Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Developing Robotics Software
s31523 writes to tell us Microsoft recently announced the launch of their new Microsoft Robotics Group and the first product release, a software program to help robotics developers. Despite the timing this has nothing to do with the recent abdication by Gates, and was actually instigated by Gates before his departure. From the article "It might take many years, but Microsoft believes robotics could present a big opportunity as the market grows, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. He cited estimates predicting that consumer robotics alone will grow into a multibillion-dollar industry in five to 10 years."
Last I checked, Gates won't be gone for another 2 years. It's a little pre-mature to say 'before his departure'...
get it here
"Microsoft Robotics fatalities in the thousands"
Repeat after me: There is no "Asimove Robotic Laws" in the real world. It's just fantasy.
Autonomous robots are controled by computer programs, and will behave as such.
One can program it with security features, but it's just like any other software. There's no magic laws to control their behaviour.
factor 966971: 966971
I'm a roboticist and I have to take issue with this sample bias. Robot controllers in industry are by and large run on custom operating systems such as VXWorks, WindRiver, etc. Robot packages in academia, particularly of the mobile robot ilk, usally run on many operating systems but tend to be weighted toward UNIX platforms (ARIA, Player/Stage, etc.). Many new small robot controllers (RoboStix, for example) are heavily targeted to UNIX.
Holy crap! We really WILL be assimilated!
Can this software make the robot throw a chair across the room? Asimov had no rule against that.
bomb robots, underwater robots, probably more similar examples from where they come from. From the point of view of robotics, they aren't really robots at all (definition of "robot" in robotics: it has to be autonomous, even if that means only by following a prepared program).
:)
:)
Basically, they aren't even automated devices, they are really only cool remote controlled toys.
However, the question still holds if we're just phrasing it appropiately: Links to robots that are MORE sophisticated than mere automation, please.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
BSOD resulted in car assembly shutdown.
News at eleven.
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
Absolutely, since Windows CE shares NOTHING with the NT line. It's completely different, it's just the userland API which is similar. And yes it supports hard real-time, if configured for it.
An employee suggested to me that we use the Microsoft Robotics Beta on a few machines here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day interfacing. So I decided to let him install Microsoft Robotics Beta onto 5 machines to see how the users got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using it on his system and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client machines?
Once he'd got the machines up and running with Microsoft Robotics Beta we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: Microsoft Robotics Beta was a pretty good replacement for the version of Novell that shipped with the Japanese robot dog and the users could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who could find things they were used to or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with the old Novell software. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when Microsoft Robotics Beta suddenly had an error reading from our intranet file server and corrupted his project.
Needless to say, Microsoft offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee uninstall the Microsoft Robotics Beta from the machines and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
CE does real-time. Not just a marketing ploy. As the AC said (but most people probably won't read) CE is based on a completely **different** kernel than the NT line. Check out windows Embedded which beats RTOS to a living pulp.