Hasta La Gadget!

There are a lot of people doing really exciting things with Microsoft Kinect – there was a video a few weeks back where some enterprising researchers used Kinect to give you full-body control of your character in World of Warcraft. Nathan Viniconis, however, decided to see if he could use Kinect to play his favorite game: Minecraft. 

It’s not immediately a game you would think could take to motion control: after all, Minecraft is all about mining for blocks and diamonds, punching trees to get wood, and building massive structures to keep yourself safe from the zombies that come out when the sun goes down. Viniconis took the idea a step further though, and used Kinect to control objects in the game, and to make massive animated statues like the ones in the video above. 

Viniconis says on the project’s Web site that he’s still working on it, but he’s not talking about what the next phase of development entails. He’s managed to import data from Kinect and make that data useful to Minecraft, he’s managed to animate the data Kinect sends in the game, and he’s managed to mercilessly tease his cat with a laser pointer. Where could he possibly go from here?