Over the past year or so, Microsoft’s robotics group has been working quietly, very quietly. That’s because, among other things, they were busy planning a significant strategy shift.
Microsoft is upping the ante on its robotics ambitions by announcing today that its Robotics Developer Studio, or RDS, a big package of programming and simulation tools, is now available to anyone for free.
The Microsoft RDS supports a number of hardware platforms, including the Lego Mindstorms NXT, iRobot Create and Parallax Boe-Bot, and it provides a physics-based simulation environment to allow you to test your designs.
(please to note: the download is almost 500MB)
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Kudos to Microsoft….perhaps the next new technology will be born and the funk the U.S. is in right now will be replaced with new energy and enthusiasm!….
Kudos to Microsoft….perhaps the next new technology will be born and the funk the U.S. is in right now will be replaced with new energy and enthusiasm!….
Neat, but their licensing is still restrictive
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/bb521232.aspx