Microsoft Surface meets Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio at U. Mass Lowell
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Robotics Lab have used a Microsoft Surface as a way to command multiple robots to move around by drawing out the paths on the Surface. You can watch the video to see how easy it is.

Microsoft Announces Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3
Taking a look back at the recent past in the robotics industry reflects a period full of promise, excitement, anticipation, and rapid evolution. So much movement has happened in the right direction; we've watched closely as robotics technology has begun to transition along the path from a big, expensive, specialized, industrial level towards a future of a friendly, service-oriented, home and personal level, where everyone has the potential to use and benefit from this technology. But putting this positive progress aside for a moment, it's critical to the future sustainability and success of the industry that we keep working to expand the reach of our robotics community to a greater scale. Just consider the huge potential of consumer robotics, for one example -- an area that's ripe for innovation and for building compelling new scenarios and businesses. In this consumer space, we've learned that best enabling these opportunities isn't really about sophisticated and expensive hardware, it's about the software stack and user experiences. We're building our business to focus first and foremost on positive user experiences -- and by exploring innovations such as Natural User Interfaces (NUI) and the cloud, we want to help you in the robotics community build the software stack that, with your imagination and ingenuity, will lead to the new and innovative robotics scenarios of the future. But for the robotics market overall to reach a tipping point of sustainable scale, we're going to need more software that can help our community to create a broad and relevant range of scenarios for consumers. It doesn't matter if you're a hobbyist, academic or working in the commercial space -- you're going to need a common platform to build these new applications and scenarios. Well, we heard the community demand for such a platform clearly, which is why we developed Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio, which gives developers a common framework for development. It's already been behind the creation of scenarios like exploring "what's next" for in-car connectivity applications that will be on display at this year's Maker Faire, built by Ford and University of Michigan students as part of the "American Journey 2.0" project. We're so excited about the implications of this collaboration, both for the future of robotics development as well as for offering a window into how bright young developers are using our software in unexpected new ways. And today, we're even more excited to announce the availability of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R3 (Microsoft RDS). What's new? Microsoft RDS is now offered free of charge as a download at http://www.microsoft.com/robotics/. Microsoft RDS is now available as a single edition -- containing all of the functionality of the previous Standard Edition at no cost. New features in Microsoft RDS 2008 R3 include added support for Visual Studio 2010 and two additional simulation environments (Multi-level House and Factory). Additional samples have been made available on CodePlex, including Sumo and Soccer simulations. By making source code available on CodePlex, the community can modify and extend the Microsoft RDS platform. Other new updates/changes include: The CCR & DSS Toolkit has been merged into RDS 2008 R3 CCR & DSS will remain a core component of RDS CCR & DSS can be obtained by installing the full RDS package R3 is no longer compatible with Compact Framework (CF) development Samples for languages other than C# have been moved to CodePlex. Whether you're a hobbyist, academic or commercial customer, or just curious about developing robotics applications, Microsoft RDS 2008 R3 gives you everything you need to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of different hardware. By offering this software free of charge, we're hoping to help push the robotics market towards the sustainable scale I mentioned earlier -- putting Microsoft RDS in the hands of as many developers as possible to innovate and experiment with. We're enthusiastic to see what developers around the world, of all backgrounds and levels of knowledge, will bring to the table using Microsoft RDS in the months to come. -- Stathis Papaefstathiou, General Manager, Microsoft Robotics

Kompai Robot from Robosoft
Robosoft has announced the Kompaï R&D Robot which is designed to assist elderly and handicapped people in their homes. It could also be used as a receptionist. Users can interact with the robot via speech recognition and synthesis or a touch screen. It also has a WiFi connection and can do autonomous navigation. The first version of the robot is intended for developers so that they can start creating robotics applications. The robuBox software system is based on Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio and includes a 3D simulation of the robot in an apartment environment which allows developers to get started without a real robot. More info...

New tool and tutorials for learning about Robotics Developer Studio
Young Joon Kim in Korea maintains a web site about Robotics Developer Studio called Hello Apps. He has recently added the topics below: C# interface programming with SPL Java interface programming with SPL Python interface programming with SPL LabView interface programming with VPL and SPL MATLAB interface programming with VPL Flash interface programming with VPL and SPL VPL UI programming And a lot of robotics and creativity course samples Note that SPL (Simulation Programming Language) is Young Joon's own development environment for RDS. SPL adds a scripting layer to the RDS Simulator. Although it is based around simulation, the principles apply to real-world robotics as well. There is a lot of great material on the web site, especially if you are just learning how to use RDS or if you might want to teach a class using RDS. You can download both RDS and SPL for free, which makes learning basic robotics very low cost.

e-nuvo Humanoid Robot
The Nippon Institute of Technology (NIT) announced late last year the e-nuvo Humanoid robot in conjunction with several partners including ZMP who manufacture the robot. It was widely reported in blogs, such as cnet and Plastic Pals, but it seems there are no details yet in English on the NIT web site. More details are available in Japanese on the ZMP web page. Use your favorite on-line translation tool if you want to find out more.

National Robotics Week
Recognizing the importance of robots in 21st century technology, a group of about 20 companies, universities, museums, and other organizations is promoting a National Robotics Week in the USA from April 10-18. This is intended to become an annual event. Its purpose is to educate the public about robotics and inspire students to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). For more information see the National Robotics Week web site.

iRobot launches SPARK website for STEM Education
Earlier this month iRobot launched a new web site called SPARK - Starter Programs for the Advancement of Robotics Knowledge. The purpose of the site is to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in education. For more information visit the SPARK web site.

