14 DAY TRIAL // Another day, another new way to use Kinect for something other than its intended gaming purpose for the Xbox 360, as this time a new demonstration from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies shows that you can control popular online title World of Warcraft with the Kinect and your own body.
Microsoft's Kinect motion detection peripheral is off to a great start, not only because it allows you to play new titles on the Xbox 360, but also because it can be used with different software drivers, to do all kinds of things.
Microsoft even gave the Kinect "hacking" experiments its official approval a few weeks ago, so people have been going crazy with the new device.
Now, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies has showcased a very impressive set of software for the Kinect, which allows owners of World of Warcraft to use the Kinect in order to play the popular online game.
The new software is called the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit, and it is built over the open-source OpenNI driver, which recognizes your skeleton and can map around 20 different keyboard keystrokes to various poses.
As such, when you lean forward, the Kinect and its software recognize the movement and give World of Warcraft the same input as when you would press the key for forward movement.
When you lean back, the game receives input like it would from the backward movement key.
You can even do a few hand gestures to launch different attacks in the game.
What's even better about this software is that it is completely free, meaning you can learn more about it and download the necessary drivers at this address.
If you're not fully convinced, then check out the video below showcasing a man controlling his World of Warcraft character with his body, thanks to the Kinect and the special software.