More Kinect Hacks!

Minecraft + Kinect = Awesome Statues

The first part of this hack, allows you to use the Kinect to scan images of yourself and whatever else you choose into the game Minecraft. The creator of said hack, Nathan Viniconis states the goal of this hack: take a sequence of snapshots from a Kinect and transform them into a stop motion animation within Minecraft. This is the second phase of the Minecraft-Kinect integration project. To find tutorials and a plethora of juicy details on the project, visit his website here.

The next part of this hack allows you allows you to scale said statue and, even better, now supports animations for up to three seconds. So you’re rock statue clone can now wave and say “hi”!

Kinect Mapping the World

Martin Szarski strapped a Kinect to his car, connected it to a laptop and used a Nexus One for geotagging and took off creating a “point cloud” that collected data on a stretch of road, including both buildings and scenery (as seen in the image above). The project uses libfreenect and the .NET wrapper for same, along with OpenTK for the Matrix maths and Proj.NET for the spatial transforms. There is a lot more included with this hack considering Szarski wrote his own software intitially to register the depth image from the Kinect and turn it in to a metric point cloud with real distances – those details can be found on his blog Decorator Pattern (that has the same theme as this one).The possibilities contained within this hack are very substantial. This technology could/should be used in future games to create ultra-realistic maps of areas familiar to the gamer to make more of an immersive experience.

Angry Birds controlled by the Kinect

A YouTube user known as TheTVTaster has crafted a way to use his Kinect and his iPod Touch to play Angry Birds on his PC. Unfortunately, there is no further details on the video’s description, nor on Kinect Hacks where it was posted, but I hope you enjoy the video nonethless!

[Source: Joystiq, KinectHacks]

Samsung Vibrant Gets Froyo

After 7 months of waiting, a few broken promises, and a whole ton of controversy, Samsung released Froyo for the T-Mobile Vibrant. You may not have heard about the because it is not an OTA (Over The Air) update, but the link at the bottom of the page will get your Vibrant up to date and running smoother than ever.

The following statements were released by SamsungMobileUS and T-Mobile via twitter:

An official update was released on T-Mobiles blog as well. The blog also included a tutorial on how to update your phone via Samsung’s Kies Mini.

You can update your phone by going to the following link: Samsung Vibrant Froyo(2.2) Update

I personally own the Samsung Vibrant for T-Mobile and have been waiting for this update for quite some time now. The first couple boots after the update were very scary, the buttons were not working for a while, but after a few resets, everything started to click into place. The new features are very nice including: Wi-Fi calling, Wi-Fi Tethering, and a few updates that enhance the software. The update also came with some aesthetic changes, including new icons, a new search tray and colored settings icons. Battery life does seem to take little bit of a plunge with the update, and the initial start-up was a little intense, but the phone seems to be functioning much faster than ever and after three days has yet to freeze up on me.

Have fun with the update and let us know what you think in the comments.

App Store hits 10,000,000,000 downloads

As of yesterday, January 22, 2011, Apple’s App Store has hit 10,000,000,000 downloads. That is a crap-ton of individual apps downloaded from their application directory. Leading up to this epic sale, Apple has been promoting a campaign on their website with a countdown until the 10 billionth app was downloaded. The owner of the 10 billionth app was promised a $10,000 iTunes giftcard and if it was a photo app, MacPhun promised an additional $1,000 gift card (or $5,000 for their app FC Photo Studio). Unfortunately for Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK, it was neither of these. Davis purchased Paper Glider, a free app that engages the gamer in some finger-flicking fun.

10,000,000,000 apps… that’s an incredible feat. Think of it like this, there were more apps downloaded from the App Store than there are people on the entire planet. The Android Market is at 2,750,800,000, and moving at a pace of 1,000 apps every 9 seconds ,while the App Store is at a much faster rate of 1,000 apps every 3 seconds. Sorry Android, just another place where you have fallen short compared to the corporate behemoth.

[Source: Apple]

Verizon's iPhone commercial "It begins" and Apple's "Two is better than one"

“To our millions of customers, who never stopped believing this day would come… Thank you.” Oh Verizon, you’re so customer-friendly. As the beginning of a very spectacular era begins, Verizon begins their ad campaign with gentle thanks to the “millions” who have been praying for the iPhone to wear Red. The video is fresh, as of this posting, the official YouTube video has only 303 views.

