Kinect for Windows has been just released on the 1st of February.
Is there any good way to make it work with HTML5 games? Perhaps even somehow with the upcoming GamePad API...? Looking for ideas here, especially any with minimum extra installation overhead for users browsing the web.
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I am doing something similar, building Win8 Metro apps with Kinect. IE10 uses WebSockets (at least for now; I don't know if that will always be the case) - so connecting to your Kinect device via service may be the only way for now. This doesn't really help your 'no installation required' portion of your question, but it works fairly well, as much as I can tell.
Re: Gamepad API, I still think you'll need some intermediary to translate Kinect data into something the Gamepad API can use, as the Kinect doesn't show up as a gamepad. I'm not terribly familiar with GPAPI, but I doubt seriously if a non-gamepad device would be supported by that API.
Of course, if you get a community together of like-minded devs who can all standardize on a single Kinect-to-gamepad translator, then at least your users only have to install one thing to enjoy a library of web games.
Sounds like an interesting side project :)
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Previous comments/answers about needing a browser plugin/extension are correct.
Take a look at ZigFu, specifically http://zigfu.com/devtools.html, who are working to offer just this with their ZDK/ZigJS (you can find some demos at http://www.motionos.com/demos).
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You could probably use Depth.js if you are targeting safari, chrome or firefox.
"DepthJS is a browser extension (currently Chrome & Safari) that allows the Microsoft Kinect to talk to any web page. It provides the low-level raw access to the Kinect as well as high-level hand gesture events to simplify development."
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You can also use the intrael server
Intrael is a small app server that provides a solid HTTP interface to the MS kinect. It processes the depth data coming from the device, tracks objects and provides several of their properties to network clients. The raw outputs from the cameras are also provided as JPEG images or MJPEG video streams. Using nothing more than plain AJAX, computer vision can now be performed directly and efficiently in the browser. From smart security cameras to all kinds of interactive surfaces, a multitude of new possibilities opens up for web development. The input process itself becomes an art. The code is very efficient, highly portable and licenced as free software.
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I made a demo of an exercise game using the Kinect. I streamed the Kinect data with web sockets to a Nodejs server and to all connected clients. In the browser we used MrDoobs Three.js rendering library to make the game using webGl. You can have a look at the video here
ZigFu provides a browser plugin called ZigJS for Kinect and will enable HTML/JavaScript Kinect apps using hand gestures. You can get ZigJS from ZigFu.com
The ZigJS browser plugin supports both Microsoft's Kinect SDK as well as OpenNI/NITE and Flash and Unity3D plugins all in the browser. We also support serialization of the depth and RGB image into canvas objects in the browser and a high-level gesture UI components written in javascript.
Forgive us while we are launching support for the commercial Kinect SDK. More information will be on ZigFu.com soon, for now, install the OpenNI package and check out demos on http://motionos.com/demos