Video: Hacking Microsoft Kinect And A Roomba

[Infiltrator]

Video: Hacking Microsoft Kinect and a Roomba

By NICK BILTON

As soon as the Microsoft Kinect came out last year, programmers and hackers pounced on it in the hope of using it for anything but its intended use as a wireless addition for the Microsoft Xbox that uses a person’s movement as a game controller.

My colleague Jenna Wortham chronicled a number of these “hacks” last year, and since then new integrations pop up online on a regular basis. The sport of hacking the Kinect has become so popular that there are Web sites dedicated to chronicling new use cases.

On Wednesday, I came across this video, in which a Japanese programmer who goes by the name Ogutti online, integrated the Kinect and a Roomba vacuum cleaner to create the “future vacuum.” For this hack, the vacuum can be pointed in any particular direction with just a slight movement of the hand, rather than having to use a remote control. Is it the vacuum cleaner of the future? What do you think?

Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/video-hacking-microsoft-kinect-and-a-roomba/?ref=technology

[digip]

Its a neat experiment and I think a great stepping stone for control of every day devices. Its also kind of odd though, to make controls for a device that was meant to be an autonomous robot who already controls itself to do the job of vacuuming without the need of a human.