Just in time for a couple of upcoming presentations I’m doing with hardware comes a very cool announcement. The TL;DR version:
- There WILL be a Kinect device specifically designed to work with Windows
- The Kinect for Windows hardware will support “near mode,” which will enable tracking as close as 40cm (around 16in.) in front of the device.
In particular, the near mode announcement is great for developers hoping to enable seated scenarios and other interactions that aren’t practical with the minimum space requirements for the current device.
Note that this announcement relates to the upcoming commercial SDK, and no announcements about release dates have been made as yet with respect to the hardware, and the only information so far on the commercial program is “<a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kinectforwindows/archive/2011/11/03/it-s-official-kinect-for-windows-is-coming-soon.aspx" target="_blank">early 2012</a>.” Still, it’s exciting to know that it won’t be long before even more scenarios will be enabled by a new device and SDK optimized for PC interaction scenarios.
You can read all about the announcement at:
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kinectforwindows/archive/2011/11/22/kinect-for-windows-building-the-future.aspx][1]