Kinect for Windows SDK official

Microsoft has officially announced the Kinect for Windows SDK, opening up a world of possibilities for developers to create new apps, tools and games for PCs.
The new SDK, set for Beta release on May 16th, will give third parties access to the bare-bones tech that saw the motion-sensing peripheral become the fastest selling consumer device of all time.
The headline feature of the SDK seems to be access to something called "robust skeletal tracking" which allows the tracking of one or two persons within the Kinect sensor's field of vision.
Developers will also get full access to Kinect's advanced audio capabilities, which Microsoft says will include "four-element microphone array with sophisticated acoustic noise and echo cancellation for great audio."
Hacks
There's also be integration with the Windows speech recognition API included as well as "beam formation" to track where the sound is coming from, along with full access to Kinect's camera tech.
Since its launch back in November this year, Kinect has seen some inspired software hacks so it'll be fascinating to see how developers fare having officially been given the green light to create new tools.
Microsoft also announced that it'd be giving each of the developers at the MIX11 forum in Las Vegas a Kinect box to go away and create stuff with.
Developers can sign-up to be notified of the release of the Kinect for Windows SDK here.

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Microsoft releases Silverlight 5 Beta

On a busy day for Microsoft, the company has launched a public Beta version of Silverlight 5, its updated web app creation tool.
Silverlight 5, which operates as a browser plug-in to offer video, apps, tools and games in much the same way that Adobe Flash does, boasts a host of new features for developers to sink their teeth into.
Microsoft says it "adds significant new features and capabilities, and enables developers to create premium media experiences and deliver rich applications across browsers, desktops and devices."
Amongst over 40 new features, there'll be support for 64-bit operating systems, 3D graphics support, improved text clarity and out-of-browser functionality.
Media improvements
There's also a host of improvements to the media playing capabilities (anyone who has used Sky Player has used the Silverlight plug-in). Users will no be able to use remote controls and screensavers won't kick in when you're watching video.
You'll also be able to alter the pace of video content, speeding up or slowing down, while improvements in video decoding mean that even your humble netbook will be able to handle full 1080p video.
On Tuesday, chip designer Nvidia announced a new Silverlight-based plug-in that will allow 3D video streaming on websites.
There's also a huge array of jargon-heavy improvements for developers to help them create better applications, explained here by Microsoft's Silverlight guru Scott Guthrie.
Is this enough for Silverlight to best HTML 5 as the future web standard? We'll have to wait and see what developers come up with with this new Beta in the coming weeks and months.

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Nokia W7 and W8: the Finns; first Windows Phones?

Rumours of the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 handsets have surfaced but don't get too excited now, they're just rehashes of existing Symbian phones.
International mobile phone botherer Eldar Mrtazin has had a quick bit of hands on time with the two prototype handsets, the Nokia W7 and Nokia W8.
The W7 is apparently based on the Nokia X7 hardware, while the W8 is essentially a Nokia N8 body with Windows Phone software.
Guts and bolts
There's one major change to the innards though; both handsets will use the Qualcomm chipset that Microsoft insists on for all WP7 devices.
Murtazin describes the W7 as 'like [the] HTC Mozart" and the prototype has a screen that is WVGA with a change to LCD rather than OLED, although it seemed Murtazin liked it.
It seems likely that the W7 will be the first Nokia Windows Phone to launch, but the W8 will be higher spec, based on the Nokia N8.
It drops to an 8MP camera with autofocus and boring old LED flash, but keeps the kind of out-dated design. But it looks like it will launch with a dual-core processor from Qualcomm which should make for a snappier experience.
According to Murtazin, the priority is to work on the camera for Windows Phone 7 – no doubt this is where Nokia sees itself differentiating the most from the likes of HTC and Samsung.
There are 12 Windows Phone Nokias planned for 2012 (how apt), so hopefully we'll see a few models that aren't based on existing Nokia hardware; still, if the company wants to get its first handset out before the year's end, it's the quickest way to go.

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