CCR in use at MySpace
A video entitled CCR at MySpace has been released on Channel 9. It describes how the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) has been used to handle requests for data on the MySpace servers which process tens of thousands of web requests per second. This is a perfect application for CCR which simplifies concurrent programming and provides very high throughput with a minimal number of threads.

Learn Page now available on Microsoft Robotics web site
The Learn Page on the Microsoft Robotics web site provides links to most of the content available for learning about RDS. You can search the content list in a variety of different ways and the links will take you directly to the resources on the Internet.

CoroWare announces new robot and simulation software
In June this year CoroWare announced a new robot in their range, called the Explorer, which is designed for outdoor use. More recently, they have announced the availability of the ClassPack simulation software as an open source package. The ClassPack is based on the CoroBot which was the predecessor to the Explorer. For more information, contact CoroWare,

Introductory Videos on RDS
A series of introductory videos about RDS will be released over the coming weeks. These are intended to be short (about 5 minutes) and cover topics that will help you to get started using RDS. The first video is available at: MSRobotics on YouTube.

Imagine Cup Winners Announced - Includes Robotics Competition
The finals of the Imagine Cup for 2009 were held recently in Cairo, Egypt. This year the Imagine Cup included a Robotics competition for the first time, which took over from the very popular RoboChamps. It is planned to offer a Robotics competition again in 2010. See Imagine Cup Winners.

Robosoft announces robot for elder care that uses RDS
Robosoft, a Microsoft RDS partner in France, has announced RobuLAB10 which is aimed at assisting elderly people in their homes. The robot uses RDS as its core platform. For more information see: Robosoft RobuLAB10

RDS 2008 R2 Released
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 is a platform for developing robotics applications. The R2 upgrade has now been released. There is a brand new Robotics Web Site and an Introduction Video. You can download the Express Edition at no cost, or purchase the Standard Edition or download it from MSDN if you have a Pro or Premium subscription. The Academic Edition can be obtained through MSDNAA or DreamSpark.

RDS 2008 and CCR and DSS Toolkit Standard Editions available through MSDN and...
Due to customer demand, both Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) 2008 Standard Edition and CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008 Standard Edition are now available to all MSDN Professional and MSDN Premium subscribers, which includes BizSpark customers. This enables customers to acquire a simple, per-user license for all the software they need in their development projects, enhancing their investment in MSDN. Subscribers can download the software from:MSDN Subscriber Downloads

Sending IR codes in background
Hello guys.After hours spent on the internet trying to understand how stuff works i came up with this piece of code. It simply sends out SONY remote codes, but the cool thing is that it does this in background, meaning that while your MCU sends out the code, you can carry on with your main loop, and you don't have to wait till the code has been sent to carry on with you sketch.read more

Web Clicker
Control your TV, DVD, Stereo, DVR, Cable box, Mac, Xbox, or any other IR device with the Web Clicker! The Web Clicker is a web server & IR transceiver.  You can record any IR command and play it back via an AJAX web interface or just by requesting a URL.  It works great from a cell phone and it's especially handy for home automation projects.  A demo video is above.read more

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Mischief with the Iphone 4 - Animate that Box!
Got an Iphone 4? Well good for you, I've got an Iphone 4 controlling the Iphone 4 box! (Well not really, It's my dad's Iphone after all).Well anyway, This is a "How To" on how to half destroy your Iphone 4 container, and build a robot out of it.So first of all what you'll need is -read more

GPSRover 1.0.
Primary image What does it do? navigates using GPS Well this is GPSRover 1.0. its not my first robot but it is my first on LMR.    So far all it does is move between different saved waypoints but im thinking of maybe adding some obstacle detection/avoidance and possibly some kind of mapping using processing. Cost to build $250,00 Embedded video Finished project Number Time to build 40 hours Type tracks URL to more information Weight read more

NXT2 color light sensor tip with PID controller
little background first... i wanted to try the NXT robot to follow line, BUT:- the smart brick only has 4 sensor ports- i only have 1 light sensor (able to detect colors as well - NXT2)i didnt want to buy any mux or sensor arrays you can get for the NXT to solve these, so i was thinking about how to use what i have to being able to follow the line.read more

Locomotive Speedometer
Problem :- Model steam locomotives do not have a speedometer, however track constraints often create speed restrictions so we need to know how fast we are going.  Current method is guessing!Solution :- Use a picaxe to create a speedometer.  This is only a concept proving at the moment as I have yet to build my locomotive.  The BIG problem with picaxe is the integer only math, while the speedometer does not have to be perfectly correct it should be a real indication of speed. My solution is as followsread more

another ucWalker
Primary image What does it do? this is my first mono core bot.it is still in debugging.the front leg have modified and add spring.i will take some video later. the source of ucWalker,http://www.beam-wiki.org/wiki/Wilf's_uCrawler ,thanks wilf. -zang    Cost to build Embedded video Finished project Number Time to build Type URL to more information Weight

TTP - TheTankProject
Primary image What does it do? Navigates remote controled by another computer Hi there! After seeing the tank tracks that amando96 did for his AATV, me and Purdom decided to build our own tank.We've started building it last Saturday and here are the first movies and photos.The tracks are really good and easy to make, they just take a lot of pacience. Cost to build $50,00 Embedded video Finished project Number Time to build Type URL to more information Weight read more

Arduquee, a Arduino powered Marquee
I’ve set out designing what I’d like to call Arduquee, a Arduino powered Marquee. The idea is this, low cost LED matrix driver boards that are easy to work with at (hopefully) around $10 a board including the LED matrix itself.  A similar serial driven LED matrix can go for $35 per 8×8 matrix. That can add up fast if you want to chain more then one together for a large display. Instead, my design is 1/3 the price, and can easily be chained together to create larger displays.read more

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