Well, we knew this was coming but to be honest I thought it would take them just a little longer than this.  I wonder if this will cut in on the "Kinect" since a lot of people bought Kinects just to hack and put on the PC.  If it does I don't think it will be much.  Overall I think this will be good for MS and the 360.  If there are a lot of games developed for the PC, more than likely if they are decent they will be immediately ported.  I also like the idea that its going to be open source.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12144231

The chips that power the motion-capture system in Microsoft's Kinect are being put in a gadget that works with PCs.

This will mean anyone keen to tap into the sensing abilities of a gadget resembling the Kinect can do so without owning an Xbox 360.

Development versions of the device are being sold by the Israeli company which developed the motion-spotting chips.

It is releasing the code to control the device under an open licence so anyone can use it.

PrimeSense is the creator of the chip that powers the motion-sensing part of Microsoft's Kinect.

Microsoft launched the Kinect for the Xbox 360 in November 2010 and claims to have sold eight million of the devices in the run-up to Christmas.

The device does away with the need for a controller to navigate around the Xbox and to get at content such as movies and to play some games.

Now PrimeSense is selling development versions of what it calls the PrimeSensor - a gadget that resembles the Kinect and has the same infra-red and CMOS cameras on board to do the motion spotting and gesture capture.

Tamir Berliner - one of the founders of PrimeSense - said the company was looking to get the PrimeSensor into the hands of developers so they can bring gestured-based interfaces to many different types of devices.

He said the company was making the source code for the PrimeSensor available to give developers the freedom to play around with it.

"It will all be open source so you can take it and port it to any device," he said.

Already, he said, some programmers had developed applications and games for the PrimeSensor and uploaded them to its associated app store.

Applications shown off at CES that can be controlled via gesture included some basic games, a picture gallery and a movie library.

"When we founded the company we set out to change the computer gaming industry with movement games but we did not have the Wii to prove us right," he said.

"Now," he said, "we see that computer games are just the start."

The release of the gadget could prove popular with the growing number of people who hacked Microsoft's Kinect to turn it to their own ends.

One of the first licencees has been computer maker Asus which has paired the PrimeSensor with two devices that stream data from a PC to a TV via wireless. This lets owners get at the media on that PC using gestures rather than a mouse.

hmm will you not be able to use the same kinect for pc and 360

I would imagine you could use the 360's Kinect on the pc by hacking it.  But not vice versa because the 360 wouldn't allow other companies to make the Kinect due to licensing fees etc...   They would be foolish if they allowed them to use a pc version on the 360 because they would lose a sale.

i can sooooo smell a lawsuit coming

It will probably be a licensed product.  If I am not mistaken they are the ones who originally developed the idea, and no one with half a brain would want the legions of lawyers coming down on them from Microsoft.  That would scare the bajezus out of most small/large companies.

But what will it's uses be on the PC? Seems very limited given the nature of the PC as a gaming platform and as a desktop machine.

PS: Think there will be Kinect for Mac?

It could be limitless.  Just as the article points out, one company is already making use of it for an entertainment system for your tv.  So add this along with a lot of the stuff that you see in minority report and it would be worth it just to tinker around with.  As long as they can bring the price down somewhat.   If microsoft allows several other companies to produce it, this will drive the price down somewhat just due to free market competition.

There could be a day when your tv comes with a kinect sensor built into it.  That would be marvelous. 

Your thread title is misleading.  This is not Kinect, it's only one aspect of it, the depth camera.

Kinect was built upon that system but it includes a lot of extra engineering and programming developed by Microsoft.  For example the unit that Asus is selling doesn't have an RGB camera or any of the audio capabilities.  It's just the depth camera.

yeah but the stuff that microsoft patented is surely being violated. But as someone as said later, this is only one part, it isnt the voice etc. But couldn't they simply copy that ?

MS needs to protect their shit