The Kinect has a great potential for use beyond the games available to the 360 at the moment. I know when I first saw the Kinect announced as Project Natal my first thought was whether it could be implemented in a digital signage solution.
My plan was to make digital signs that could determine when customers were actually paying attention to the sign. Then using object/symbol recognition the marketing would be customized. For example, if the system recognized a Nike symbol on a shirt ads could be produced relevant to that target demographic. Advertisers would also appreciate having an accurate account of impressions with targeted marketing instead of a general "this many people 'might have' passed by the ad while 'maybe' glancing at it." Anyway, that idea got killed by the economy (bad timing to launch a business in late 2007) but it's still interesting to track the tech.
Techspot had this article up recently: "Microsoft has finally realized the potential that Kinect hacking has for the device’s popularity. After initially talking up the numerous safeguards it had taken to reduce the chances of product tampering and promising to work closely with law enforcement to keep Kinect unlock-resistant, Microsoft has now changed its tune, claiming that the motion sensing accessory was left open on purpose.
Speaking on NPR's Science Daily program, director of incubation for Xbox, Alex Kipman, said that Kinect was left open by design and clarified that fans tinkering with it and enabling new uses would not result in a legal action. The company made a clear distinction of what constitutes “hacking” in their eyes and what doesn’t, basically saying that obtaining algorithms inside the Xbox or employing a third device between the sensor and Xbox for means of cheating is off limits, but using an open source driver to read inputs from the sensor on a PC is not. In fact, they are excited to see that people are so inspired by Kinect to think about what they can create using its 3D capturing capabilities.
XRYSTAL 
