Kinect Sells 18 Million, Heading To Windows In February

In their final keynote speech at CES this year Microsoft announced that Kinect has sold an impressive 18 million units since it launched back in November 2011. Amazing numbers for any device, let alone a peripheral launched this late into the console generation. Microsoft were also pleased to announce strong Kinect sales on the back of the Xbox 360's strongest year, having sold 66 million units worldwide in total, trumping the Wii to become the best selling console in North America.

They also announced at the event that Kinect For Windows, unveiled late last year, will be available in limited quantities from February 1st in 12 countries (United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom) for a suggested retail price of $249.99.

Included in the price is the slightly updated Kinect for Windows sensor, which includes a shortened USB cable to ensure reliability across a broad range of computers and the inclusion of a small dongle to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals. Of particular interest to developers will be the new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters. The price also includes a one-year warranty, access to ongoing software updates for both speech and human tracking, and continued investment in Kinect for Windows-based software advancements.

Check out the full Microsoft blog post on the Kinect For Windows announcement. We can't wait to see how smaller developers make use of Kinect in innovative and unique ways, and hopefully we'll all have a chance to check out some Kinect For Windows applications once the Windows Store launches with Windows 8 this year.

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Microsoft Releasing Kinect For Windows Hardware, Launching Accelerator Program

It's clear that Kinect is going to play a major part in Microsoft's future. They're setting it up to be a major component of the future of computer and home entertainment interaction, and gaming is only the beginning.

Now they're releasing a Kinect specifically for the PC to aid developers in their creation of software. The SDK of course works with the Xbox Kinect hardware, but the Windows hardware differs in a few small but important areas.

Simple changes include shortening the USB cable to ensure reliability across a broad range of computers and the inclusion of a small dongle to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals.  Of particular interest to developers will be the new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters.  “Near Mode” will enable a whole new class of “close up” applications, beyond the living room scenarios for Kinect for Xbox 360.

This is one of the most requested features from the many developers and companies participating in our Kinect for Windows pilot program and folks commenting on our forums, and we’re pleased to deliver this, and more, at launch.

Microsoft are also launching the Kinect Accelerator project, which will see them give 10 start-up companies using Kinect for either Xbox 360 or PC $20,000 after a competitive screening process. The 10 winning companies will also get an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK, office space, all the resources of BizSpark, technical training and support, and mentorship from entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives intensely focused on making their business a success.

Any Kinect-enabled application on Windows or Xbox that can be a commercial business is valid to apply, from education to healthcare, art installations to gaming, social to interactive play. The deadline is January 25th, 2012 and you can apply now by clicking here.

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Kinect For Windows SDK Update Released

The software development kit allowing developers to create Kinect applications for the PC using Microsoft's tools was released earlier this year, and Microsoft have kicked off a brand new website introducing the newest release of the SDK.

New features include:

• Faster and Improved Skeletal Tracking
With updates to the multi-core exemplar, Kinect for Windows is now 20% faster than it was in the last release. Also, the accuracy rate of skeletal tracking and joint recognition has been substantially improved. 

• Status Change Support
You can now plug and unplug your Kinect without losing work/productivity. 

• Improved Joint Tracking
Substantially improve the accuracy rate of joint recognition and tracking.

And it of course still comes with all of the documentation, raw sensor stream access, voice recognition and a whole host of features that help developers to get Kinect to do what they want it to do.

The commercial SDK, letting businesses and developers create software to work in and potentially revolutionize entire industries, is still scheduled for an early 2012 release.

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Kinect for Windows SDK Beta Available Now!

As expected, Microsoft have unveiled the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit, allowing anyone to create software utilizing Kinect on their PC. The current SDK is a non-commercial beta, and can be download by anyone for free here. Check out the full details below!

The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a programming toolkit for application developers. It enables the academic and enthusiast communities easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running the Windows 7 operating system.

The Kinect for Windows SDK beta includes drivers, rich APIs for raw sensor streams and human motion tracking, installation documents, and resource materials. It provides Kinect capabilities to developers who build applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

This SDK includes the following features:

• Raw sensor streams - Access to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.
• Skeletal tracking - The capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.
• Advanced audio capabilities - Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.
• Sample code and documentation - The SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.
• Easy installation - The SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets).

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