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Thursday, June 22, 2006

Microsoft Robots Are Coming

Continued from page 1

By Wade Roush

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Trower says Robotics Studio is intended to help the robot industry "bootstrap itself," the same way Microsoft's first DOS operating system provided a standard platform that other software writers were then able to use to write a host of applications, such as spreadsheets and word-processing programs, that eventually made PCs indispensable.

Once the toolkit graduates to full-product status later this year, the company will continue to provide it at no charge to academic and educational users, and charge commercial users a few hundred dollars per copy, according to Trower. "The market is just getting started, so it doesn't make sense to try to pull a large amount of revenue out of it," suggests Trower. "As the market grows and becomes a commercial reality, that's where we will recoup our investment."

Trower believes that PCs and robots are converging -- and that Microsoft must invest in robotics if it wants to be a player in personal computing five to ten years from now. "Your PC is getting up off the desktop and beginning to interact in the same environment where you live in new ways, using cameras and sensors and speech technology and a variety of other advanced technologies," he says. "This is the direction that PCs are evolving."

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  • Microsoft?
    Guest (Bob Downs) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
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    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.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • [no subject]
      Guest (Aldo) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
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      1
      Certainly, Micro$ won't ever produce a good thing. But the have the money and the lack of integrity to comercialize whatever they want
      Rate this comment: 12345
      • Terminator
        Guest (Daniel Velázquez) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        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
        Rate this comment: 12345
    • agreement
      Guest (pete mills) on 06/29/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      Yeah thats a good point Bob
      Rate this comment: 12345
    • Microsoft To Supply F1 Racer Electronics
      Guest (F1 Fan) on 07/10/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      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"?
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Microsoft is Perfect for this job
    Guest (Richrd) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Spoken Like A Clone Of Gates
      Guest (Mike Swisher) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
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      1
      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.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Microsoft saves the world
    Guest (Andy) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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)
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Robot pirates
      Guest (Jonathan) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      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.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Microsoft saves the world
    Guest (Andy) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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)
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • Microsoft saves the world
      Guest (Max) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      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
      Rate this comment: 12345
      • Apparently you don't know
        Guest (maloavi) on 06/22/2006 at 12:00 AM
        Posts:
        1
        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)
        Rate this comment: 12345
        • Apparently YOU DON'T KNOW
          Guest (Mike Swisher) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
          Posts:
          1
          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.
          Rate this comment: 12345
          • Spoken like a true liberal
            Guest (Richard) on 06/28/2006 at 12:00 AM
            Posts:
            1
            As are most liberals you seem to be long on talk and short on vision. Instead of complaining go do it better yourself.
            Rate this comment: 12345
            • Spoken like a true idiot
              Guest (bob) on 06/29/2006 at 12:00 AM
              Posts:
              1
              Now somebody who points out the true fact that MS software is historically crappy is a liberal?  I suppose that means liberal = realist?
              Rate this comment: 12345
        • Who knows and who cares
          Guest (Jacques M) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
          Posts:
          1
          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.
          Rate this comment: 12345
          • Agreed
            Guest (Mike Swisher) on 06/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
            Posts:
            1
            I am not putting any company down I am meerly saying that Microsoft should work more of the bugs out prior to distribution.
            Rate this comment: 12345
  • will be full of holes, as usual
    Guest (roboboy) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • murder?
      Guest (ms) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      Who will be charged with the murder when a uSoft bug leads to a death? (It's probably already happened indirectly, but it could be a lot more direct and dramatic with a robot.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Anybody else catch this?
    Guest (Dan H) on 06/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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...
    Rate this comment: 12345
    • PhysX - Windows XP
      Guest (ddb) on 06/26/2006 at 12:00 AM
      Posts:
      1
      The PhysX engine is installed with Windows XP - so there might be a small userset that utilizes it, but anybody with XP has it.
      Rate this comment: 12345
  • Windows or Mac? Windows all day!
    Guest (Dennis) on 06/30/2006 at 12:00 AM
    Posts:
    1
    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!
    Rate this comment: 12345
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