This document introduces the Kinect and provides an overview of its capabilities and applications. It discusses the Kinect hardware, development environments like the Kinect SDK and OpenNI, and basic processes for building Kinect applications using techniques like computer vision, image processing, and skeleton tracking. Example applications demonstrated include 3D scanning, motion capture in Blender, and interactive games using the Blender game engine and Python scripts. Helpful additional programs mentioned are NI Mate for transferring motion data and Skanect for 3D scanning.