In an effort to promote the Kinect platform for its game controller, Microsoft has released around 22 code samples under open source license to help developers get up to speed with developing games that support the Kinect controller on PCs. The samples include code that involves face tracking, gestures and other things that were previously hidden or were difficult and ambiguous to program. The code, which includes samples in languages like C#, C++ and Visual Basic has been uploaded under the Kinect for Windows project under CodePlex and is available with the Apache 2.0 open source license so that anyone can reuse and utilize the code in their projects. Each sample is focused on demonstrating a particular functionality.
The minimum requirements to run the code samples include Visual Studio 2010 or 2012 and .NET framework 4.0 or 4.5 respectively. Additionally developers will also need to download and install the Kinect for Windows SDK available from the Microsoft website. If the code requires – components like Windows Presentation Foundation, DirectX and XNA framework might also be needed to be installed. More details regarding how to install the SDK and other official documentation are available on the Kinect for Windows website.
It can be assumed that the new push for Kinect for Windows might be in order to accompany a new upcoming Xbox console which is due to announced in the near future. The blog post announcing these code samples also says that Microsoft will soon be looking for contributions, feedback and discussions from developers so that they will be able to interact with other community members with similar interests. The new blog at which the announcement was made, will now also be used to make all further announcements and community interactions related to Kinect for Windows.
