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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."
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