Microsoft strides into robotics fray

Microsoft is getting into the robotics game, with a whole toolkit of Windows-based resources and a fistful of funding for a research group to support it all.

The idea, according to the folks at Microsoft, is to create a starting point for commercial and individual developers. Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group, went so far as to say this: “We hope to put in place the basic plumbing layer to help people get started (creating) robotics applications, and allow third parties to bring their hardware and software to share with everyone.”

All the money that they’re pouring into this robotics effort might be the precursor to an attempt to dominate yet another computer-related field of endeavor.

Microsoft is, however, throwing money and muscle behind Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Innovative Robotics, long a leader in the field, and seems to be open to the idea of sharing resources with Coroware, Robosoft, and other well-known developers. It might well be exactly what it seems to be.

BTW, you can see a preview of what Microsoft has planned here.