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Microsoft Formally Releases Robotics Software
futuresheet writes "Microsoft formally released its robotics software yesterday, giving would-be robot builders a new tool to make them do the things they do. The license for the software is $399, and the 'standard' Pioneer P3DX robot that's made for home use is $40,000. Just the same, if you want to give it a try, it is downloadable for free for non-commercial use, and includes a simulator to try things out on your computer." From the article: "It represents a new effort for the company that has Chairman Bill Gates raving about potential growth in a robotics industry that's already worth an estimated $11 billion a year or more. '[A]s I look at the trends that are now starting to converge, I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives,' Gates writes in the January issue of Scientific American. Microsoft is not making robots. Its Robotics Studio is software designed to program the devices to collect data from an array of sensors and perform all manner of functions."
I for one welcome our new BSoD robot overlords.
"I for one will welcome our new, chair-throwing, robotic overlords."
Oh, and, by the way, the simulation software we used to test our software was a little project called player/stage. I didn't delve into the licensing prices on it but I think it comes to about $0. And don't give me that "Yeah but you have to train in it so it costs you more" crap.
Congratulations, Bill, did you just finish reading I, Robot? Or maybe you caught a trailer for the terrible movie by the same name? Or perhaps you picked up any sci-fi novel from 1955-present? Oh, no, I think I've got it. You're trying to enter a field you haven't done any research in by using your mountains of cash again? Sounds familiar, I wish you the best of luck. I just hope your robots aren't running Windows Vista or CE.
My work here is dung.
And to think I had thought this would all start with Skynet...
.. making robot software easyier to use, and free for non commercial use , with emulator, is a pretty damn good thing.
I look forwrd to going home and downloading this.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I just wanted to be the first to ask that... ..mod me down... ..I don't mind.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Are the robots shaped like lucee liu?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
"the 'standard' Pioneer P3DX robot that's made for home use is $40,000"
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Works with cheaper stuff too. Microsoft Robotics Studio works with a bunch of affordable hardware such as the Lego Mindstorm NXT and the Roomba iRobot.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/learn/tutorial
Personally, I like playing around with a somewhat cheaper robotics kit (more like $80) made by microbric. It's a little kit with a circuit board and components you screw together and can then program from your pc to automously driver around. There was even a recent post on the coding4fun site about controlling it via IR from your computer:
0 1/1192168.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2006/12/
...Unhandled Exception c0000005 at address: 100016b8
3laws.sys has encountered a problem and your housebot needs to close.
Please leave the area and make all efforts to avoid housebot while system memory is dumped.
We can all see where this will lead...
Quick! Someone call James Tiberius Kirk - computer killer extraordinaire!!!
Here's a link to the video introduction. http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/media/MSRS_Intr oToSim_300K.wvx
What the hell is that? Instruction video for genital self-exam?
I guess it's now time to invest in robot insurance...
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Wonderful, Now with our new Microsoft enhanced robotic devices, We can use our production line for sending out email marketing materials, and when we get the latest Eastern European "Software" Through our email, we can bring our entire production to a halt instead of just the office computers.
I cant wait. It will be great.
Gate's Laws of Robotics (shamelessly stolen from a past /. post)
1) A robot may not use a non-Microsoft product or through inaction,
allow a human being to use a non-Microsoft product.
2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such
orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
...when you complete your 50m tall Gundam, complete the programming with Robotics Studio, and on the 30th day, you realize that you forgot to activate it using a Genuine MS key...
The last thing I need is a 50m mobile suit pissed at me for pirating software...
This is my signature. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Now do you see? This is why the MS icon has been kept. Bill's not Borg, he's just very enthusiastic about this platform;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Cyberdyne Systems Corporation.
K. Reese
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Does the software have a InitiateChairTossingDiatribe function available?
Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the rock
... but that's easy. People have been doing that for years. Parallax, MIT's BOTboard, etc.) This is a prototyping environment whose resulting code can be directly used in your robotic project. It's a step forward in integration, and quite slick in my humble opinion.
But in all seriousness even the free package is pretty awesome. You can do time-domain rigid-body simulation at your computer, before building your robot to spec. This isn't just software to control a robot (it is that, too
From an older article which shows Microsoft's intentions:
Apparently this is now part of a larger strategy to create more University level students accustomed to using and developing proprietary software. "They have decided that the best way to increase enrollment is to work with universities to incorporate robotics and computer games into the computer science curriculum as class projects where students can exercise their technical skills." The robotics and computer games would be developed using various Microsoft proprietary software tools instead of the currently preferred Open Source/Free software tools.
This must be how skynet starts.
That would explain how Skynet was never able to kill a waitress and why it was never smart enough to try and kill that waitress when she was 1 month old.
