Set to be released May 16th, the Kinect for PC SDK (Software Development Kit) will allow programmers to officially support the Kinect in Windows 7. This should allow more than just the hacks that have already surfaced without the need for the SDK. If you are a programmer, and you want to mess around with the Kinect using Windows, here’s your chance! Note: This is only for NON-Commercial use for the time being.

The latest advances in audio processing, which include a four-element microphone array with sophisticated acoustic noise and echo cancellation for crystal clear audio.

Sound source localization for beamforming, which enables the determination of a sound’s spatial location, enhancing reliability when integrated with the Microsoft speech recognition API.

Depth data, which provides the distance of an object from the Kinect camera, as well as the raw audio and image data, which together open up opportunities for creating richer natural user interface experiences.

Highly performant and robust skeletal tracking capabilities for determining the body positions of one or two persons moving within the Kinect field of view.

Documentation for the APIs and a description of the SDK architecture.

Sample code that demonstrates how to use the functionality in the SDK.

This SDK is intended for non-commercial use to enable experimentation in the world of natural user interface experiences, with new state-of-the-art features planned for future releases that will continue to provide new ways to experiment.