Tutorials here

Microsoft Robotics Studio is KOOOL! See above for the tutorials available from the web. However, this doesn't yet include a simutlation tutorial. This is the one bit I can't get working. I need to take down the latest Sept CTP and test that.

If you are interested in more PC-Bot detail look here 

Link to White Box Robotics 914PC BOT

the full PC bot specification with a dressed and nude model :p

So I thought you might like to see more of the PC-Bot so I have posted some pictures on this site - see right panel.

What are you going to do with it?

So a common question from colleagues when they see my super cool PC-Bot desktop wallpaper is - what are you going to do with it? They just don't have any imagination!

First of all, my job requires me to travel often. This means I'm not at home as much as I could be in a normal desk job (yuck) so my PC-Bot will be my virtual presence in teh home when I'm away.

Not only will I be able to raise a conversation with my family via Skype or MSN IM, but I will also be able to wonder around the house to see what my family are doing.

Besides spying on them (JOKE) I intend to write a question and answer application that will enable a query to be processed against the web or Media Centre using voice recognition. The answer will be delivered using text to speech.

So in the future with my PC-Bot we will be able to ask: When is Dr Who on?  And the PC-Bot will be able to query the electronic programme guide of the Windows Media Centre (you see I already have the PC inners of my PC-Bot at home and have a CTP of Windows Vista Ultimate running on it. Ultimate edition includes the Windows Media Centre functionality). Although, the TV reception itself in my part of the world isn't good enough for the PC-Bot to have a TV freeview card in it. what I have done is install a WinTV card into the motherboard (only has one slot) got my Vista Media Centre setup via the wizard, and then removed the board. So no TV viewing, but all the other Media Centre functionality.

Other questions I will direct against the Encarta IM conversation agent, the Office research pane research web services and Windows Live Search.

the ultimate test will be to see if I can beat the 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' texting timeout :-) from voice question asked to answer delivered.

Once this basic interface has been built I'll be looking to add some ability for the PC-Bot to navigate the ground floor of my home. We live in a large barn conversation so much of the ground floor is open plan. The trick is to provide the PC-Bot some a means of determining which room it is in. No chance with GPS here.

The PC-Bot is fitted with a single camera as standard but also has plenty of scope to be extended with more hardware. So I can add almost anything I want as long as it fits into one or more 5.25 inch drive bays. I'll probably fit simple pre-determined Infra red beacons flashing at different frequencies like buoy lights and an IR detector in each ground floor room. The beacons will have to be low enough power so as not to flood into adjacent rooms.

Lots more to come on this project.

So the White Box Robotics' site finally gets a refresh. It is great to see the shots of the production PC-Bot 914. It'd be even better for me to see my pre-ordered first production run PC-Bot in the flesh!

In theory it should be here by the end of Sept - a yer late. But boy am I glad to have placed the pre-order!! The retail price of the full production model is enormous - OUCH.

At the beginning I thought that the PC-Bot would be the next thing kids and adults alike would want for their home.  A PC on wheels that they could be used as a interface for access to the web without having to use a keyboard.

the latest .Net Framework provides easy to use managed code libraries to programme the Windows text to speech and speech recognition functionality. Couple this with the recent availability of the Microsoft Robotics Studio CTP (community tech preview) and the programming environment for robotics just got a damn sight easier.

Oh please deliver my PC-Bot sooon!!!

Link to White Box Robotics - About PC-BOTs

So being a busy Microsoft employee and father of two, husband of one, gardener, car mechanic, game keeper adn general labourer I think I'm forgiven for not spending hours on my Xbox.

I've completed Halo, most of the way through Halo 2 but got side tracked by Star Wars Battle Front 2 which not graphically superior to Halo 2, it is my dream battle world. I saw Star Wars the first time round when I was under ten, and although the story lines sagged in a few places (I still can't watch return of the Jedi because of the teddy bears!! Teddy bears for * sake!) I've marvelled through my life at the creative abilities of those people behind the films, the models and now the graphics. Awesome stuff.

So being able to play in this space myself on my Xbox is just awesome.

However, I'm really disappointed that my Xbox Live GamerCard doesn't show any of this stuff.

Guess I'll have to work harder on it!!

Well it was bound to happen some day. I've been writing blogs to my three different sites for several months now, I can't claim t have thousands of readers but I enjoyed doing it. And today I screwed them all up.

With a few clicks of my mouse I wiped the whole lot off the face of the Internet. Bugger!

I enjoy coding, so rather than jump straight up to a pre-made site I built my own using BlogX and the .Net 2.0 Start kits examples. Customising as I went. I was happy with the look for the short term - but they did need more work.

Being a coder I used Visual Studio 2005 to edit and publish my ASP.Net 2.0 sites. This is where it went wrong. You see when you publish from VS it offers to delete all your existing publsihed files to that the published site is consistent with the one you developed.

This is normally fine, as long as the publishing point is correct. Today - I forgot this and took the publishing point at the default which was the root of my hosted environment with all my sites below it. Ratz!

I thought the publishing process was taking a long time.

So here I am, back on my Live space and using the new beta of the Windows Live Writer. Well it is certainly easier than writing the raw HTML which I was before.

I managed to recover my sites from the development machine, but of course all my blog content wasn't backed up and is lost. Well all but the small amount on my life blog. This was the site I was trying to correct a bug with, so I had copied locally to keep a backup before I started fiddling with it.

So that is back in full, but still with the bug. I'll get back to that one later.