Only last month, Microsoft released the first official, Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0, paired with a new Kinect, targeted directly at PC usage, featuring a 'near mode' for operating only 40cm from the device and support for four Kinects to be used simultaneously.
It's clear that Microsoft is continuing to push forwards with Kinect development, with the firm confirming that a new, SDK version 1.5, will be heading our way towards the end of May. Bundled with this update will be Kinect Studio, an application for recording, playing-back and debugging of video clips, aiding the development process.
Perhaps in response to some of the demonstrations we witnessed at CES, where Ultrabook's featured Kinect-like functionality, Microsoft will also be adding support for '10-joint' tracking in the new SDK, which allows for head, neck and arm tracking of users whether stood up, or sat down.
Speech recognition will see support added for French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, with, most interestingly, regional support for the following areas: English/Great Britain, English/Ireland, English/Australia, English/New Zealand, English/Canada, French/France, French/Canada, Italian/Italy, Japanese/Japan, Spanish/Spain and Spanish/Mexico.
It appears as though Microsoft is keen to have its Kinect seen as more than just a party toy and with Windows 8 PCs and Ultrabooks hitting the market later in the year, perhaps with some featuring integrated Kinect technology, it'll be interesting to see how this interesting device grows throughout 2013.
