Microsoft News Tracker

Microsoft today launched Robotics Studio 1.5 adding support for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 and Windows Mobile 6, “which allows developers to more easily deploy advanced scenarios and software applications on embedded platforms of a wider variety and lower cost.” Among other enhancements were:

… improvements to its visual programming language and 3-D real-world-physics-based visual simulation environment, built on the AGEIA Technologies Inc.-based PhysX engine. New services have also been added, including support for vision and speech recognition, expanded documentation and a new editor that makes it easier to configure and target software services for robotics platforms.

Robotics Studio 1.5 is free and available for download here. A variety of marketing programs were announced as well.

Microsoft: “We’re in it to win!” (with Windows Live):

We can’t disclose a lot of what we saw [or even if we saw anything at all] at the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Global Summit [isn't that a typical Microsoft name?]. However, consistently we heard that Microsoft at all levels are committed to win. Both Steven [not Steve] Sinofsky and Chris Jones were very aggressive about driving that in, regardless of what’s happened in the past.
…
The Internet industry is such a fast, always changing field that Microsoft’s management is attempting to morph with it. They’ve realized that the first wave of Windows Live was a little rocky, but they’re learning from it for wave 2.
…
Ideas are going to be well developed inside the company before pushing them out to the public, where confusion can become rampant as we’ve seen. There’s going to be a clear distinction between what’s a Windows Live product and what’s an MSN product, as well as what’s a beta product, or a technical preview product.

Offhand, I’d say that public confusion was purely a reflection of internal Microsoft confusion.

Ballmer calls Google’s growth plans ‘insane’ (video here):

While many investors have knocked Microsoft for not moving as quickly as Google, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggested that his chief rival may be trying to grow too fast.

Microsoft took nearly three decades to grow to 75,000 people, while Google has become a very large company in a fraction of that time.

“They are trying to double in a year,” Ballmer told a crowd of Stanford Graduate School of Business students on Thursday. “That’s insane in my opinion.”

But, he added, “it doesn’t mean they won’t do it well.”

There are advantages to the deliberate management structure that Microsoft has put in place, he said, adding that he isn’t sure anyone has proven “that a random collection of people doing their own thing” has created value.

Fair enough point, although a large collection of people led by bureaucrats usually don’t fare much better.

As in the past, he characterized Google as a one-trick pony, playing down the company’s efforts beyond search.

“They do a lot of cute things,” Ballmer said, to huge laughs from the business students.

“We do a lot of cute things too,” he said. “We have a robotics effort.”

Hard cheese for the robotics folks, I guess.

And last but not least, Microsoft: OneCare should not have been rolled out:

Microsoft has said that its OneCare security suite has “a problem” with the underlying antivirus code, and admitted that security is just “a little part of Microsoft”.

Speaking to ZDNet UK exclusively at the CeBIT show in Hanover, a senior manager for the software giant said that its consumer security product is far from perfect and that pieces are actually “missing”.

Skipping the litany of OneCare problems including dining on email, we cut to the chase:

Asked about these problems, Arno Edelmann, Microsoft’s European business security product manager, told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the code itself has pieces missing.

“Usually Microsoft doesn’t develop products, we buy products. It’s not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing,” said Edelmann.

The problem lies with a core technology of OneCare, the GeCAD antivirus code, and how it interacts with Microsoft mailservers. According to Edelmann, the Microsoft updates and mailserver infrastructure do not harmonise.

“It’s a problem with the updates, and it’s a problem with the implementation,” said Edelmann.

If mail is received from a server running Exchange 2007, users are unlikely to encounter problems. However, if mail is received from servers running Exchange 2000 or 2003, the likelihood of quarantining is high, said Edelmann.

“OneCare is a new product — they shouldn’t have rolled it out when they did, but they’re fixing the problems now,” said Edelmann.

According to the security manager, security is only a small part of what Microsoft does, suggesting it does not have as much security expertise as established security vendors.

One suspects that Mr. Edelmann is in for quite a tongue lashing when he gets back to HQ.

As promised in June, Microsoft today launched its development platform for robots, Microsoft Robotics Studio:

Among the many remarkable innovations emerging out of the robotics industry, from surveillance robots that can defuse roadside bombs to robotic arms that perform surgeries, one persistent challenge has been the lack of a common development platform that would allow developers to easily create robotic applications for varied hardware platforms. Today, Microsoft Corp. is closing this gap with the release of Microsoft® Robotics Studio, a new Windows®-based development environment for creating robotic software for a wide variety of hardware platforms. Microsoft also introduced a new third-party partner program featuring Microsoft Robotics Studio-enabled applications, services and robots from independent software vendors, service providers, hardware component vendors and robot manufacturers. Already more than 30 third-party companies have pledged support for the new robotics development and runtime platform, which is available for download and evaluation at http://microsoft.com/robotics.
…
With Microsoft Robotics Studio, robotics applications can be developed using a selection of programming languages, including those in Microsoft Visual Studio® and Microsoft Visual Studio Express languages (Visual C#® and Visual Basic®), which are free to download, as well as Microsoft IronPython. Third-party languages that support the Microsoft Robotics Studio services-based architecture are also supported.

