Microsofts radarliknande tillbehör Kinect från Xbox 360 kommer till persondatorer. Mjukvarujätten avslöjar i ett blogginlägg att "Kinect for Windows" finns att köpa hos amerikanska återförsäljare.

Nytt för enheten till Windows är avkortad USB-kabel samt kameror som kan fokusera på kortare avstånd än tidigare – 50 cm och med feltolerans ned till 40 cm. Dessutom uppdaterar Microsoft det tillhörande utvecklingspaketet som gör det lättare för programmerare att dra nytta av den djupseende kameran.

I am very pleased to report that today version 1.0 of our SDK and runtime were made available for download, and distribution partners in our twelve launch countries are starting to ship Kinect for Windows hardware, enabling companies to start to deploy their solutions.

Kinect för Windows har ett rekommenderat pris på 249 USD, motsvarande cirka 2 100 kronor inklusive moms. När eller om paketet dyker upp i Sverige är dock ännu inte känt.

Nyheter i Kinect SDK för Windows

In the three months since we released Beta 2, we have made many improvements to our SDK and runtime, including:

  • Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer

  • Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor

  • Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device

  • Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes

  • The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer

  • Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy

  • New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls

  • A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.

  • Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes

Looking towards the future, we are planning on releasing updates to our SDK and runtime 2-3 times per year – in fact, the team is already hard at work on the next release. We are continuing to invest in programs like our Testing and Adoption Program and the Kinect Accelerator, and will work to create new programs in the future to help support our developer and partner ecosystem. We will also continue to listen to our developer community and business customers for the kinds of features and capabilities they need, as they re-imagine the future of computing using the power of Kinect.

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