Kinect For Windows Is Out

I know you have been reading me write about Kinect for Windows for a while now so why is this news? The reason for that is simple – new hardware and new software. Oh and a new license. What I have been writing about is using the Kinect for Xbox with a Windows PC. The new Kinect for Windows has some new features. We’re pretty excited about it at Microsoft. We think it opens the door for even more possibilities than the original beta releases. I’m pretty excited myself to see the applications that people find for it.

More information from the Kinect for Windows website:

Commercial ready

The Kinect for Windows SDK offers an installer, which makes it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployment.

Enhanced Sensor Capabilities

The Kinect for Windows sensor expands the possibilities for innovation with features like Near Mode, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the sensor. In addition, up to 4 Kinect sensors can now be plugged into the same computer.

Software Improvements

One of the many improvements to the Kinect for Windows SDK is improved skeletal tracking, which lets developers control which user is being tracked by the sensor. In addition, the latest Microsoft Speech components, along with an improved acoustic model significantly improve speech recognition accuracy.

Of course there is a lot more at the Kinect for Windows website and especially on the Kinect for Windows FAQ.