Kinect for Windows brings Kinect technology to your PC. Today the Kinect for Windows team has released the fifth version of the Kinect for Windows SDK (version 1.8) which provides some new capabilities. Here's a quick summary of the updates:

- New background removal API. This "turn-key" green screening capability makes it easy to perform background replacement dynamically in your application.

- 3D color capture capabilities with Kinect Fusion. Kinect Fusion enables your app to create 3D mesh models with a Kinect sensor. In the 1.8 Kinect for Windows SDK these capabilities have been augmented with realistic color texture mapping.

- Improved tracking for Kinect Fusion. Updated algorithms enable more reliable camera tracking as the Kinect sensor moves while scanning a scene.

- Multi-sensor Kinect Fusion sample. A new sample app in the SDK demonstrates how to use two Kinect sensors to scan objects from multiple angles simultaneously.

- Adaptive UI sample. This new sample in the Kinect for Windows SDK demonstrates how you can factor in user distance and screen size to optimize the scale of content in your app. With this capability your app can optimize the user interface.

- HTML interaction sample. If you like to write apps in HTML, this sample shows you how to implement interactions using HTML 5.

If you have a Kinect for Windows sensor, download the SDK and try out the new samples.