New beta release for Kinect Windows SDK

Microsoft has today rolled out a second beta edition of its Kinect software development kit for Windows.

The updated SDK provides faster and more accurate skeletal tracking and joint recognition, as well as the ability to plug and unplug Kinect without losing work, Microsoft said.

The new software comes weeks ahead of a full version of the Kinect for Windows SDK, along with a commercial program aimed to highlight the potential of Kinect for numerous industries.

It is said that more than 200 businesses worldwide, such as Toyota, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Razorfish, have joined the Windows pilot program to begin exploring its commercial possibilities.

“I know many of you are eagerly awaiting the Kinect for Windows commercial program coming in early 2012,” said Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows.

“My team is working hard to deliver a great product and I’m confident that it will be worth the wait. We’ve already seen strong enthusiasm for Kinect among developers who have done amazing things with it in countless different ways, from education to healthcare, gaming to art installations, manufacturing to retail.”

Microsoft first launched the Kinect SDK beta in June.

The software is designed to give professionals, academics and hobbyists access to the Kinect and its APIs, allowing people to tackle – in an official capacity – the kind of work and research previously confined to the ‘Kinect Hacks’ scene.

The Kinect SDK for Windows provides access to the hardware’s raw streams, such as the RGB camera, depth camera and microphones, as well as skeletal tracking, and a number of advanced audio features such as echo cancelation, noise cancellation and integration with windows speech APIs.

Microsoft has promised the SDK will be easy to install, and it is supported by 100s of pages of documentation.

The SDK can be found through here