Kinect ver. 1.5 coming in May, with speech recognition and seated tracking

Seated motion tracking and expanded speech recognition capabilities will be among the goodies Microsoft will bundle in its upgrade for Kinect for the Windows platform.

 

Kinect for Windows general manager Craig Eisler said one of the highlights is Kinect Studio, an application that will let developers record, play back and debug clips of users engaging with their applications.

 

"Also coming is what we call 'seated' or '10-joint' skeletal tracking, which provides the capability to track the head, neck and arms of either a seated or standing user. What is extra exciting to me about this functionality is that it will work in both default and near mode!" Eisler said in a blog post.

 

He said the Kinect for Windows 1.5 release will also include four new languages for speech recognition – French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.

 

Microsoft will also release new language packs which enable speech recognition for the way a language is spoken in different regions. These include:

 

- English/Great Britain

- English/Ireland

- English/Australia

- English/New Zealand

- English/Canada

- French/France

- French/Canada

- Italian/Italy

- Japanese/Japan

- Spanish/Spain

- Spanish/Mexico

 

Eisler also said Microsoft will launch Kinect for Windows in 19 more countries in the coming months.

 

"We will have availability in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan in late May.  In June, Kinect for Windows will be available in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates," he said. — TJD, GMA News