Posts with tag usc

Microsoft's Kinect motion addon for the Xbox 360 has been a huge success, not only in the retail world but in the hacker community as well. We've seen some awesome mods for the Kinect in the past few months of its release -- and finally, we've combined the Kinect world with WoW. The USC Institute for Creative Technologies has released a program called FAAST (Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit) that allows the Kinect to be used as a controller for off-the-shelf games.

Check out the video of Kinect being used to control a World of Warcraft character. The software emulator acts as a layer over the keyboard, reading movement as key presses. Personally, I love that the depth sensors of the Kinect can be used to move backwards and forwards by leaning forward and back. So awesome.

Aren't your teachers & authority figures supposed to encourage their wards to go out & live life; stop & smell the roses? Well, this article from the USC college paper, the Gamecock (shut up, Beavis), takes a more refreshing approach, listing a whole slew of online summer activities guaranteed to keep you indoors, pasty-white, and out of shape.

Will high-schools & Universities offer extra-curricular gaming activities pretty soon? Will my kids be able to earn extra credit for playing MMO's? Man, I wish I wish school was like that in my day...