When Microsoft created the Kinect video game controller, they probably didn't have the Mac in mind for one of the systems it might be able to control. However, a developer by the name of Theo Watson has taken it upon himself to create the software necessary to hookup the camera-based controller to the Mac.
While you cannot yet control anything with the Kinect on the Mac, the potential is there, as the developer shows in the video (embedded below). Currently, the video stream from the camera is able to be captured using an open source PC tool created earlier called libfreenect.
Watson was able to take the open sourced libfreenect tool and create a Mac port that is currently available on his website for those developers interested in hacking around with the Xbox Kinect camera on their Macs.
You can read more information about the port of the libfreenect tools to the Mac and download the software on Theo's Vimeo video page. As you can see from the video below, there are still a few kinks to get worked out, but there is still hope in knowing that we may soon be able to control Mac and PC video games with this new controller.
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justir7
November 19, 2010 at 5:58am
That's pretty incredible. Kudos to him, I could never have done that.
Also, the creator of Kinect came to Apple first to release the technology on OS X in the first place. I THINK that Apple turned it down from what I hear. Not sure.
