Kinect Hacked to Control World of Warcraft

A sweet gaming system might include the ability to immerse yourself in a gaming world and fight, cast spells, whatever, by making the motions that you would need if you were actually part of the game. This Kinect hack doesn't go quite that far, but we can dream, can't we?

Built by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, FAAST, or the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit isn't specific to World of Warcraft (WoW), but it has been hacked to control WoW as shown in a demo video below. The actual plans of the institute are a bit less commercial.

The plan is to develop "simple, medically inspired games for rehabilitation of motor-skills after a stroke, and even for reducing childhood obesity through 'healthy gaming.'" Of course, healthy gaming could possibly be achieved with a Nintendo Wii and EA Sports Active, but as we know, the Kinect goes far beyond the Wiimote.

Watch the demo video, remember that this is 0.03 version software, and imagine the future.