This afternoon (EST), Microsoft at last unveiled the software development kit for their Kinect technology, the platform that uses motion-sensing, skeletal tracking, facial recognition, and voice recognition software to allow human movement and voice to act as the controller for games and objects. PSFK has written about a variety of Kinect hacks, but now hacking is no longer necessary because Microsoft has made their development kit free of charge, and available to the public. The press release blog post for the software package explains:
As of this morning, the SDK is officially available for download – at no cost – from Microsoft Research. It provides access to Kinect’s ‘raw sensor streams’ – which means developers can work with the high speed skeletal tracking capabilities, depth sensor, color camera sensor and the microphone array. Oh and over 100 pages of high quality documentation and sample code to demonstrate how to use the sensor.
The SDK includes not only drivers but also APIs, device interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. It’s another exciting milestone for a technology that has captured the imagination of millions, and has become the fastest selling computer electronics device of all time.
To celebrate this event, Microsoft is hosting a 24-hour coding marathon, where they brought developers to the Microsoft campus and gave them a day and a night to use the kit to see what kind of interesting apps they could come up with. You can watch the livestream of the event here.
Booya!
No comments:
Post a Comment