Kinect for Windows SDK Beta Makes It Big in the Big Apple

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The Kinect for Windows SDK beta (opens in new tab) was honored as one of the “10 Most Innovative Tech Products of 2011 (opens in new tab)” earlier this week at the 2011 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony held at the Hearst Tower in New York City. Gavin Jancke, general manager of Engineering for Microsoft Research, who led the engineering and release for the Microsoft Research release of the Kinect for Windows SDK beta, accepted the award on behalf of Microsoft.

Award recipients were invited to demonstrate their technologies at a reception following the seventh annual ceremony. Gavin presented the SDK (software development kit) from a developer perspective discussing, among other things, skeletal tracking and raw sensor data. Jacob Vanderplas, an astronomer at the University of Washington (opens in new tab), further illustrated the potential applications of the SDK in natural user interface (NUI) technologies with a presentation of the Kinect-controlled WorldWide Telescope (opens in new tab) concept demonstrator.

From left to right: Jim Meigs, editor in chief of Popular Mechanics; Gavin Jancke, general manager, Engineering, Microsoft Research; Bill Congdon, publisher of Popular Mechanics, pictured at the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony

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From left to right: Jim Meigs, editor in chief of Popular Mechanics; Gavin Jancke, general manager of Engineering for Microsoft Research; and Bill Congdon, publisher of Popular Mechanics, pictured at the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony

The ceremony was our second visit to New York City in as many months. Previously, we were pleased to present the SDK at the World Maker Faire 2011 (opens in new tab), which was held at the New York Hall of Science in late September. Maker Faire is an inspiring showcase of creativity and cool technology that celebrates technology enthusiasts of all ages. This year’s event attracted 35,000 attendees, up 40 percent from the previous year.

Presenting at Maker Faire 2011

We were joined at this year’s Maker Faire by our colleagues from Microsoft Robotics (opens in new tab) and Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer (opens in new tab). Our teams jointly exhibited in a combined tent. We offered attendees just a taste of our technologies that are available for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and educators. The showpieces in our tent were the newly launched Robotics Developer Studio 4 beta (opens in new tab) and a new reference design robot, EDDIE (opens in new tab), available from Parallax, Inc. We also presented two Kinect SDK beta demos: on-board robot sensing and NUI robot control—including a roving “party photographer” robot that proved very popular with young and old alike.

In addition to demonstrating our technologies, we were also honored with two awards at the Maker Faire: an inaugural “Makey (opens in new tab)” award for Kinect, and an “Editor’s Choice” blue ribbon for our combined booth. It was fantastic to see so many people inspired by technology, including our own. We continue to look forward to seeing your inventions and ideas come to fruition.

—Stewart Tansley (opens in new tab), Director of Natural User Interface, Microsoft Research Connections

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