Use your Kinect as a webcam thanks to a new update

By Lulu Chang November 6, 2016

two new kinect exclusives announced microsoft xbox one review console angle 2 1500x1000 — Digital Trends

Your Kinect just got a bit more connected. This weekend, Microsoft announced two major new updates to its popular sensor, making good on promises the company first made in May.

First and foremost, Microsoft has made available code used in a previous demonstration by way of Github as part of the Windows universal samples. This allows users to take advantage of Windows.Media.Capture.Frames APIs “to enumerate the Kinect sensor’s RGB/IR/depth cameras and then use MediaFrameReader to stream frames,” Microsoft said.

Secondly, Microsoft announced the enablement of the Kinect driver on Windows Update, which you can check out by going to the Device Manager and updating your Kinect’s driver. “In addition to enabling the new UWP APIs described above, the new driver also lets you use the Kinect color camera as a normal webcam,” the tech company noted. “This means that apps which use a webcam, such as Skype, can now employ the Kinect sensor as their source.” Moreover, the Kinect sensor can also be used with Windows Hello for facial recognition authentication.

Microsoft also noted that the Xbox summary update allows for the aforementioned Kinect features through Windows.Media.Capture.Frames for UWP apps. That means that apps employing the Kinect sensor’s RGB, infrared, and/or depth cameras will use the same code when running on Xbox, and similarly, that your Xbox can also use the Kinect RGB camera for all webcam purposes.

Microsoft encourages users to “explore both the demo code and download the new driver.” And if you have any feedback, of course, the firm would love to hear it. If you have any questions, technical or otherwise, Windows invites you to join the conversation on the Kinect for Windows v2 SDK forum.

So happy exploring, friends. There’s a lot of new stuff to love about the updated Kinect.

[amz_nsa_keyword keyword=”Xbox Kinect Accessories”]

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

Computing

How to use (almost) any camera as a webcam for Zoom and more

how to use any camera as a web cam v2 00 58 01 still007

Cameras, even those in phones, brag about megapixels and lens specifications -- but laptops? Not so much. There’s a reason computer companies don’t say much about the webcams that come built into the bezels of their screens. Most of these cameras are low-quality, with tiny sensors and cheap lenses. Sure, they work for basic videoconferencing, but they aren’t very impressive and certainly leave us wanting something more.

While you could just buy a stand-alone webcam that connects over USB, to really take production value up a notch, you can opt for a DSLR or mirrorless camera. You’ll need a few workarounds to get this type of camera to be recognized as a webcam by your computer, but the trouble is worth it for the higher resolution, much better low-light performance, and cinematic background blur.

Computing

Windows 11 will use AI to automatically upscale games

Person using Windows 11 laptop on their lap by the window.

Microsoft appears to have decided to jump on the upscaling train in a big way. The latest Windows 11 24H2 Insider build just showed up, sporting a new feature: AI-powered automatic super resolution tech. While the blurb underneath the feature indicates that it was made for games, it might be even more useful outside of them. However, there's a major downside -- it won't be as widely available as it may seem.

The feature was first spotted by PhantomOcean3 on X (formerly Twitter), and it was quite a significant find, considering that Microsoft is apparently keeping this one pretty well hidden. To enable it, users have to go through the following path: Settings > System > Display > Graphics. While it's perhaps not very intuitive to find, the feature itself could turn out to be quite promising.

Computing

This new Windows 11 shortcut made using my PC so much easier

The Digital Trends website on the KTC G42P5.

Microsoft is constantly adding new features to Windows 11, and it's easy for small quality-of-life updates to get buried under Bing Chat integrations and Windows Copilot. I discovered one such feature in the Windows 11 23H2 update a couple of weeks ago, and it's a simple shortcut: Ctrl + Win + V.

Using this keyboard combination will pull up the new-and-improved volume mixer is Windows 11's latest feature update. It's been a massive time save for me, and if you use your PC in a similar way to how I use mine, it'll likely save a lot of time for you, too.