Announcements

• Announcing Robotics Developer Studio 4

  Trevor TaylorMicrosoft EmployeeThursday, March 08, 2012 8:28 AM
   

  Announcing Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4

  Today (8^th March) we’re announcing the general availability of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 (RDS 4). The package can be downloaded for free. It was just over five months ago that we announced the availability of RDS 4 Beta and since then, the Microsoft Robotics team has been hard at work putting the final touches on RDS 4 to give developers access to the software they need to build robotics applications.

  Since the Beta, our number one focus has been on improving the overall quality and stability of RDS 4. We’ve fixed a number of important issues in the product as well as made improvements to existing samples. Additionally, we updated RDS 4 to work with the release version of the Kinect for Windows SDK.

  It is our goal to deliver a great product that meets the needs of the developer and hobbyist communities. We are already seeing RDS 4 being utilized to develop some interesting applications. Speaking of which, last fall, we announced the Robotics @ Home competition, and are thrilled with the submissions we’ve received. Today, we’re excited to reveal the competition’s 10 finalists. Visit the Robotics @ Home Finalists page to read more about the finalists, including how they think robotics will change the world and what they would do with the prize winnings. We look forward to announcing the grand prize winner in May of this year.

  We have tested RDS 4 on Windows 8 Consumer Preview with Visual Studio 11 Beta. However, these are beta products so RDS 4 is not officially supported for use with them, but we know it works.

  Also, our team has been using RDS 4 for a while now and we’ve come up with a few cool and unique applications. Check out the video of the Follow Me robot, created by our team.

  From all of us on the Microsoft Robotics team, we’d like to thank you for your continued support and your feedback on RDS 4, which helped get us to where we are today. As always, you can use the Robotics Forums to send us any additional questions and suggestions.

  NOTE: Please install Visual Studio 2010 and the Kinect for Windows SDK V1 before you install RDS 4.