Ruh-roh — the Robotics division of Microsoft Research has been suspended…
Today, as part of Microsoft’s restructuring plan, the Robotics division of Microsoft Research has been suspended, according to a tweet from Ashley Feniello, the current head of the division:
Sadly, the Microsoft robotics team has been shut down. My card key stops working tomorrow afternoon… :-/
— Ashley Feniello (@AshleyFen) September 20, 2014
It is now highly unlikely that the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio will ever be again updated, however forum members (MVPs) may still offer limited support. Note that Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio has not been updated or patched since version 4.0, which was released on March 8th, 2012.
While not the greatest news from a ToyBots standpoint — MRDS was a bit complicated and still on the journey to simplification and ease of use. On the other hand, the platform did have the advantage of extensibility, and supported an enormous number of robotics platforms:
- ABB Group Robotics — ABB Connect for Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio
- Adept MobileRobots Pioneers (first robots to run under MRDS) Pioneer DX and Pioneer AT (Subsumed under reference design)
- Aldebaran Robotics Nao (Support dropped in latest version)
- Arieh Robotics Project Junior (Physical computing PC)
- CoroWare CoroBot and Explorer Official Website
- Lego Mindstorms NXT
- Lego Mindstorms RCX (Support dropped in Robotics Developer Studio 2008)
- iRobot Create
- KUKA Robotics Educational Framework
- Parallax Boe-Bot
- Parallax Scribbler. Through IPRE.
- Parallax Eddie robot. Supported directly by software available for download from Parallax.
- fischertechnik FT16 (Supported through MRDS Codeplex Samples)
- Robosoft’s robots
- Kondo KHR-1 (Supported through MRDS Codeplex Samples)
- Segway RMP by: Ben Axelrod
- uBot-5 from the Laboratory For Perceptual Robotics at University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Vex Robotics Design System available at CodePlex
- WowWee RoboSapien, via the USB-UIRT device
- ZMP INC. e-nuvo WALK
- CNRobot Co. Ltd CRX10
- Robotino from Festo Didactic Germany