This is the video of the tingeypa's submission for the Microsoft Dare To Dream contest. The contest required entrants to build an embedded application using the new Micro .Net framework which allows C# programming on a resource constrained platform. The entry needed to use a prototyping board with touch screen provided Microsoft. My entry was a touchscreen driven programming & execution environment called Brickstick that allows Lego IO to be connected to the prototyping board and programed and run controlled without the use of a PC. All programming and execution is done through the touch screen. This makes it easy to build remote controlled robot with sophisticated features, without the complexity of a complex programming environment. My entry used a number of complex I/O types utilising the I2C bus such as the NXTCam, NXTServo and PFMate, all designed and built by Mindsensors.

(via) Microsoft and The japanese company Tmsuk on 7h september announced that the will collaborate and introduce “Microsoft Robotics Studio” in the various robots which are developed by the japanese company in collaboration with Waseda University and Japanese government . This will improve the interoperability between the various robots. All the software for hobbystic and  accademic robots are anyway programmed on Windows platform (and it's a pain to swith for example from Robonova to THR 1) so in this case Microsoft is doing something good trying to create a common platform... (this post has been written on a pure !00% Window free Mac).