SamyGO

Hello. The new Kinect controller for Xbox is already hacked and preliminary open source linux driver exists. Wouldn't it be great if it could be utilized for controlling the TV? Like changing channels and volume by waving hands.

I might soon own one, so I'm going to try if the TV recognizes the device (connects with USB) and if the driver is easily ported to TV.

You can and it's highly possible but your idea defected at thinking level. Because when you are wayching a movie, you can make some reflexes. Those movements are easily leads false interpretations from kinect. Than you will fail to see some goal on soccer/football match might be. Results are might not as good as you expected

Actually it depends how the movements are interpreted. Now I own one, and I must admit that the AI behind it is pretty awesome, and for instance browsing through menu is something that is done with slow and intentional moves, so accidental selections are practically filtered out.

The downside however is that my version that came bundled with the xbox, does not have standard USB, it has some special connector that delivers data & power to the device in a single cable. I guess the device that is not bundled with xbox has normal usb + external power cord, so that would have been the one to try with the TV.

Another thing is that if all the computing is done inside xbox, there is no way TV's processor could run the gesture detection routines, and those should be coded by ourselves. But if the device already has some chip doing preliminary math, and just offers some nice interface through USB, then it's another thing. But I'd guess it just delivers the raw data from all the sensors and the math is done in xbox. That enables more possibilities for game developers anyway.

If you still interested in subject. You can download official drivers for Kinect from www.OpenNI.org