For hobbyists, students and academics, Microsoft Robotics Studio is available to license free of charge. Commercial robot developers interested in generating revenue from applications, services and robots based on Microsoft Robotics Studio can license the development platform starting at $399. Full licensing details are available at the Microsoft Robotics Studio Web site.
…
Microsoft Robotics Studio is now compatible with applications, services and robots from the following companies: CoroWare Inc., fischertechnik, iRobot, KUKA Robot Group, Larsen & Toubro InfoTech Ltd., the LEGO Group, Lynxmotion Inc., Parallax Inc., Phidgets Inc., RoboDynamics Corp., Robosoft, RoboticsConnection, Senseta, Sharp Logic, Surveyor and WhiteBox Robotics Inc. In addition, many leading companies from around the world have joined the Microsoft Robotics Studio Partner Program with plans to ship compatible applications, services and robots in the future. They include Braintech Inc., Camelot Robotics ApS, Cerebellum, ED Co. Ltd., Graupner, Hanulkid Co. Ltd., InTouch Health, JADI Inc., LG CNS, MicroInfinity, Mostitech Inc., RE2 Inc., RidgeSoft LLC, Robo3, SRI, VIA Technologies Inc. and Yujin Robot.

There’s also a press Q&A, but head for the Robotics Studio website for full details.

Some Microsoft news items from this week that didn’t find a post of their own:

MSN wrings the last lonely remaining viewers out of the “long tail” with “‘A Big Life With Sissy Biggers’ webisodes to air exclusively on MSN.”

Microsoft will provide search, mail, and messaging services to the customers of India’s 4th largest mobile provider, Hutchison Essar.

Microsoft released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Microsoft Robotics Studio which was announced in June.

Microsoft’s Live Labs And Microsoft Research launched a tech preview of Photosynth, an application that blends ordinary photos into an immersive 3D image. It uses technology developed by Seadragon Software which Microsoft acquired in January, er February. More details at the Photosynth site and from Tuan Nguyen at DailyTech.

From last week: Microsoft and a number of other leading tech companies settled the “JPEG patent case” with Forgent Networks for considerably less than Forgent had been hoping for.

Press release:

Today at RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, Microsoft Corp. showcased the community technology preview (CTP) of a new Windows®-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotic applications for a wide variety of computing platforms. In addition, early adopter companies, universities and research institutes offered demos and provided support for the new Microsoft® Robotics Studio development platform. The community technology preview of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is available for download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics.
…
Key features and benefits of the Microsoft Robotics Studio environment include these:

• End-to-end robotics development platform. Microsoft Robotics Studio includes a visual programming tool, making it easy to create and debug robot applications. Robotics Studio enables developers to generate modular services for hardware and software, allowing users to interact with robots through Web-based or Windows-based interfaces. Developers can also simulate robotic applications using realistic 3-D models; Microsoft has licensed the PhysX™ engine from AGEIA™, a pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics, enabling real-world physics simulations with robot models. The PhysX simulations can also be accelerated using AGEIA hardware.

• Lightweight services-oriented runtime. Microsoft Robotics Studio provides a lightweight services-oriented runtime. Using a .NET-based concurrency library, it makes asynchronous application development simple. The services-oriented, message-based architecture makes it simple to access the state of a robot’s sensors and actuators with a Web browser, and its composable model enables the building of high-level functions using simple components and providing for reusability of code modules as well as better reliability and replaceability.

• Scalable, extensible platform. The Microsoft Robotics Studio programming model can be applied for a variety of robot hardware platforms, enabling users to transfer their learning skills across platforms. Third parties can also extend the functionality of the platform by providing additional libraries and services. Both remote (PC-based) and autonomous (robot-based) execution scenarios can be developed using a selection of programming languages, including those in Microsoft Visual Studio® and Microsoft Visual Studio Express languages (Visual C#® and Visual Basic® .NET), JScript® and Microsoft IronPython 1.0 Beta 1, and third-party languages that conform to its services-based architecture.

Aside from providing fodder for innumerable creative headlines in the press, the Microsoft Robotics Studio is not really that big a novelty. Microsoft for years has been aggressively expanding the “ecosystem” based on their tools and operating systems into a variety of seemingly mundane applications such as lab equipment, retail point of sale, and ATMs. It’s just that robotics captures the imagine rather better than a cash register.