Microsoft’s Robotics Studio includes a simulation program for modeling and testing the behavior of robots before building them. (Courtesy of Microsoft.)
The latest product from Redmond: a Windows program for creating robot software.
Microsoft software is ubiquitous -- it's in most desktop PCs and laptops and even some PDAs and phones. And now it's headed into robots.
At the RoboBusiness conference this week in Pittsburgh, PA, Microsoft unveiled Microsoft Robotics Studio, a software development tool that represents the company's first investment in a market that Bill Gates and others believe has as much growth potential as the early PC market once did.
[For images from the Robotics Studio, click here.]
"There are several things about the robotics market that seem to mirror the PC days of the late 1970s," says Tandy Trower, general manager of Microsoft's new robotics group. "The key applications that are going to trigger the growth of the technology are still in question. Hardware is fragmented, with little standardization. And there are haves and have-notes -- some companies and university labs with the ability to build a whole robot ecosystem from the hardware to the software, and then a wider audience that is anxious to interact with the technology, but just doesn't have the resources to do it."
Building a robot these days is as much a programming exercise as a nuts-and-bolts hardware project; even children experimenting with Lego's popular Mindstorms toy-robot kits must learn how to use graphical programming tools on a PC before they can send a single instruction to their plastic-block creations.
The problem in the grown-up world is that every new robot, even those built by industrial robot manufacturers, requires its own specialized software and programming tools. If there were a single, widely used tool for robot programming, code could be reused on different robots, and robot builders could concentrate on advanced features rather than basic infrastructure, says Trower.
Demonstrating that point, robot makers from Lego to KUKA Robot Group, a German manufacturer of large industrial robots, were on hand in Pittsburgh to show how software written using Microsoft's tool can run on many different types of robots.
Microsoft's Robotics Studio, which runs on Windows XP and was released Tuesday as a free preview, includes several components: a programming environment for writing and debugging software for robots that's similar to Visual Studio, the company's main tool for writing Windows software; a "runtime" environment that functions as a mini-operating system for robots, executing the code people write using the programming tool; and a simulator that allows users to build virtual models of robots and test how their software would behave on them, without having to build actual hardware.
Cellulose films could provide flapping wings and cheap artificial muscles for robots.
Guest (Richrd)
Microsoft is Perfect for this job
Owning several Microsoft partnered companies over the years I see them as the ideal Corporate entity to take on a task like this and see it through to the end. Most small companies could never survive the long start up period as the market grows. Microsoft has existing software that is ready to start today and this will allow the hardware developers the early advantage they need to market products with out the concerns of living through Alpha and Beta code releases. Other competition will be needed, but the industry is clearly excited about this evolutionary jump in development tools.
Guest (Mike Swisher)
Microsoft Partners are some of the most inefficent companies I have ever dealt with. They for the most part operate on the gates theory of business. They will supporet microsoft in its journeys to work the bugs out of every system throught eh general public(at its expense). All the while blaming the harware or the user for all of the problems and offering more of thier products to repair it.
Guest (Andy)
So we will now have no fear of robots taking over the world, just wait for them to glaze over with a blue face, freeze because of lack of memory, or get attacked through the latest security flaw and require rebooting/reformatting and we are all saved :0)
Guest (Jonathan)
Even better, there will be scores of robots wanted by the police for having not paid the bill for their firmware. We'll have robot prisons full of robots and robot gangs fighting in the streets to figure out who's the real l337 gangsta's.
Guest (Andy)
So we will now have no fear of robots taking over the world, just wait for them to glaze over with a blue face, freeze because of lack of memory, or get attacked through the latest security flaw and require rebooting/reformatting and we are all saved :0)
Guest (Max)
I'm no great fan of Microsoft, but my XP prof setup hasn't crashed or given me any problems in the three years I've been running it. Sure, perfect it ain't, but . . . . And yes, despite that, I'm ordering an iMac this week.
Max
Guest (maloavi)
You know you are kinda closed minded Microsoft is a great company and they have respectable products, maybe they need a lot of resources but that doesn't mean that they are efficient. About windows bugs, Hey Come back to the real world no company is perfect.
You are right on somethings but they have proof that they are a great software company (see how famous are its products)
Guest (Mike Swisher)
Microsoft has been working the bugs out of its software on the general public for years. Try to contact them for support and get your Indian translator ready because they won't even keep thier support in this country.Microsoft will see serious competition in the near future as great disdain for them is growing very rapidly.
Guest (Richard)
As are most liberals you seem to be long on talk and short on vision. Instead of complaining go do it better yourself.
Guest (bob)
Now somebody who points out the true fact that MS software is historically crappy is a liberal? I suppose that means liberal = realist?
Guest (Jacques M)
My old windows PCs used to crash all the time. My new one hasn't been turned off in three months and hasn't crashed yet. Obviously their products are successful for a reason and I don't foresee Microsoft products not being used in the near future. If a better product came out more people would use it, and then viruses, hate campaigns, etc. would appear for that product. If you don't like it don't buy it, but I'm not going to put down any company trying to develop new technology. It will survive or fail based on it's own merit.
Guest (roboboy)
will be full of holes, as usual
Just like the rest of the MS software, this will be full of security holes and errors, and it will require a never ending stream of repair patches.
The problem will be magnified by the fact that eventually robots will do real life work, and their malfunction will be a major liability issue for their owners.
Guest (Dan H)
At least at the moment, the package depends on a "visual simulation environment that uses the Ageia Technologies™ PhysX™ engine." -- subject of another article here (http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17013) which implies a "high-end" only (and not much existing, i.e. immature) user-base...
Guest (ddb)
The PhysX engine is installed with Windows XP - so there might be a small userset that utilizes it, but anybody with XP has it.
Guest (Dennis)
Windows or Mac? Windows all day!
How can you guys and gals be so narrow minded. Of course in anything that any company does there are gonna the complainer's that swear somethings wrong when its not. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft has its flaws but come on what company doesn't. Everyone should know this is the company to develop this because no other company would stand the test. All mac has is the freakin IPOD!
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Guest (Bob Downs)
Microsoft?
If their tools are anything like windows then I don't think they
are robust enough and way too complicated...current tools from my
perspective have much, too much
baggage.
I'm not sure that Microsoft is the
company to be doing this sort of thing, especially with their current mindset.
Reply
Guest (Aldo)
Certainly, Micro$ won't ever produce a good thing. But the have the money and the lack of integrity to comercialize whatever they want
Reply
Guest (Daniel Velázquez)
Terminator
If Robot's software is Windows based then you will have to buy a lot of medicines for it, and buy the ultimate in hardware, and take care of licenses just for having a simple walking robot that will hang at any moment and reboot by itself. With Windows based robots Terminator will never happen xD
Reply
Guest (pete mills)
agreement
Yeah thats a good point Bob
Reply
Guest (F1 Fan)
Microsoft To Supply F1 Racer Electronics
Microsoft has contracted with Formula 1, thepinnacle of technology in auto racing, to suppply ECUs starting in 2008. Does this mean pit stops will no longer just be for fuel and tires, but will also include "rebooting"?
Reply