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Microsoft says new Kinect for Windows sensor coming in 2014

A new Kinect for Windows sensor which shares many of the same technological underpinnings as the just-announced Kinect for Xbox One sensor, is due out in 2014.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft will make available a new Kinect sensor for Windows in 2014, officials said on May 23.

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The new Kinect for Windows sensor will include many of the technologies that Microsoft showed off in the Kinect for Xbox One product earlier this week. Microsoft is promising the Kinect for Windows sensor also will include higher fidelity, an expanded field of view, skeletal tracking and new active infrared -- all features of the Kinect for Xbox One.

There also will be a new Kinect for Windows software development kit coming. Microsoft officials said they will be discussing the new SDK and the Kinect for Windows sensor at Build 2013 in June, but aren't saying when the new SDK will be available.

The current Kinect for Windows sensor looks like the existing Kinect for Xbox sensor. But it is designed to work at closer range and to work with Windows 7/8 PCs.

In addition to making firmware adjustments in the current Windows Kinect sensor, Microsoft shortened the the USB cable and is including of a “small dongle” to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals. The first Windows version also modified the Kinect depth camera to see objects that are “as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device” without sacrificing accuracy or precision.

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