I was browsing through the draft abstract booklet for this year's worldwide R user conference useR! 2011, and noticed this abstract:

KinectR – Kinect interface to R
Landon Jensen

Microsoft launched the Kinect for Xbox 360 in late 2010 and it quickly broke records as the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history (8 million units sold in the first 60 days). The Kinect enables users to interact without using a controller through a natural user interface using gesture, facial,and voice recognition. Microsoft  also  recently announced the release of the Kinect software development kit (SDK) for Windows to encourage and support creativity, experimentation, and new research directions.

We propose a new package, KinectR, that will enable R to access the Kinect sensor data and system information and intend to demonstrate some interesting applications.

Can't wait to see this and play around with the package. My Kinect device is sadly collecting dust after a brief period of jumping around the living room like a loon, but playing around with the motion recognition systems in R would be a lot more fun.

By the way, check out the abstracts for the other useR talks too: with more than 150 (!) contributed talks there's sure to be plenty of interest for everyone. If you haven't yet registered, regular registration closes next Friday (though you can still register with a late fee through July 22).

useR! 2011: Home Page