Microsoft Robotics Studio

If Robotics has impressed you ever, and have you been wondering why there isn't any tool available to make easy productivity on these lines - now, the answer is here. Microsoft has now announced its Robotics Studio 1.0 !!

To the extent I understood, Robotics Studio will be a new software development kit for the robotics community to program on a wide variety of hardware.

The letter from Tandy Trower, General Manager, Microsoft Robotics Group, reads : Microsoft Robotics Studio delivers in three areas of software:

1. A scalable, extensible runtime architecture that can span a wide variety of hardware and devices. The programming interface can be used to create applications to drive robots using 8-bit or 16-bit processors (from a connected PC) as well as 32-bit systems with multi-core processors; and devices from simple touch sensors to laser distance finding devices.
2. A set of useful tools that make programming and debugging robot applications scenarios easier. These include a high resolution visual simulation environment that integrates software physics supplied by the Ageia Technologies PhysX engine.
   While Microsoft Robotics Studio can be used with programming languages such as those included in Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Visual Studio Express, also included is a new visual programming language that enables the creation of applications using a simple drag-and-drop interface.
3. 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.

Seems pretty cool. Should have to wait and watch on how it evolves :)