Microsoft Announces "Kinect Accelerator" to Turn Hacks into Businesses

[Jennifer Brooke]

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27369/?ref=rss

Anyone interested in this?

[Γιάννης Γράβεζας]

I applied but I suspect they'll have a bias towards hacks made with the official SDK. I hope the kinect effect commercial had at least a glimpse of sincerity in it.

On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Jennifer Brooke <jrubi...@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27369/?ref=rss

Anyone interested in this?

--
bliss is ignorance

[Vahag]

I think it is very good and correct step from Microsoft.

They want there Kinect market back.

I`ll apply ))

Vahagn

[Joshua Blake]

Just wanted to make sure everyone thinking about applying understands that the Kinect Accelerator isn't a paid Kinect hacking summer camp. It's designed as investment into early stage startups. They give your company $20k, space to work, and introductions to Angel investors and Venture Capitalists and in return they (TechStars, not Microsoft) will own 6% of your company. It'll require a serious business and a path towards a liquidity event in order to attract this and future investments.

 

Thanks,

Josh
---
Joshua Blake
Microsoft Surface MVP
OpenKinect Community Founder http://openkinect.org

(cell) 703-946-7176
Twitter: http://twitter.com/joshblake
Blog: http://nui.joshland.org
Natural User Interfaces in .NET book: http://bit.ly/NUIbook

[Fred Song]

Is the Kinect Accelerator the only way to legally create a startup
based around the Kinect? The article in the OP states the Official
Kinect SDK is only for non-commercial use.

[drew.m...@gmail.com]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice.

The Kinect Accelerator program does appear to be the only way at
present to legally create a startup using the Microsoft Kinect SDK.
I'm under the impression that you're fine creating a startup using
libfreenect or OpenNI, so long as your redistribution follows the
Apache2 or LGPL licenses, respectively.

[Vahag]

AFAIK in 2012 Microsoft will release the new version of SDK, which will be for commercial use.

You don`t need to apply for Kinect Accelerator, to be allowed to create commercial products for Kinect.

Regaring to OpenNI - Yes you can create commercial products based on it.
One benefit of OpenNI is, that you can use any depth  senssor, which has OpenNI compatible hardware. Now there are few such a senssors like Kinect, Asus Xtion Pro and etc.

Vahagn

[Γιάννης Γράβεζας]

I had a wild thought that may seem far fetched but I'll share it with you anyway.

Microsoft seems to have adopted a positive attitude towards the hackers scene.

Would it be wise to petition for an "open" kinect driver for their next SDK release?

Open in the sense of providing bindings that would allow for wrapping in libusbemu.

This would be a big plus for them, marketing wise, as well as for the users, option wise.

What are your thoughts on that, is it just a wet dream or could it be actively pursued?

--
bliss is ignorance