UPDATE

Apple’s new advertisement takes two of the fiercest competitors known to the wireless device industry and coerces them to waltz (if that’s what they’re implying… the music sure makes me think of that). This commercial distinctly points out that the Verizon iPhone can do everything the AT&T iPhone can do. After all, “two is better than one.” You’re absolutely right Apple, for your wallet.

Verizon’s iPhone commercial “It begins” and Apple’s “Two is better than one”

“To our millions of customers, who never stopped believing this day would come… Thank you.” Oh Verizon, you’re so customer-friendly. As the beginning of a very spectacular era begins, Verizon begins their ad campaign with gentle thanks to the “millions” who have been praying for the iPhone to wear Red. The video is fresh, as of this posting, the official YouTube video has only 303 views.

UPDATE

Apple’s new advertisement takes two of the fiercest competitors known to the wireless device industry and coerces them to waltz (if that’s what they’re implying… the music sure makes me think of that). This commercial distinctly points out that the Verizon iPhone can do everything the AT&T iPhone can do. After all, “two is better than one.” You’re absolutely right Apple, for your wallet.

Second Windows Phone 7 jailbreak announced

Julien Schapman, a Windows Phone developer, is planning to release a modified Windows Phone 7 Device Manager software that includes a second WP7 jailbreak even more innovative than ChevronWP7’s method. Schapman is planning on releasing the Device Manager software after the first software update due in February. This update is primarily to disable ChevronWP7’s jailbreak software. The application will allow owners to manage their applications, explore devices, create device backups, add ring-tones and sync favorites. Device Manager will also jailbreak Windows Phone 7 and allow for the side-loading of applications. In his project blog, Schapman says you can also connect to your phone via Wi-Fi, for example to transfer files from/to your phone using Windows Phone Device Manager or the provided Windows Phone application.

He also mentions the idea of creating an open marketplace for non-commercial applications a la Cydia? “My unlock method is similar to that of ChevronWP7 in the way they both use a fake registration server, but my method is different and more reliable,” wrote Schapman in an email to WinRumors. “For example it automatically detects when a WP7 is plugged in and will check if this is a registered developer phone, if not it will register it once and for all, so the device will never re-lock like with ChevronWP7.”

He would not disclose any more information on his method for fear of Microsoft finding out and disabling his antics before they begin. “As a developer I worked on this unlock method in order to create homebrew apps for the community without having to pay a $99 subscription which is aberrant to me!” said Schapman.

He does not condone piracy. He made that clear, “I don’t want to see WP Device Manager used in that purpose, if needed I will work with Microsoft to prevent this,” he said. Schapman also plans to remove the unlock feature if Microsoft provides an official free method. “Unlocking is not the main feature of WP Device Manager, and I hope to remove it as soon as there will be an official way to use my app on any device.”

[Sources: WinRumors (all quotes are taken directly), TouchXperience (Schapman’s blog)]

Minecraft documentary coming via 2 Player Productions

For those of you who have never heard of Minecraft, Joystiq describes the indie game as a sandbox construction game created by Markus Persson and is currently in pre-release alpha. Minecraft development started around May 10, 2009. The game involves players creating and destroying various types of blocks in a three dimensional environment. The player can form fantastic structures, creations and artwork across the various multiplayer servers in multiple game modes. The underground game, which can be downloaded here, has undergone an explosion in popularity over the last 12 months. The appeal lies in being able to create whatever you want, the possibilities are endless – a giant panda, a tree house, a roller coaster, COD maps… yes even COD maps. Estate from MW2, Rust from MW2, Nuketown from Black Ops and Shipment from MW are among the first shown after a quick search in YouTube.

Indie filmmakers 2 Player Productions will be releasing a documentary on Mojang Studios, the creators of Minecraft, sometime in February. After scrutinizing 2PP’s Twitter account, you can find a tweet from a Mojang employee that describes the film crew “documenting [their] first stumbling steps” back in January. All of you Minecraft junkies can hop along in jubilee next month.

[Sources: Joystiq, Bytejacker]