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Microsoft's New Attempt To Dominate Robotics
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that Microsoft's Robotics Group is announcing new world domination plans — at least for the robotics world. The company is making its Robotics Developer Studio (RDS), which includes Microsoft's CCR and DSS runtime toolkit, available to anyone for free. Why make it a freebie? Because the company wants to expand its RDS base and get a grip on the robotics development space, hoping big things will come out of it."
Wow, that is one biased summary.
If they combine it with a similarly good API as XNA is and get hardware support, that's great.
Coding robotics has previously required a lot of low level coding. Who of us haven't though how great it would be code your own robot easily, and make it work just like you want it to, without going to all the low level details?
Great, so where can I get a cheap compatible robot and what kind of stuff can I program it to do?
Also, http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/tech/asr/intelligent-robotics/nasa-vision-workbench/ looks pretty damn cool.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sounds like a plan to me.
When the robot uprising starts, there'll be a million ways to crash the fuckers.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
In addition to creating a single RDS release, the robotics group is also making the source code of selected program samples and other modules available online, hoping to improve collaboration among users. In particular, Microsoft wants to entice the growing community of hobbyists, do-it-yourselfers, and weekend robot builders.
They are releasing code. Which is worth mentioning in the summary, since we are talking about Microsoft. Obviously they are not opening the whole thing, because after they extend, they want to make money, but still it is interesting.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
"Does Microsoft make anything that isn't slow, bloated, and fully integrated into skyne--I mean .NET?"
Notepad.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I admit it I didn't RTFA... but it sounds like the Willow Garage stuff... http://www.ros.org/wiki/ ?
(http://www.willowgarage.com/ for the record is their main site).
Good on MS for building on their twenty years of technical marketing triumphs like the MS mouse, the wavy keyboard, the Zun... ah... did I mention the mouse?
Three Squirrels
>"Why make it a freebie? Because it wants to expand its RDS base and get a grip"
No! Really? MS wants to offer something "free" for the purpose of dominating some market? I just can't believe it!! I bet it can't possibly benefit them in some way.
They offer Internet Explorer for free undercutting Netscape's business model. They offer Outlook with a pretty user GUI and integrated with Office to push users to ask for Exchange. An email program that's easy to setup the first 50 users, but a nightmare for large corporations. Active Directory simplifies an all Windows environment, but mangles LDAP so you have to jump through hoops to add any other desktop to the environment. Sharepoint is really cool and easy to setup until you have to set controls and expand it enterprise wide. RDS is cool for simulating robotic programming and could be nice for education, but you'll end up with something that's easy to get started with, but a nightmare to really implement.
But how else will your robots check their MySpace accounts?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they start making (robotic) vacuum cleaners."
"Consumer robotics is a new product category and building [applications] there requires leveraging the capabilities and inspiration of a broader community," he says. "This is exactly what we want to do.
I'm sorry, but consumer robotics is not real robotics. Consumer robotics is toy robotics because anything other than toy robots, when operated by Joe or Jane Consumer, can kill people.
--
BMO
DUDE: Robot, grab me a beer.
iROBOT: I'm sorry, Steve says those are bad for you.
DUDE: What the fuck?
iROBOT: Would you like some water with a splash of lemon instead?
DUDE: No, I just want have a beer and play a little... where is my Halo 5?
iROBOT: There was a cutscene that showed a nipple, so it has been discarded. I have replaced it with "Yoga For Everyone." Would you like me to show you some poses? We can...
DUDE: No, please, go ahead and get started with out me. I'm just going to go find this receipt I've been looking for...
Robotics studio was made a paid product 2 years ago.
Looks like they did not get enough buyers and its being offered for free now!
And looks like it hasn't been updated in last few years.
Regarding CCR, .Net 4.0 has made vast improvements in multi-core API. .Net and ConCRT for C++
I don't see how much relevant CCR will be given the release of Task Parallel Library (TPL) for
ABB and MotoMan are quaking in their boots.
Seriously, does anyone use Microsoft's Robotics Products? for anything industrial?
Welcome our new, blue-screened robot overlords.
Did MySpace start blocking Linux browsers?
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
.
Will Microsoft suck the innovation and profits out of the robotics industry in the same manner they sucked the innovation and profits out of the PC industry? Will the use of Microsoft's development environment environment force you to slow down your innovation to the level that Microsoft wants to accommodate?
Stay tuned to /. for updates..................
Hacked robot controllers gives a whole new meaning to "botnet".
Didn't RTFA, but I'm assuming that the main idea here is lock-in to MS products and technologies. That means it'll be harder to share work and ideas down the road because of artificial dependencies on MS to run the code, etc. Hopefully folks in the field will hold their ground and build their work on top of open, sharable, neutral platforms
Long live the BSD license
Well, notepad.exe (empty, just opened it) is using ~6-7MB of RAM, while vi is only using ~3MB with a script open - albeit a short one.
