Kinect for Windows 1.0 SDK is here to look at you closely
Posted Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 11:14 pm by Jason Cartwright
Microsoft has just released version 1.0 of the Kinect SDK for Windows. One of the biggest complaints about the beta releases of the SDK was the lack of support for close object recognition. Near mode now allows the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimetres rather than the standard 6 feet.
The 1.0 release of the SDK addresses a number of other issues:
- Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer
- Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor
- Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device
- Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes
- The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer
- Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy
- New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls
- A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.
- Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes
It’s important to keep in mind that the new Near Mode is only available from the new Kinect for Windows, which isn’t available in Australia. You can see from the screenshot below, connecting an existing Kinect to a computer shows under the range selection ‘NearMode not supported on this device’.
Let’s hope Australian availability for Kinect for Windows arrives soon so Aussie developers can start building Windows 7/8 Kinect-enabled applications.
More information @ MSDN or just download the Kinect SDK 1.0 now.
Via The Verge.
Firefox 10 now available, stay with Chrome or IE
Posted Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 5:50 pm by Jason CartwrightIn the latest chapter of browser wars, Mozilla has just released their latest offering – Firefox 10. If you’re like me each new version of the browser you install and try out, see what new and see if a new default has arrived. Sadly this is not the case with the milestone version 10 release of Mozilla Firefox.
![Firefox10[9]](http://techau.tv/blog/images/Firefox-10-now-available_104F6/Firefox109.jpg "Firefox10[9]")
Strangely the Firefox 10 ‘What’s new’ page is filled with quotes like “A better browser for the great good” and a 2 minute video that has nothing to do with the product, but all about their ‘different’ company. Sorry Mozilla, I just don’t care about your charitable non-profit mantra, I care about the best browser and the reality is that Firefox isn’t it.
There’s just nothing new on offer here, which frankly just disappointing from a version 10 release. Look through the features page for Firefox and it’s the same old story, improved standards support, faster speed, etc, that’s all great, but you can’t be as good as the competition to win, you need to be better, much better.
Somewhere along the way, around the time Chrome arrived in the market, you lost your way and your fans have gone. While I’m sure there’s still some die-hards out there that love Firefox, most have moved on. Looking ahead there is always an opportunity for the company to get over themselves and actually built a better product, a different product, an innovative product. Even IE was able to rebuilt and transform into a viable option again.
Check it out for yourself at http://getfirefox.com
IE9 now the most used ‘modern’ browser in the world
Posted Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 8:31 pm by Jason Cartwright
Browser wars are always a contentious issue, with the choice of which to use being almost as personal as which phone you choose to carry. Despite which Browser you choose to set as your default, there is a new king. Internet Explorer 9 is now the most used ‘modern’ browser worldwide.
The term modern browser is used to qualify IE9’s lead, because the reality is IE8 actually has more users. By stipulating ‘modern browser’ Microsoft compares IE9 numbers against All versions of Firefox and all versions of Chrome. The other key constraint in this data set is that it only looks at Windows 7. As we know Windows XP still makes up a decent slab of the desktop market, an OS that does not support IE9.
When talking about trends, we really are searching for indicators for the future, so the concentration on Windows 7 is actually the statistic that matters, but its important to understand the difference.
In a blog post on Microsoft’s Windows Team Blog, references data from Net Applications from the month of November. An important note is that while IE8 and IE9 both enjoy a larger share than competitors, IE’s overall usage actually gained in October. Despite spending most of the year dropping from 58.35% usage to around 52% desktop browser share, they jumped from 52.63% in Oct to 52.64%.
Source: Net Applications, November 2011 (monthly data).
The reality of ‘modern’ browsers is that they all perform well and support new HTML5 + CSS3 standards. Functionality-wise our browsers are really similar, so as long as you’re using a recent browser version, it matters little which one your personal preference lies with.
More information @ WindowsTeamBlog
Living with Windows 8
Posted Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 12:00 am by Jason Cartwright
Since Microsoft released the developer bits to the world, more than a Million of you have downloaded it. This doesn’t account for downloading once and installing it many times, so the number of installations is likely to be many more. While most people jumped at the chance to share there thoughts immediately after having installed it, I felt spending some real time living with Windows 8 would give a much better appreciation what’s in store for Microsoft’s next OS.
Windows 8 is like an onion, its vast and has many layers, each of which only exposes itself over time and really requires time to understand and make sense of it. Moving from version 7 to 8 on the surface seems simple enough, but the result of Microsoft’s ambitious changes are both complex and confusing.
It is important to recognize the development path from the Windows 8 developer preview, to public release and look at what will remain and what is still left up to the possibility of change based on user-feedback. My impression from conversations last week is that minor refinements, stability and performance is still to go, however Windows 8 as it stands, will largely be what we will see ship in around 12 months time.
Build // Day 2 – Server, Azure, Visual Studio, Ballmer.
Posted Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 4:01 am by Jason Cartwright
It’s day 2 of Microsoft’s Build Conference and today the focus turns onto Server, Azure and Visual Studio. The first demo of the day showed how a game ‘Tankster’ could write data back to an Azure backend, so PC and Mobile gamers can play against each other cross platform.
Developers we also treated to a number of announcements regarding Visual Studio 2011, demo’d by Scott Guthrie.
- .Net 4.5
- New MVC4 template
- jquery mobile will be part of Visual Studio 2011
- Web sockets
- TFS on Azure
Windows 8 will use a synchronised password vault for single sign-on. Leveraging the SkyDrive syncing discussed yesterday, signing into a service or website on one machine is then associated with your LiveID. Every subsequent machine you log into using that same LiveID will also bring with it the passwords stored in the secure Password Vault.
Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer made an appearance to discuss Microsoft’s future. Ballmer re-iterated that they are “all-in” with the cloud. Every part of Microsoft is looking at how to leverage Cloud services as a key fundamental of their business model. Ballmer says there has never been a better time to be a developer and that there is no other product that there is nothing that has the install base of Windows.
During his presentation Ballmer said Microsoft are in the process of pivoting the business to move with the evolving needs of users and business. From the slides below, you can see the products and services that Microsoft is focusing on.
With consumers goodies taken care of yesterday, today was very much focused on developers, that now wraps up the keynotes for the Build conference. There is still a couple of days of sessions for Build attendees to sink there teeth into. Yesterday created just as many questions as it answered, so expect more information to be release on Windows 8 as we move closer to its release.
How to download Windows 8 Developer Preview ?
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 5:14 am by Jason Cartwright
Microsoft are making the Windows 8 developer preview available to everyone, today. After being teased with demo’s during the Build Conference keynote, you probably want to try out the preview release. The good news is, there’s no keys or activation to deal with, effectively its open slather.
Expect activations later in the development cycle, usually around the beta stage. Given this is an early developer preview, clearly the goal is to get developers to write for it, so making it freely available makes a lot of sense.
The downside is that the current build doesn’t support upgrading from Windows 7, so you’ll need a clean install. This results in a better experience when going between OS’s as a general rule, so not entirely a bad thing.
Starting later tonight you can download the Windows 8 Developer Preview. This includes a 64-bit (x64) build with development tools to build apps, and a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) build without development tools. The releases also include a suite of sample applications (please note these are merely illustrations of potential apps, not apps that we intend to ship with Windows 8).
The later tonight is obviously a reference to US time, this translates to around 4pm for those of us on AEST (GMT +10) time.
Update
The downloads have gone live early. Get the bits (ISOs) from http://dev.windows.com.
