My previous post made me realize I hadn't done one of these in a few days. Time for another round of Kinect goodness. You may always find the latest Kinect hacks at KinectHacks.net and Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Tom Wyatt creates "Evil Genius Simulator" using Kinect to control Tesla coils.

2) Hacker uses Kinect to enable home automation.

3) Yves Quemener recreates Hans Rosling's TED talk interface visualizing live data sets. I went ahead and posted Rosling's talk below for comparison.

Professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos of the University of Minnesota saved his department over $100,000 by integrating a Kinect with his research. The Kinect is being used to observe and diagnose children who may be displaying symptoms of various mental disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder.

With the Kinect, Papanikolopoulos hypothesizes doctors will one day be able to receive simplified data that can help with diagnoses...Initially, Papanikolopoulos envisioned purchasing a $100,000-plus system that would do similar observations of a child...

"Is a $100,000 system being outsmarted by a $150 toy?" Papanikolopoulos said of his initial reaction to the idea..."Indeed this is the case."

I've been trying to save Kinect hack updates for Saturday, since its usually a difficult day to find good sci-tech news. But, these were too cool, so I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on them.

I'm sure there will be more. You may always view the latest Kinect hacks at KinectHacks.net and Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Chris O'Shea allows Kinect users to swap bodies with the previous Kinect users.

2) Evoluce demos their incredible Kinect computer interface with Windows 7.

3) Synaptic Robots develops Kinect control of an ABB industrial robot.

Saturday's are often slow days to blog sci-tech news and today is no different. Many organizations hold off news announcements till Monday. So, let's take a look at what the (always reliable) Kinect community has cooked up over the recent week. 

You may always view the latest Kinect Hacks at KinectHacks.net or Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) A creepy humanoid robot in Germany uses motion sensing technology to interact with humans.

2) VJ in Argentina named Pixel Perez uses the Kinect in a live outdoor festival.

3) Enrique Ramos posts a Kinect Controlled Delta-Robot

You may view the latest Kinect Hacks at KinectHacks.net or Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Children draw and then create their own immersive fantasy worlds using Kinect.

Little Magic Stories from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

2) Microsoft engineers allow you to paint on table, manipulate a 3D mouse and turn your television into a window inside virtual reality. 

3) Peter Daukintis creates a drum set using Kinect.

...because they're getting to be everywhere. Literally, I could turn Logic-Cool into a Kinect hack blog, and I'd *almost* have enough material to make cool posts every day. As tempting as it is, I'm just going to continue my practice of selecting the best out of the latest Kinect hacks.  Check 'em out!

You may view more Kinect Hacks at Kinecthacks.net and Kinect-Hacks.com

1) Ogutti from Japan has developed a hands-free vacuum cleaner

2) Aidan Feldman, Tyler Williams and Alexander Chen create a virtual strong instrument in one weekend.

Stringer (Demo at Music Hackday) from Alexander Chen on Vimeo.

3) VIVID Interactive implements hands-free window shopping.

Kinect Interactive Shopwindow with gesture controls from VIVID Interactive on Vimeo.

1) Indian engineer Harishankarn creates a hack that replaces his TV remote.  Seems like he's doing it faster than these guys.

2) Surgeons are now using the Kinect to manipulate 3D CT Images.

3) We've seen Kinect Hacks where users can play drawn piano keyboards on any surface. Now we have a hack that plays piano in the air.

You may view latest Kinect Hacks at KinectHacks.net, Kinect-Hacks.com and Kinect-Hacks.net.

And they just keep on coming. This video was created by Labsid. My Kinect = Best electronics purchase evar! Okay, maybe not forever, but definitely of 2010 and maybe 2011. 

This new art hack is so obvious that it boggles my mind that I didn't think about it earlier. I guess I was too busy geeking out over the idea of being a superhero or light conductor.

This latest Kinect Hack is created by Ryan Monk. You may view more awesome innovations with the Kinect at KinectHacks.net.

Sweet. I've been waiting for something like this to come around ever since buying a Kinect back in November. As cool as the Kinect truly is, the current game selections leave much to be desired. There's only so much jumping around rivers, flapping your arms, bowling, boxing and dancing to Lady Gaga tunes one can take. Still, I'm a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a sword-swinging Action/RPG game that required combat and blocking motions.

No one seems to know yet how extensive the Kinect controls in the new "Gears of War " will be, but rumors claim that character motion will be set "on-rails".  A game set "on rails" means that players might be able to choose their paths, but ultimately (like a train on rails) they can't deviate from it.  

The image below showcases a player using Kinect motions, but comes from an older ...

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Created by the Computer Graphics Group in Erlangen, this new Kinect hack not only makes it possible to scan your face in 3D, but also to texture it with hyper-realism and animate it.  

All this good stuff and the Kinect has only been out less than 6 months. You can view more of the latest Kinect ingenuity at KinectHacks.net.