Xboxist

Kinect Hackers, Here's How To Get Yourselves $20,000

According to Gizmodo, Microsoft is planning to encourage Kinect hackers to bring their ideas to reality through the "Kinect Accelerator" initiave.

Microsoft hope to use the initiavie to discover the most talented Kinect hackers out there by fundung and nurturing "ten aspiring groups of engineers and entrepreneurs". So you can expect the competition for the final ten to be tremendous, but the business plan aspect of the application may prove a little daunting for the pure homebrew coders. Reward for the finalists will have Microsoft setting them in a three month incubation programme which will mean:

"Every company participating in the Kinect Accelerator will receive an investment of $20,000, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK, office space... and mentorship from entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives intensely focused on making their business a success. At the end of the program, each company will have an opportunity to present at an Investor Demo Day to angel investors, venture capitalists, Microsoft executives, media and industry influentials."

So quite a sizeable package that can't be casually sniffed at. In any case, it will be great to see what real world applications Microsoft actually manages to put the Kinect hackers talents towards.

[Microsoft via Gizmodo]