By the summary's logic, Linus Torvalds must be the next Dr. Evil, because he's been giving away Linux for over a decade.
Honestly people, there are more than enough valid reasons to dislike MS without adding imaginary ones. TFS takes the free release of what's probably at least nifty and interesting software and turns it into an irrelevant blurb about "world domination". As far as I can tell, MS dominates two (closely related) industries: home/office desktop and laptop OSes and utilities, and office software. They have also entered into many other markets, sometimes producing good products, sometimes bad, but never really getting the necessary leverage to "dominate" other, often better competitors for long. (e.g. Xbox, Zune, hotmail, Silverlight, Windows Mobile, Windows Server, even IE at this point.) I'm sure there is no shortage of asshats who go with MS simply because of an easy contract, but I'd like to think that robotics engineers and researchers aren't among them. If the tools are solid, great. If not, no one will care.
Seriously. Hate on MS because of sleazy monopoly abuse. Hate on them for releasing disappointing public-beta style software. But the sort of hyperbolic nonsense on the frontpage makes *NIXers look like unbalanced zealots.
To be fair, it takes a lot of memory to store one level of undo.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Androids.
Let's hope.
I've built many robots, (Hero-1, other homebuilt ones, etc). I've been involved with robot clubs since the early 80s. Very little has changed!
My first robot was run off a parallel card plugged into my Heathkit H-8. simple h-bridge some bumpers, and I was set. worked pretty good but the dang cord was a problem.
The next robot had an on board Z80 processor. It also had a CRT and a dozen batteries. It weighed a ton, used relays and transistors to control the motor.
The Hero had an on board 6809 (I guess one of the accessories had a second 6800 I think, so technically it was 2).
I used various 8 bitters for many other robots, always trying to solve the power problem, finding more and more efficient processors, so I could use less battery.
I switched to a tinyboard (8088) for one, it ran DR-DOS, and turbo pascal!
Even the handyboard processor was good, and has a great library (interactive C).
Basic stamps have come and gone for various projects.
Aurdrino's are pretty current.
Which one of the above processors will run anything from M$? I don't think any. Right, all 8 bit processors. I see very few robots with more than an 8 bitter even in the 21st century!
Someone needs to convince the robot builders to switch to 32 bit processors (ARM, maybe beagle board, or anything else) and then there *might* be a market for an OS that runs robots. Trouble is, it'll be Linux or Android running it, since the robot builders are a little more scrappy.
They offer Internet Explorer for free adopting Netscape's business model.
That's odd, only takes up 1632KB here (Win7-64)
It's actually "Embrace, extend and extinguish".
Its origin is a matter of dispute, but everyone agrees that the DOJ used it to describe their view of MS's strategy with respect to competitors.
Netscape charged for it's browser until MS started bundling IE with Windows.
mucking foron - did you see what microsoft did to its last attempt at putting out open source stuff? just killed it not too long ago. so... sure, yeah, whatever.
As with most religions, F/OSS zealots like what they like and hate what they hate without regard to fundamental principles.
I downloaded the Robotics Dev Studio and tried to run the samples. As far as I can tell they don't compile with VS 2010 Express. Way to dominate guys :(
Two thoughts on this and neither are good:
-Blue Screen of Death will have a new terrifying meaning
-At my age I may be among the first generation to have substantial elder care provided by robots (about 15yrs out). I was hoping for cool and useful robots ... now it will be the same old crap. I'll be 75 and will then be asked ... "my robot has this problem ..."
Its not the years, its the mileage
Take note, with this announcement Microsoft has given a new meaning to 'plug-ins'.
This looks more like Microsoft giving up than going for world domination. A few years ago, Microsoft had a presence at robotics conventions, pushing the thing. That shrank, then disappeared.
A basic problem is that Microsoft Robotics Studio is built on Microsoft Web Services, which is not exactly the tool you want for real-time operation. It has a simple-minded visual programming environment. There's little (any?) vision support. There's little, if any, machine learning. It's really only about two notches above Lego Mindstorms, and way below stuff like DARPA Grand Challenge vehicles or Boston Dynamics' robots.
If you want to see more cutting edge stuff, download Willow Robotics code. They're working hard on vision and making real progress.
Hobbyist robotics needs a major quality upgrade. People are still building '80s type robots. By now, any serious robot should have a vision system and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping). Any robot with a laptop, or one of the fancier cell phones, on board has enough compute power for that. But Microsoft Robotics Studio won't take you there.
Where do they think there's money to be made? In toys, Lego Mindstorms pretty much has it sewn up; it's well established, integrates well into a major well established mechanical toy and and has a huge community around it. I don't know a great deal about industrial robotics, but I'd suspect it's a game for specialists simply because of liability issues - it's bloody dangerous if done wrong.
