The prospect of controlling PCs with gestures and voice commands edges a step closer to reality today, with the release of an SDK for Kinect on Windows.
Microsoft's wireless controller has been an enormous hit on the company's Xbox 360 consoles. Having originally been opposed to third parties developing their own applications for Kinect, Microsoft has subsequently embraced the developer community.
Later today, the company is expected to announce the first beta of an SDK for Kinect on Windows, bringing the wireless controller's capabilities to the PC.
The SDK will offer support for tracking up to two people within the Kinect's field of vision and integration with the Windows speech recognition API, according to a report on WinRumors.
Although voice and gesture controls are unlikely to have much impact on day-to-day computing, they could come into their own for gaming and control of media centre PCs.
Unofficial "Kinect hacks" have already resulted in a menagerie of applications for the wireless controller, including virtual surgery aids, art installations and real-time motion capture video.
This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk
