Installing the Kinect for Windows SDK

Download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Kinect for Windows SDK at http://research.microsoft.com/kinectsdk

Kinect Hardware Basics

The Kinect Sensor consists of the following:

RGB Camera ? A regular video camera that has a resolution of 640x480 at 30 frames per second
3D Depth Sensors ? This is a combination of a depth projector (left reticule) and sensor (right reticule) to calculate distance. For more information, see the Tech behind Kinect video
Motorized Tilt ? The motorized tilt enables you to adjust the camera up or down 27 degrees to ensure that the camera has the best possible view of you
Multi-Array Microphone ? A four-microphone array that is mounted as a single microphone in Windows

Device manager

After installing the Kinect for Windows SDK and plugging in the Kinect to a USB port on your computer. Click Control Panel ?> Device Manager. You should see Microsoft Kinect as shown below

Audio Microphone

The Kinect microphone can be used for any application that uses a microphone. In the picture below, you?ll see that you can go to Control Panel ?> Sounds and select the Recording tab to see the Kinect microphone array

Using the Kinect Microphone with Windows Sound Recorder

To use Kinect as a microphone for Windows Sound Recorder, simply ensure that the Kinect microphone is setup in the Sound control panel (above) as the default sound recorder. Click the Start Recording button to start recording using the Kinect as a microphone and click the Stop Recording button to be prompted where to save your file

How to use Windows Speech Recognition with the Kinect microphone

Click Start and type ?Windows Speech Recognition? and hit enter or, in the Sound control panel, right click and select Configure Speech Recognition as shown below

If you?ve never used speech recognition before, consider using the Take Speech Tutorial option and reviewing the Speech Reference Card. If you are familiar with speech recognition, select Start Speech Recognition

Since the Kinect is a microphone array, make sure to select the Other option as shown below

Once the Windows Speech Recognition application has started, your screen will display the following widget, which you can use to interact with Speech Recognition application if required