Microsoft has plans to release a commercial version of the Kinect SDK, but hasn’t said a word about when it’ll be available. “Microsoft’s investments in natural user interfaces are vital to our long-term vision of creating computers that are intuitive to use and able to do far more for us,” said Mundie. “The fruits of these research investments are manifesting across many of our products, Kinect for Xbox 360 among them.” For some, this move seems uncharacteristic for Microsoft. As a company that has often been maligned for its proprietary approach to software development (though not nearly as protective as Apple…), many were surprised to see Microsoft taking the initiative to reach out to the already robust community of Kinect hackers. But in reality, this move is really a no-brainer. Making the unofficial uses of the Kinect official will only help the Kinect by harnessing the enthusiastic and innovative hacking community. And besides, Microsoft has always been about the developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. And that’s totally groovy.

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