Microsoft is improving the functionality of its Kinect for Windows hardware this week with the release of a 1.5 version of its Software Development Kit (SDK). The latest Kinect for Windows 1.5 software includes support for a new "seated" 10-joint skeletal tracking system to enable developers to track the head, neck, and arms of seated and standing users in default and near mode.

Kinect for Windows 1.5 also introduces a Kinect Studio developer tool. Kinect developers can use the tool to record and playback Kinect data in their applications to assist with debugging and app improvements. Microsoft is also supporting additional languages with its 1.5 release, including French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese speech recognition. If you're a Kinect developer looking to enable regional speech detection then there's also additional language packs for English/Great Britain, English/Ireland, English/Australia, English/New Zealand, English/Canada, French/France, French/Canada, Italian/Italy, Japanese/Japan, Spanish/Spain and Spanish/Mexico.