Regional accents
Duss thee reck'n thic lil box can unnerstand oi now, then, eh?
Microsoft announced a second Kinect for Windows release this week, adding more advanced skeletal tracking, localised speech recognition and a new video suite application. Kinect for Windows 1.5 sees the addition of Kinect Studio, an app to let developers record, play and debug clips of users getting jiggy with their …
Imagine controlling your TV and Media Centre using a combo of Windows 8 and Kinect. No more hunting down the back of the sofa for the remote control. Just wave up to increase and down to decrease volume, wave left and right to change channel. Select items from the EPG by pointing at them. I think this could work really well and be popular. If only Kinect for Win was a bit cheaper I'd buy one for my Media Centre.
As others have said, cheap mo-cap for indie game makers, but this goes far beyond games. Ever since Minority Report came out people have been trying to replicate that GUI, and this gives them a way to do it. Even that's just the tip of the iceberg. Look up some of the things hackers have been doing with Kinect since it came out.
Is it so that the Windows Kinnect and Xbox Kinnect are incompatible?
This is going to be a problem and a barrier to adoption if so.
It's one thing finding space for the Kinnect bar in front of ones TV for the Xbox, but there's no chance I'll add a second for the media centre. Aside from the practicalities, it would look odd.
As an end user, and not a developer, is there anything out there that currently uses PC Kinect. As in if I brought one what would I use it for? This is going to be the biggest problem at the moment for this, I don't know anything that really supports it.
Also another version so soon after the first was released. That gives you confidence to buy. Why not hold off and see if there is another version in a few months.
Its a new version of the SDK, not the hardware, I gather the plan is to update the SDK several times, as new features are included. I don't think we'll see new hardware apart from packaging integrations into laptop etc. until K2, probably a late 2013 product.
End users. K4W is more a hobbyist to pro developer and vertical market product and I expect will continue like that this year, maybe some fun Metro apps for the Win8 early adopters.