So much for the anti microsoft tone in all these responses. None of them deails about potential of this stuff, what about a next SDK for this for visual studio hm hint hint... So for the command type people: Hey did anyone got a CRT tube, some linux folks using a command line are trying to make their own version. Actualy there are now running multible sub versions all over the place and they all only listen to typed commands and none of them knows what actualy rules the world, so they started fighting each other. We had to call in an MS version as it was the only one who could deal with all the different protocols and could understand human language. hehehehe ( $$$$$ evil grin $$$$$ ) Not that much fiction in here btw.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
1) A writer uses an apostrophe to indicate the subject's ownership of a noun (ex. Ed's computer)
2) If the subject ends with an 's', the apostrophe is placed after the s (ex. Gates' laws of robotics)
3) A writer should follow rules 1 and 2
I guess the MS Barney robot software was "informal"?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
and does it have more than 4M of RAM?
"It looks like you're trying to open a jar of pickles. Would you like Microsoft Robot to: 1) Open the jar for you; 2) Merely loosen the jar, leaving final jar configuration details to you; 3) Try a different jar; 4) Install Micrsoft Deli, with pickle support?"
Butlerian Jihad, here we come...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Try some of the resources on the web. The leaf project uses Windows, but is open... as in no cost
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/leaf_an_AI_rob
From the group site:
Description
Leaf is a robot inspired by the computer game Creatures. One of our members began to develop a desktop simulation of one of these AI creatures called Norns. This particular critter was called Leaf. We decided that Leaf needed a physical body (i.e. robot). This forum is for the design/discussion and kibitzing of the build process. All are welcome to participate.
This is an open source project; both for hardware and software designs. Our goal is to provide all the information necessary for others to get started building their own robots. Please read the Open Source notice in the Introduction under "Files" before contributing a hardware design or software code to this project.
For much more information about the Leaf robots, see his website at http://leafproject.org./
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So this is how the Cylon occupation begins.
Thanks Bill.
Just in time for my Robonukah vacation.
Time to build my coin melting robot!
Rossum: http://rossum.sourceforge.net/, Lejos: http://lejos.sourceforge.net/, and many others.
Personally the thought of little Redmondiods running around BSODing is very disturbing.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The /. blurb mentions a 40K robot "for home use" but according to the links on the M$ website there are plenty of other compatible robots, like the LEGO Mindstorms which has a MSRP of a mere US$ 249.99. With these kind of prices, I think this might be a fun hobby to get the kids into...
Who remembers the Heathkit HERO robots of the early 80's?? It was a little pricey but it was WAY under the $40k M$ wants.. Man, I wanted one sooooo bad. Those were really cool. Shame that Heathkit went under, they had some great stuff. I guess people don't care about building projects anymore, look at Rat Smack, they went from a hobbyist supply center to a bling-bling store.
Anyway, I would be afraid to let a machine that can move about, grasp objects and runs M$
to roam my house while I'm sleeping. I can just imagine waking up to a "sick" robot wielding a hockey mask and a butcher knife standing over me..
If I had the brains to build a robot, there is simply NO WAY I would use Microsoft software to run it. There are any number of reasons to avoid MS software, as seen from other MS software in the past. Microsoft's DRM, DCMA, Patents and Copyrights would limit what I could do with the robot. Not to mention Microsoft software's history of BSODs, security holes, etc.
No way.
Why for a $40k robot, but not for those $1.5k to $5k Japanese robots? Not exactly affordable, but surely more so than a $40k one.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
why does this overpriced robot that it is for look awfully like the old Hero 2000 bot kit I have sitting in the basement collecting dust?
$40,000.00... It had better perform sex acts for that price.
I paid $2500.00 for my HERO 2000 back when they were end of production... inflation did not go that far out of control.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What on earth is going to be in the kit that is worth $40,000?? That's insane. You can get a Programmable Logic Controller (Omron or Allen Bradley), several industrial grade servomotors or stepper motors, the motor drive unit, and a pile of sensors/buttons/actuators/etc off ebay for around $2000.
In 1991 I worked for a company that did industrial automation fabrication and build this relatively large (Around 40x30 feet of machinery) automated cutting/welding system with two MIG welders (One mounted on a track to adjust for different sizes, anywhere from 40 feet to 4 feet and accurate to 1/100th of an inch), and all the raw material handlers to feed parts into the welders, and we had MAYBE $50,000 in hardware costs.
Even a hard core GE/Fanuc industrial grade CNC control head is no more than $25,000. This thing had better have the capabilities of R2D2.
Sounds like a complete ripoff.
