If you've been following our coverage on Adafruit's audacious reverse engineering endeavour for the Kinect motion controller, you must have seen the DIY company post a bounty for the job, followed by a gentleman named Hector Martin winning the same. This was a victory for the open source community, which had so far sought to bring the Kinect technology for research and engineering purposes; much to the consternation of Microsoft, who, as expected, is more concerned about maintaining a vice like monopoly on the same.

While Martin put his prize money to buy equipments for future reverse engineering projects, Adafruit foresaw a backlash from Microsoft and donated another $2000 to the non-profit Internet and consumer rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, to insulate itself and the hacker from subsequent legal tangles. You can't blame Adafruit for being paranoid, considering Microsoft has already issued thinly veiled threat in its statements. Speaking to CNET, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products. With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law nforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Microsoft is tripping all over itself with its hasty statement. Because the acts of violation claimed by Microsoft just may not be illegal in this context. Tinkering around with hardware or capturing bitstream isn't always illegal, especially since it's done on a non-profit basis in this context. So this is still a grey area, unlike what Microsoft may like you to believe. Microsoft's mention of product safety as one of its hacking concerns is equally incredulous. I find it hard to think of any conceivable scenario where capturing data from the Kinect may endanger the well being of anyone - except Microsoft, of course.

Microsoft's reaction takes a turn for the bizarre with its latest statement that says, "Kinect for Xbox 360 has not been hacked -in any way - as the software and hardware that are part of Kinect for Xbox 360 have not been modified. What has happened is someone has created drivers that allow other devices to interface with the Kinect for Xbox 360." This latest volte-face categorically nullifies their earlier legal threat, putting Adafruit and Hector in the green. Microsoft's intentions are quite confusing at the moment, so nothing concrete can be deduced till the suits at Microsoft get into a huddle and decide what they really want to do about this. If at all, that is.


Microsoft further clarified explaining, "The creation of these drivers, and the use of Kinect for Xbox 360 with other devices, is unsupported. We strongly encourage customers to use Kinect for Xbox 360 with their Xbox 360 to get the best experience possible." In short, instead of doing something decidedly cool like building robots capable of face recognition, using Minority Reportesque UI interfaces for computers, or running homebrew solutions for Kinect enabled games and programs, Microsoft believes you'll have the best experience with the few odd Kinect titles on the Xbox 360. Hmm... now that is a tough one.