Kinect for Windows launching early 2012
Celebrating the first anniversary of Kinect's launch, Microsoft has announced that its commercial Kinect for Windows program will officially launch "early next year."
Celebrating the first anniversary of Kinect's launch, Microsoft has announced that its commercial Kinect for Windows program will officially launch "early next year." While the official software development kit has been in beta since June and hackers have been playing with Kinect since it launched, this'll bring the big shiny official push for Kinect on Windows.
Though Microsoft focuses on the non-gaming applications for Kinect on Windows in today's announcement, it'll surely bring new and exciting opportunities to wave your arms at video games on your PC too.
Microsoft says that its commercial pilot program for Kinect on Windows has drawn interest from fields including healthcare, education, and art, receiving over 200 applications.
"We saw Kinect being used by therapists and physicians as part of a rehabilitation program for stroke victims, as a skill-building technique for children with autism, and as an application for hospitals in Spain enabling surgeons to scroll through medical images in the operating room with gestures so they could avoid the need to rescrub," Microsoft explains in a blog post using the appalling term "Kinect Effect."
A few of those non-video game uses are shown off in a video Microsoft has whipped together:
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Kinect for Windows launching early 2012.
Celebrating the first anniversary of Kinect's launch, Microsoft has announced that its commercial Kinect for Windows program will officially launch "early next year."-
cool, now it can collect dust on my computer desk too.
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I use my Kinect at least two to three times per week. Even if it's just Fruit Ninja. My wife's making me buy that accursed Grease game, too.
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PC version a year later, huh?
Well at least they're releasing gaming hardware the same way the do games I guess. -
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You might be able to.
This winter's dashboard refresh brings parts of the Metro UI that is in use in Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 to the Xbox with an emphasis on being navigable via Kinect, so if it works well and they have the proper instrumentation in place, you might be able to bring parts of that experience to a 10' desktop.
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I would get more use out of my Kinect if it were hooked up to the PC
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I'm glad to see this is finally getting a PC release. There's quite a bit of potential here for head tracking competition for Natural Point. Those guys have cornered the whole simulator market with the TrackIR, so the product has gone really stale.
A sensor-less Kinect solution for head tracking in sims and FPS titles is something I've wanted for some time. I hope Microsoft causes Natural Point to start really pushing their product again, rather than resting on their incredibly dated laurels. -
If the lag and accuracy is what I've seen on the X-box 360 than no thank you. I'll keep my gaming mouse. The thing seriously needs at least four times as much resolution and needs to increase sample rate by about as much. The demo of people playing a classical stringed instrument in real time, are they kidding me? I didn’t know they had Fantasy Island as a Game for Windows.
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Come on, it's just a commercial. Everything is over the top there. But there definitely is a potential. But I am afraid Microsoft will need tremendously more time to get somewhere near where hackers are able to get in few weeks. I am not blaming MS. It's just the way big companies has to work....idea, papers, papers, lawyers, some more papers........product ("hey, the resolution was okay for that era, but is too low for today's applications. Let's make it better."). And they will never get from that "behind" moment. I wish was wrong in this....but...convince me. (I am looking at you, Microsoft)
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