Microsoft recently release the Kinect SDK which allows you to implement a Natural User Interface and program against it! There is a lot of interest around including claims on how Robotics will change to how you can integrate a light sensor.
You can use Visual Studio (C++, C# and VB.NET supported) and get quite interesting results.
Here are a series of links below which will help you get started.
- Download and install the Kinect SDK
- Download and install Quickstart Samples and Slides (zip file)
- Understanding the Kinect hardware
- Setting up your Dev Environment
- Understanding the basics of skeletal tracking using the Kinect sensor
- Understanding camera fundamentals
- Understanding the audio fundamentals
- Playing with the Coding4Fun Kinect toolkit and seeing how one can build cool apps such as:
- Kinect Paint (which uses skeleton tracking)
- Kinect Mouse which uses your hands as the mouse cursor
Keep and eye out on the Coding4Fun Kinect blog .