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Microsoft has been seeking to recruit developers to the Kinect platform using one of the most potent bribes in the book: bacon.

Microsoft is looking to double the size of its current Kinect developer team, and has hired ad agency Wexley School for Girls to promote the idea. Those bright sparks came up with the bacon idea under the slogan "Wake up and Smell the Future," then pimped up a bacon cart and set up shop outside Amazon.com headquarters in South Lake Union, Seattle.

Anyone can pop along and grab some bacon (sadly the American crisp streaky kind, not the moist back rashers this El Reg hack still dreams of), and cover it with a variety of toppings, including spray cheese, Sriracha, peanut butter, maple syrup, and chocolate sauce. A barker wearing a bacon-covered white suit, calling himself the Sizzler, was also on hand to drum up interest.

Early reports suggest the local Seattlites were amused by the spectacle, but there are no reports of hoards of bacon-fuelled developers beating a path to Redmond’s door. The bacon cart will be in town for another few days, and is expected to visit the Google and Adobe campuses in the Seattle area.

The gimmick underlies how Microsoft wants to expand its Kinect team, and to move the platform from something used only by gamers into the mainstream. Last week the company announced Kinect Accelerator, a competition for ten start-ups to come up with the best idea for a cloud-based business based around the platform.

Ten finalists will take part in a three-month boot camp in Seattle, from March to May 2012, and get $20,000 in funding, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK, office space, and technical training and support. At the end of the period the ten teams will address an investors meeting to seek VC funds to take their ideas to the next level. ®

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