yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

12 BEST Kinect HACKS


2m read
·Nov 10, 2024

Vsauce, hello! Michael here.

In IMG 12, I showed you some Kinect fails, but today I want to explore my favorite Kinect wins. The Kinect tracks 20 joints on your body 30 times a second, and with simple drivers, people from all over the world are taking it into their own hands.

Besides exploiting the fact that it's an actual 3D camera, people are harnessing it to play all sorts of games with their hands in the air like they just don't care. For example, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Super Mario Brothers, or this guy who made a demo of 3D Tetris where your hands manipulate the pieces and you can move your head to change the screen's perspective.

A few days ago, Kevin showed you a guy who used the Kinect to track his nipples and cover them up. Well, if you're less shy, do what this guy did—program your Kinect to recognize and reify your air guitar. It's like playing Rock Band but without all the plastic paraphernalia.

This guy let it detect his body but then replaced it with the back wall to make him the Invisible Man. Creepy, right? Well, not as creepy as this. Here's someone who took the Kinect's recognition of his body and had it transformed him in real time to a giant pillowy blob mutant.

In case you're curious, yes, he did make a follow-up video with his cat. But why not mount the Kinect on a robot and use it as the robot's eyes? Well, these people did. And since the Kinect sees in 3D, of course, it's a flying robot.

Question: What if the Star Wars kid was not only a dork but also a geek? Answer: He may have done what this guy did—use the Kinect to track a wooden stick and give it a lightsaber overlay. Or, if you prefer Christmas lights, check out this girl who can control lights like a conductor by waving her hands.

To see more of these and other Kinect hacks, or to get pointers on how to experiment yourself, check out kinecthacks.net or follow the links in this video's description where links to everything I covered can be found.

Oh, oh, and let me know in the comments below what year you think it will be when our brains are completely replaced by computers: 2070, 3015, or are you one of those crazy people on the street who think it already happened? Well, either way, I want to know. Leave it in the comments, and as always, thanks for watching! [Music]

More Articles

View All
Saving the Florida Wildlife Corridor | National Geographic
[Music] Florida is like no other place on earth. It’s the land, it’s the water, it’s the people. And the Florida wildlife corridor is the backbone that connects it all. But we are seeing changes because of those thousand people a day that are moving to Fl…
Sun 101 | National Geographic
While billions of stars are scattered throughout the universe, the one at the center of our solar system plays a special role for us here on Earth. Our Sun formed about 4.5 billion years ago in the Milky Way galaxy’s Orion’s fur. It was born when a cloud …
How to sell private jets to billionaires
So Steve, tell me, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve ever learned in business? Couple things. One, no doesn’t necessarily always mean no. Never give up, never give up no matter what. And you have to set a target in order to reach one. How old were you wh…
Coffee Farmers Hopeful For Their Dying Crops | Short Film Showcase
Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil. Socially and ecologically, it still represents a big chunk of Guatemala’s economy, Guatemala’s social networks, and biodiversity sustainability as well. Recent outbreaks of pests and infestations linke…
Ross Ice Shelf Research | Continent 7: Antarctica
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest lump of floating ice in the world. So little is known; the surface of Pluto has much better imagery than what’s beneath Raphael. It’s a lot of new stuff that we’re going to discover. No one’s ever done this before; it’s e…
Making a Live Trap | Live Free or Die
Thorne’s girlfriend Delia’s counting on him to make sure they stay stocked up on meat, but he’s new to trapping and still doesn’t have a handle on the habits of all the wildlife in the area. “Now I’m gonna actually make a live trap. It’s kind of like a p…