This innovation, originally developed by Microsoft under the codename of Project Natal, was finally released under the Kinect name on November 4, 2010 and entered the Guinness World Record Book by being the fastest-selling customer electronics device . Even though it was initially designed for video games, it now applies to real-world uses.
Kinect is a motion-sensing system based around a depth camera that enables the user to control and to interact intuitively, and especially without any in-between controller, by using an interface with speech and gesture recognition. We then become the controller.
Kinect was a combination of creativity and successful implementation of ideas into a marketable concept. Indeed, it …show more content…
And since then, they never stopped. It all started from videos that “amateurs” were constantly uploading on the Internet showing how the Kinect technology could be exploited to add features to robots, and Microsoft totally supported these initiatives. Some very interesting details can be read from this article about robotics development thanks to Kinect’s technology: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/mf_kinect/all/1 The biggest part of their open innovation strategy is now based on innovation contests. A famous example was the Kinect contest sponsored by Matt Cutts, Google engineer, when he offered $1,000 to whoever would come up with the coolest open source for Kinect .
This is a perfect example showing how innovation networks (user and lead users) can bring new ideas and new solutions but also create new opportunities. It also demonstrates how companies start granting big importance to crowdsourcing approaches to bring innovation to a next level and expand the original scope. Microsoft gets amateurs and professionals from all over the world to work indirectly for them on innovative ideas.
Source: (Image by Kinect for Windows Team 2012)
The figure here under shows some of the open sources of innovation that Microsoft implemented for its Kinect device:
Source: (Figure by Haefliger &