I hope there the SDK writers at Microsoft are paying attention to the trends in gesture recognition and video processing.
Windows is so terribly weak when it comes to webcams, vision processing and the like. Where’s the SDK? Where’s the support for integrated webcams?
Intel has been way ahead with its OpenCV. Microsoft almost silent and in fact, has been busy removing just about its only webcam aware software from the default install of Windows 7 (MovieMaker and Messenger). Ugh.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Microsoft is aware of the value of cameras and vision processing, it’s just that it doesn’t bubble up to the mass market needs. This hasn’t been very forward thinking if you ask me.
What’s so ironic is that various groups at Microsoft are working around the periphery here seemingly reinventing the fundamentals. You’d think with the Robotics group, Surface, the multi-touch-laser-based displays, Messenger, OfficeLabs experiments with gestures, and the like, that Microsoft would see the need for an SDK. Hello? Anyone home?
Seems to me that there’s a huge opportunity here along the lines of Microsoft’s “natural computing” initiative to lead the way here. Not all of the wide adoption fun needs to come from Apple first.