It’s pretty neat to see that Microsoft went out of their way to show support and appreciation toward the two hackers who were able to hack the Kinect Gaming system in 11 days after release:
When Microsoft released the product on November 4th, my friends Phil Torrone and Limor Fried at Ada Fruit Industries offered $3,000 to the first person who could hack the Kinect and post the information to GitHub, a public repository for code. Eleven days later when the hack appeared, officials at Microsoft didn’t go nuts. They actually went on NPR to embrace the deed.
I think this is the right stance on talented programmers, despite the “potential” for loss of revenue. I think the author says it best:
The Kinect story illustrates the fact that hacking is evolving from a destructive force in business into a creative one that can help companies drive product and brand development.
Hacking offers a way for hardware and software developers to build products for the future without incurring high costs of development. A product’s long-tail possibility—that is, its shelf life and ability to drive a large number of small transactions over time—grows as it encounters smaller audiences with more niche product specs.
Using precious R&D dollars and full-time employment hours to build out these snowflakes would decimate its profitability. Hacking, on the other hand, essentially amplifies a product’s users and usage without adding cost to the creator.
I feel like the church could learn a thing or two from their changing way of dealing with “dissenters” and those that might have alternative opinions and methods.
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