And every automation control system I've used, PLC or CNC, has had the development software free with the unit. Only thing you'd have to pay for was the programming console, which has since been reduced to software that runs on Windows, so needing only a serial or USB cable between the two.
Do I sound really shocked by the price? I am!
..... at
0 /default.aspx
this http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/getstarted/v1_
You'll see that it includes the following:
"A set of useful technology libraries services to help developers get started with writing robot applications, and tutorials which illustrate the basics of how to get started in a variety of programming languages."
Does that include functions like:
- Chair throwing
- Google bashing
- Threats of death to Eric Schmidt
Just wondering....
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Crap, did they bundle hands with their robot? That seems like a monopolistic practice to me, let's sue them.
It was irresponsible to even post something so slanted... but we should all have grown accustomed to that on Slashdot by now.
Mac Spotted
crush kill destroy crush kill destroy crush kill destroy crush kill destroy crush kill destroy
First thing I thought of on this was a movie I just recently saw - the remake of Stepford Wives.
See IMDB -> http://imdb.com/title/tt0327162/
Anyway, the Christopher Walken character who is the main guy who converts women into robots has the name 'Mike' from where he used to work (MS). Pretty funny considering the movie itself pretty much sucks.
are belong to MS?
Robots will someday claim that parts of humans infringe on their IPs.
Robots! The thing of the future... A new tool to make us even lazier and use more power! Yahoo!
Currently hooked on AMP
Are we supposed to program the robot in Visual Basic?
(duck and cover)
So say we all
Devious: (rising and crossing to a filing cabinet) "Oh well, Reverend Morrison ... in your policy... in your policy... "(he opens the drawer of the filing cabins and takes out a shabby old sports jacket; he feels in the pocket and pulls out a crumpled dog-eared piece of paper then puts the coat back and shuts the ftling cabinet) ".... here we are. It states quite clearly that no claim you make will be paid."
... but you had to claim, and, well, there it is."
Vicar: "Oh dear."
Devious: "You see, you unfortunately plumped for our 'Neverpay' policy, which, you know, if you never claim is wery worthwhile
Vicar: "Oh dear, oh dear."
Devious: "Still, never mind - could be worse. How's the nude lady?"
Vicar: "Oh, she's fine." (he begins to sob)
Devious: "Look... Rev... I hate to see a man cry, so shove off out' office. There's a good chap."
(The vicar goes out sobbing. Cut to outside. Vicar collects a nude lady sitting in a supermarket shopping trolley... and wheels her disconsolately away. Cut back to inside of office. Close-up on Devious. He gets out some files and starts writing. Suddenly a bishop's crook slams down on the desk in front of Devious. He looks up - his eyes register terror. Cut to reverse angle shot from below. The bishop in full mitre and robes.)
Bishop: "OK, Devious... Don't move!"
Devious: "The bishop!"
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
. '[A]s I look at the trends that are now starting to converge, I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives,' Gates writes in the January issue of Scientific American.
I remember a couple of years ago my drink infringed all over my computer's IC's. It was not at all happy.
Seems like we are seeing another attempt at market strangulation and repression.
To bad for him GPL'd projects are already out there.
Money is the root of all evil?
All of us that are so frustrated of MS products and drive the IT industry one way or another,
lets drive it away from these free lock-in tricks we all know sooooo well.
Or we will be getting today's windows' problems, on tommorows' robots.
No, thanx Microsoft.
the doc
Share and enjoy...
Or, go stick your head in a pig...
Depending on how much of the slogan is visible...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The sad part is, kids are gladly going to shell out $400 for this and spend their college years emulating it bit for bit in Linux just because it's a Microsoft product, even though you can do the same thing for under $20 with a PIC. The most loyal Microsoft fans are the Linux hackers who clone everything they produce.
I completly missed this in my first analysis but I
believe this will kickstart the new botnet revolution.
ducks and runs
Money is the root of all evil?
If people object to using MS-based robotics software, then let's find and/or build free alternatives. I know of one: Pyro, written in Python (which is itself free/OSS and easy to use). I haven't used it myself, but it seems to support both real robots and virtual hardware. What other systems exist?
How about building a simple I/O system ported to several languages, with a standard set of functions, suitable for commanding several brands of real robot as well as virtual models?
Revive the Constitution.
I can see it now:
Human (in trembly voice): Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
Gort: Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttttt...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
:"
"Your User Authentication Key has expired.
Please contact your local MS sales representative to complete the Surgical process.
Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.
Thank you for using Genuine Microsoft products!
Have a super - duper day!"
- No thanks.
I'd rather stick with Marvin, as long as he's not allowed to converse with other machines.
iLife, iWeb, iPhoto, iRobot
The day MS markets something that doesn't suck is the day they start selling vacuum cleaners.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?
