If there’s one thing the Kinect is good for, it’s facilitating interesting and downright clever hacks. Obviously. If you thought I was going to say ‘gaming’, you’re not a gamer. In any case, check this out. London Hackspace has developed what they’ve dubbed the Evil Genius Simulator – a device which uses a Kinect to monitor the motions of the aspiring genius’ hands. The higher they’re raised (ideally accompanied by maniacal laughter) the more lightning that jumps between two Tesla coils set up behind it all. This is nothing if not a lesson in basdassery. I dunno how comfortable I’d feel turning…

If you have been following Techi, you probably have seen unusual uses for the Kinect. A gesture-controlled robot might have been something you looked into, or you might have found out how you could learn to dance using the Kinect. Now, some smart dude found out a way to use OpenKinect to communicate with his computer, and then uses a NES emulator to get Mario movin’. Even though there is a bit lag in the video, the idea of how to do this is great. What if this was installed for other games, like Call of Duty, Halo Reach, and Madden. Man, would that be cool….