Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK gets you up and running developing Kinect applications for your PC using Microsoft tools and the official SDK. You will have a working Kinect program by the end of the first chapter The following chapters will open up the secrets of three-dimensional vision, skeleton tracking, audio through the Kinect, and more. Examples illustrate the concepts in the form of simple games that react to your body movements. The result is a fun read that helps you learn one of the hottest technologies out there today. Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK also provides building blocks and ideas for mashing up the Kinect with other technologies to create art, interactive games, 3D models and enhanced office automation. You'll learn the fundamental code basic to almost all Kinect applications. You'll learn to integrate that code with other tools and manipulate data to create amazing Kinect applications. Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK is your gateway into the exciting world of three-dimensional, real-time computer interaction.* Helps you create a proper development environment for Kinect applications. * Covers the basics of three-dimensional vision, skeleton tracking, gesture recognition, and audio * Provides fun examples that keep you engaged and learning What you'll learn * Create a proper development environment * Work with data streams from the Kinect sensor * Use skeleton-tracking for interactive applications * Build speech-aware applications * Develop simple, Kinect-based games for the PC * Learn the underlying math involved in three-dimensional programming Who this book is for Beginning Kinect Programming with the Microsoft Kinect SDK is for Microsoft developers who want to learn to program for the newest and coolest Microsoft input device. The book assumes familiarity, but not expertise, with WPF and C#. Developers will be able to use their current knowledge and experience with the Microsoft stack to build new types of applications that have never been possible before. Most of all, this book is for developers who want to go beyond simply creating data-entry applications and recapture the fun of creating software.Table of Contents * Getting Started with Kinect * Application Fundamentals * Depth Image Processing * Kinect Skeletons * Advanced Skeleton Tracking * Kinect Gestures * Speech * Beyond the Basics

In England's Cross of Gold, James Ashley Morrison challenges the conventional view that the UK's ruinous return to gold in 1925 was inevitable. Instead, he offers a new perspective on the struggles among elites in London to define and redefine the gold standard—from the first discussions during the Great War; through the titanic ideological clash between Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes; to the final, ill-fated implementation of the "new gold standard." Following World War I, Churchill promised to restore the ancient English gold standard—and thus Britain's greatness. Keynes portended that this would prove to be one of the most momentous—and ill-advised—decisions in financial history. From the vicious peace settlement at Versailles to the Great Depression, the gold standard was central to the worst disasters of the time. Economically, Churchill's move exacerbated the difficulties of repairing economies shattered by war. Politically, it set countries at odds as each endeavored to amass gold, sowing the seeds of further strife. England's Cross of Gold, grounded in masterful archival research, reveals that these events turned crucially on the beliefs of a handful of pivotal policymakers. It recasts the legends of Churchill, Keynes, and their collision, and it shows that the gold standard itself was a metaphysical abstraction rooted more in mythology than material reality.