I want to to know what they're smoking. And where I can get some.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We're not all zealots - some of us consider software to be nothing more than something to get a job done or to entertain.
Open Source has been around for decades, it hasn't stopped commercial software companies making huge amounts of money in the process.
If I "preach" to friends or family about Open Source then it's because I want to make them aware that they have a free alternative if they want to consider it, but ultimately it's down to them what software they use.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
3,964k here, XP Home SP3. Hey, I typed 'the cat sat on the mat' into it and it dropped right back to 400k then back up to 752k. Odd. Maybe the more text i put in, the smaller the memory footprint? Oh, now it is at 1,012k before I could type anything else in. Hmm, maybe I should wait for the memory use to fluctuate before I hit save and thus economise on disk space? :-)
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
You should read TFA it does mention a number of different manufacturers.
Has anyone used Robotics Studio? The visual programming language looks kinda neat at a glance.
Do people really build robots with this kind of thing? Looks like maybe it is for easily configuring a robot to follow certain paths and such?
In comparison Willow Garage is open source and has a lot of people getting involved. I'd like to hear from people who have tried both but ROS is a real open source unix development kit, and so is more likely to last into the future as things need to get totally reinvented with new technological insights. It is possible academic and commercial labs together could drive innovation faster through ROS than one company (MS).
One issue I have been wondering about, and which seems to be true from some people I've talked to, is that the most powerful algorithms are commercial not open source. Not that an algorithm ought to be patentable but.. if so, it could be that the recently mentioned open source patent pool would be very useful in this area.
Danger, Will Robi
*** STOP: 0x00000019 (0x00000000, 0xC00E0FF0, 0xFFFFEFD4, 0xC0000000)
BAD_POOL_HEADER
We are the Borg. Lower your shields, and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.
You can pick it up for around $300 new.
no comment
3.4mb here, xp sp3
This is the sig that says NI (again)
It was already free for non-commercial use, so I guess Microsoft finally realised that not many companies are making money from robots (besides military robots & industrial robots), so it wasn't really earning them much money anyway.
Personally, I hated learning Microsoft Robotics Studio, it is great for doing a few basic things, but doing anything different than that requires a lot of things that must be learnt that have very little to do with your robotics project. The whole purpose of a robotics environment like this is so that robotics builders can concentrate on actual robot stuff, whereas MSRDS makes you waste so much time learning their proprietary formats & techniques that you could easily loose the fun in learning robots!
Thats my opinion anyway, as a someone with a Masters degree in Robotics Engineering that still has trouble using MS Robotics Design Studio!
In this thread: lots of people who don't understand the differences in the way different operating systems allocate/report memory usage!
(Which OS is reporting 3MB of mem usage for vi??? Even in BSD I'm only seeing about a meg...)
Ogre Wedding Planners llc.
Honestly people, there are more than enough valid reasons to dislike MS without adding imaginary ones.
Actually, you have that backwards. Once you have enough real reasons to hate Microsoft, there's really no practical purpose served by avoiding imaginary ones.
For example: I hate the Microsoft Office UI team because it is my belief they sodomize puppies. It's a job perk for them. Now should it prove that this particular belief is not entirely factual, there's no harm done. It wouldn't really change how I feel about them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There's a Burger King ad on TV now featuring a robot-version of The King, clad in Iron Man armor, who gives someone a burger then starts shooting everywhere.
Obviously, that robot must be running MS's new robotics software.
I don't have Flash at work, but I believe you can see the commercial here.
Microsoft giving away stuff, and it's something they could not sell, and there are still restrictions and patents lurking in the background
Business as normal
NB This project will die when no-one bites ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Just wait till they port Clippy to one of them...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Logistics, Multi-Programmable, and the 3 hour battery are the Fates.
Seems to be compatible with Mindstorms
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff631056(v=MSDN.10).aspx
First of all, IANABCL. That having been said, I have been reading these licenses for as long as Microsoft has been around. This license is written carefully to allow no significant rights except to run this version. The license states that if you use the software, you have agreed to the license. That in and of itself is shaky. I don't believe that will stand in court. Now they have a license that doesn't even require you to push a button. There is no protocol by which they assure you have even read the license. Not even a button at the bottom of the license that would require you to at least scroll through it. The license is specifically written to preclude any development by the users that would be covered with GNU licenses. This is yet another llcense that allows Microsoft to change the terms whenever they like without notification. It is clear to me that by giving it away for free they would like to contaminate the user base with Microsoft ideas that they will later claim patent rights to, and developers that participated in early use may be precluded from independent development later, much as BIOS authors could not have seen IBM code previously. This software should not be touched with a ten foot pole, unless you think it is good that microsoft should own the robotics space like they do the operating systems space, and we can only hope there are less bugs and viruses in their robotics code, but I wouldn't put money on it.