinect-for-gam...

I don't necessarily agree with DMCA restrictions on reverse engineering, but I do support Microsoft's right to sell a closed platform.

In general, though, yes, I think there is a lot of room for improvement in the technology that supports presenters (but that's still no reason not to practice and get comfortable with the tech you have)