14 DAY TRIAL // Behold and be amazed, as Microsoft has finally unveiled the second generation of Kinect headed for Windows, and to no one's surprise it looks very similar to the Xbox One's sensor, Kinect 2.
The scoop comes from the Kinect for Windows Blog, showing that the final form of the device sports a Kinect logo on top and has a power indicator to replace the Xbox One's stylized X symbol.
Another difference from the Xbox One's Kinect 2 is the fact that the Windows one requires a separate power cable, in addition to the USB 3.0 connector. The sensor's hub and power supply can be seen in the picture below.
For now, there aren't that many games that are compatible with the Kinect on the Windows platform, but most probably the new device will see more interest than its predecessor when it goes live.
The Kinect for Windows 2 was developed with a shared set of technologies with the console version, and it features a higher fidelity with an HD camera and multi-microphone array designed to filter ambient sounds and reduce noise.
Moreover, it uses an improved version of the proprietary Time-of-Flight technology, with an expanded field of view and enhanced skeletal tracking, as well as new active infrared technology.
When the first generation of the hardware was released, there was a wave of applications and clever gimmicks that made use of it, but the tech was eventually mostly utilized in the medical in industrial fields, rather than in gaming.
Bob Heddle, director of Kinect for Windows, revealed last year that the next generation of Kinect was scheduled for launch in 2014.
"Just as the new Kinect sensor will bring opportunities for revolutionizing gaming and entertainment, the new Kinect for Windows sensor will revolutionize computing experiences," Heddle stated.
Although there aren't many applications for the Windows version of the sensor yet, that doesn't mean that there isn't potential for some to appear, especially since now the sensor's precision is greatly enhanced compared to the previous generation.
Development studio Apache showcased a video featuring a tech demo of some experimental work they've done with the Kinect for Windows version 2 sensor, using its dedicated SDK, showing real time tracking of two of the developers' faces and then swapping them in real time.
While this is of little practical use by itself, it just shows that the new sensor can be utilized to a far greater extent than its ancestor and that dedicated development efforts have the potential to achieve much better results than the last time, when most of the positive experiences with the hardware came from experimental creations.
