The new Microsoft Robotics Studio allows a Web UI to control a robot via JScript. What opportunities will this type of SDK open for Web developers and Web designers?

Microsoft provides an SDK to "put the basics in place" for developers who want to take advantage of resuable code for controlling robots.

Scriptable Robots Via Internet Explorer

While most of the code is written C#, the Microsoft Robotics team does include wrappers for JScript, which is Microsoft's version of JavaScript that runs in Internet Explorer. The robots servos (what makes it move) are scriptable through Internet Explorer using a an event-driven state model. This model was explained as similar to RSS (RSS is a big topic at Microsoft these days in relation to Vista). The video shows an example using a Web page with a form to view what the robot is doing and to submit new instructions or replay past instructions to control the robot.

You can also ping the robot to debug in Internet Explorer. And all of this can be done with real robots (expensive hardware for the robots) or in an included simulator that runs on your PC using a sophisticated physics 3D engine.

Learn More About Microsoft Robotics Studio

Visit the Microsoft Robotics Studio Web page.