Johnny Chung Lee got me interested in the topic of immersive devices when he demo'ed a Wiimote hacked with a PC being used to turn any surface into a large touchable interface. He joined MS for awhile, and helped bring us the Kinect. Apparently he also started the whole Kinect hacking craze.
I actually have a secret to share on this topic. Back in the late Summer of 2010, trying to argue for the most basic level of PC support for Kinect from within Microsoft, to my immense disappointment, turned out to be really grinding against the corporate grain at the time (for many reasons I won't enumerate here). When my frustration peaked, I decided to approach AdaFruit to put on the Open Kinect contest. For obvious reasons, I couldn't run the contest myself. Besides, Phil and Limor did a phenomenal job, much better than I could have done. Without a doubt, the contest had a significant impact in raising awareness about the potential for the Kinect outside of Xbox gaming both inside and outside the company. Best $3000 I ever spent.
This probably sold more devices and got more PR for Microsoft than any banner hung from the CN Tower.
And now they announced the legit drivers will be available directly from MS in the spring.
Hopefully they support the Kinect with another HD Webcam connected to the same PC.
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