Kinect for Windows in More Markets, Version 1.5 Coming in May

Microsoft is working on pushing its Kinect for Windows software and hardware to more markets around the world in the coming months.

The company has just announced that its product will arrive in nineteen new countries soon, including Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan in late May.

Countries like Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates will receive it starting with June.

Also at the end of May, Kinect for Windows 1.5 will become available with a variety of new capabilities inside, such as Kinect Studio, an app through which devs will be able to record, playback and debug clips of users who are engaging with their app.

Another great feature planned for the upcoming release is “seated” or “10-joint” skeletal tracking, through which tracking the head, neck and arms of either a seated or standing user will be possible.

This new feature is expected to work both in default and near mode, Craig Eisler, general manager, Kinect for Windows, Microsoft, notes in a recent blog post.

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

“In addition, we will be releasing new language packs which enable speech recognition for the way a language is spoken in different regions: English/Great Britain, English/Ireland, English/Australia, English/New Zealand, English/Canada, French/France, French/Canada, Italian/Italy, Japanese/Japan, Spanish/Spain and Spanish/Mexico.”

Some more details on the features and capabilities of the upcoming Kinect for Windows release will be provided as the release date approaches.

“We are excited by the enthusiasm for Kinect for Windows, and will continue to work on bringing Kinect for Windows to more countries, supporting more languages with our speech engine, and continuing to evolve our human tracking capabilities,” Craig Eisler concludes.