Kinect to Officially Embrace Modders This Spring

Less than a week after release, Kinect was already hacked so that it could be used when hooked up to a computer. From there, we've seen all sorts of incredible uses for it, including flying machines, self-driving mini-cars, and Minority Report-style hand detection -- and that was all accomplished in less than two months. Microsoft promised that official PC support would be coming, and today it has revealed that it will indeed soon be making Kinect development much easier by releasing a full software development kit to the public.

Rather than be forced to jump through the same hoops that modders have been dealing with for the past several months, the SDK will "meet the needs of higher-level people who don't care how the camera works."

Windows 7 users will be able to get their hands on it sometime this spring for non-commercial use. It'll be really exciting to see what people can come up with now that Microsoft is providing the SDK. Even better, support will be coming at a later date for those who want to sell what they develop for Kinect, which opens the door for some really high-quality apps and software.

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