DIY electronics company Adafruit Industries is offering a $2,000 bounty to anyone who can develop an open-source driver for Microsoft's newly released Kinect.

Kinect is a single piece of hardware that connects to Xbox 360 game console and lets players control the game via their bodies; no controller necessary.

"Imagine being able to use this off the shelf camera for Xbox for Mac, Linux, Win, embedded systems, robotics, etc. We know Microsoft isn't developing this device for FIRST Robotics, but we could," Adafruit wrote in a blog post. "Let's reverse engineer this together, get the RGB and distance out of it and make cool stuff."

For its "Hack the Kinect for Xbox 360" challenge, Adafruit called on participants to develop open-sources drivers that run on any OS and are completely documented under an open-source license. Participants must also write an app with one window showing video (640-by-480) and another showing depth. Upload to GitHub, and you'll be in the running for a $2,000 prize.

"First person / group to get RGB out with distance values being used wins, you're smart – you know what would be useful for the community out there," Adafruit wrote. "All the code needs to be open source and/or public domain. Email us a link to the repository, we and some 'other' Kinect for Xbox 360 hackers will check it out – if it's good to go, you'll get the $2,000 bounty!"

That bounty was initially set at $1,000, but after Microsoft complained to CNet that it does "not condone the modification of its products" and said it would work with law enforcement to keep the Kinect "tamper-resistant," Adafruit upped the ante.

"Don't make us up' it to $3K," they joked.

For more details, see PCMag's full review of the Kinect, and the slideshow below.