And to think I had thought this would all start with Skynet...
Instead of let the destruction happen you could make it miserably fail. Skynet will be full of "useful" programs for a militar A.I. like minesweeper (Why not? WOPR plays tic-tac-toe), wordpad, Windows Media Player, outlook express and compatible Zune plugins for Internet Explorer 8. If the system don't kill itself probably a teenager script kiddie could do the work.
Welcome, and good bye, to our Ms-Skynet overlords.
My city: Barcelona.
that I will do my masters degree in this environment? I like ABB ROBOT STUDIO, but this is more general. I hope that there won't be a problem with sharing the code. This is great for robotics students/enthusiasts. Sharing is the key to growth.
Yep! I remember the HERO1 robot! When I was in grade school, I eyed one in a Heathkit catalog, and immediately wanted it. (I vaguely recall it selling for somewhere around the $7000-8000 price range in the early 80's?) I also recall that the arm on the top of it was sold as an option, costing a considerable amount extra.
e x.html) They STILL make it, apparently!
One guy I knew in grade school told me his brother's school actually purchased a HERO1 robot, and they learned to do some simple programming of it in one of their classes.
I also remember a competing product, the RB5X. (Found info on it here: http://www.robotswanted.com/robotgallery/rb5x/ind
One Xmas, my mom took me to a local department store called Goldie's (long since gone out of business), and they had an RB5X wheeling around the store, telling people "Merry Christmas!" and offering to take your picture with a Polaroid camera. I thought that was the coolest thing!
... Microsoft has informed the SEC of its intentions to change its name to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
National Instruments LabVIEW has been de facto standard in automation programming. If you want to play with robotics seriously, you should try out LabVIEW rather than this MS prototype. I tried this MS Visual Programming Language that ships with MS Robotic Studio. It was slow, unintuitive, hard and slow to develop and only had very restricted set of ready-made functionality available. LabVIEW on the other hand is an integrated cross-platform development environment with 20-year history. You can program both desktop computers and various real-time hardware environments with the same language and same development environment. Of course not all functionality is available for real-time targets and dedicated FPGA chips as these only have limited functionality. The downside of LabVIEW is that it's not free but rather expensive. The language is also strictly closed source and National Instruments has been very strict not to release any source code for the runtime environment. Academica can get LabVIEW for reasonable price, for industry prices are rather high.
For more information on LabVIEW see official website and LabVIEW forum LAVA. LabVIEW Toolkit for LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT is available for free download (but you need LabVIEW to run it).
Well?
Microsoft Formally Releases Robotics Software
When told the news, Cmdrtaco reportedly said "I TOLD you bitches! NEVER question my icons again!"
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
does it run on Linux?
I actually tried out this software - it gathers an incredible amount of data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls.
Microsoft is good a making announcements, the real problem is in delivering products they've promised.
"Microsoft introduced a new product vision called Cairo in 1991; it ended up disrupting development and marginalizing competition throughout the next decade. The tactic worked so well that Microsoft repeated it in the following decade as Longhorn. Here's how it happened, and why Microsoft won't be able to repeat the same fraud again."
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo
RTFA. The commercial license is 399. Non-commercial is free.
In Soviet Russia you control the robots.
In Soviet America robots control you!
neat... kind of make the lego stuff seem like a toy... wait a minute..
So Judgement Day will become a reality. Its a good thing I've booked my T-1000 in advance.
Wooooow..... I can already do that with Blender, including realtime physics, sensors and python programming. And of course, modelling, lighting, texturing, etc.
n/t
The $40,000 price quoted in the article seems really inaccurate for a Pioneer 3 DX, even with optional accessories it's much less. That robot is not really a "home robot" anyway. The same manufacturer -- not Microsoft btw! -- also makes a smaller less expensive (and less capable) robot that might be more affordable for hobbyists, as well as some big expensive commercial/industrial stuff. Plus their software (some of it is GPL) is included, and the robots also work with Player (all GPL).
Mod me down for obvious.
directive 66:
Upon visual contact with a Linux machine, the robot shifts to battle mode, sreaming:
EXTERMINATE!, EXTERMINATE!
sorry somebody has to say a bad joke...
Who ever wrote this article sure chose his words to make it sound expensive. He made it sound as if you have to buy that Pioneer robot for $40,000 in order to use it.
That's simply not the case. You can develop for a wide range of robots with this from the Parallax Boe-Bot, Lego Mindstorm NXT and Roomba all the way up to those expensive robots for $40,000 or more. You can even build it for custom robots based on little pics like the BASIC Stamp computer and others similar to it.
The beauty of this package is that you can program it visually (using the Visual Programming Langauage) or in C# or VB - depending on your skill level.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!