Kinect Gesture Control Comes To Google TV Via Hack

A third-party developer has managed to hook up his Xbox 360 Kinect motion sensor to his Google TV box in order to control it with arm and hand gestures. The best part is that the developer released the app and source code on Github that lets anyone with a bit of coding know-how to try the hack out for themselves.

The developer calls it Gesture TV, but don't expect this to be a replacement for your Google TV remote, though. It's mostly made for experimental purposes, since a few key features of the Google TV remote control aren't supported yet. Plus, the app must run on a PC, so you'll have to have your PC up and running with your TV in order to make it work.

Then again, the project shows what's when developers can get a hold of remote control APIs for various TV platforms. Gesture TV is based on Anymote, which is Google's remote control protocol, and it's also used on other apps like Chromeremote. From the video, the gesture control runs pretty smooth for the most part, with just few minor hiccups.

The developer notes that there are two modes to the gesture control in the app. There's pointer mode, which allows you to move the pointer around the screen using one hand, while keeping your other hand at your side, and then there's gesture mode, which is activated when you hold up one hand and then the other. You can do things like swipe down to go home or swipe left to go back.

[via GigaOM]