The Redmond house recently launched the first commercial version of its operating system dedicated to people that program robots. The software development kit is called “Microsoft Robotics Studio” and according to the company it is suitable both to people playing with robot toys and to people using industrial robots professionally.

Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group, commented that personal computers and robots are closer that what most people think: “I believe that robots represent the next era of PC technology. Today, is your PC a robot? You probably would say no. But PCs are starting to include cameras and microphones, primarily for person-to-person communication. Once they are on board, there’s no reason they can’t be used by other pieces of technology. If cameras can do visual recognition – so your PC knows when someone walks in the room whether it’s you or not and changes its behavior accordingly – is it a robot, then? Maybe. It just seems that it’s a natural progression to the point where our PCs start to interact with you in a much richer way. It doesn’t mean that the PC goes away or that every PC becomes a robot. It’s more subtle than that – it means the technology moves on in wonderful new forms.”

The software development kit will be distributed freely to academics, researchers and educational institutions while companies that want to use the product for commercial purposes will need to pay $399 for a single license. How long will it take before people start creating their own personal robots?

Reference: Microsoft Robotics Studio site