A small startup in Microsoft’s backyard is poised to begin shipping a tiny, 32-pin chip-like computer module that runs “.NET Embedded,” a new Microsoft embedded software platform developed for use in watches and other “smart personal objects.” The module, developed by startup .netcpu Corp., incorporates portions of Microsoft’s Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) hardware and software.
Teeny module runs new “.NET Embedded” software stack
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Is it like a rehash of those Java chips that came up ?.
Of course they were FPGA demo models, but still JVM is
a lot more suited to this kind of stuff (@see{Origins of Java – OAK})
How is the JVM “a lot more suited”?
I’ve done some pretty heavy embedded work with the compact framework and it’s fantastic. They’ve done a great job of minimzing it, the footprint is tiny, and the performance is great…especially when making use of threads.
I know this chip is on a much smaller scale, I’m just making the point that MS seems to be able to make the .NET framework as small as they’d like it to be. It’s very flexible.
I look forward to trying this out if I get the opportunity, looks interesting!
Who would be dumb enough to pay a monthly fee for temperature on your wristwatch. Besides being bulky and ugly the big turnoff is that it has connections to MS.
they are real..
http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM926EJS.html
“JVM is a lot more suited to this kind of stuff…”
Huh? With .Net you can use the same (subset of) compontents for building the GUI that you use when developing Windows Forms applications. As far as I know there is no Swing on these micro JVM’s. You are usually stuck using some home grown non standard widget api for building the GUI.
Try developing the .Net Compact Framework and you will see how nice (and simple) it really is…
I think this is one area where MS has Sun licked!
WTF? .Net suddenly has Java licked? Sun has been in this market space for years!! I cannot believe some of the B.S. that I see here.
Have you even used the .Net Compact Framework? So Sun has been there for years… that doesn’t mean someone is about to kick their ass in their so called market space…
Your right, I cannot believe some of the B.S. replies I see here.
I agree with The Town Drunk (never thought I’d hear myself say that sentence).
I looked at what it would take to use Java on an embedded project…I was immediately turned off that I wouldn’t be able to use the latest VM (as I understand it, the mobile JVM is only 1.1 compatible at this point, very old!)
Also, there is no Swing widget toolkit for the mobile/embedded JVM.
With the .NET CF I’m basically writing the same code I would for a desktop app, only there are less widgets available. However, it’s still very robust and *very* lightweight…the CF itself is very small and efficient.
Then again, the full-on .NET framework is very efficient…the same cannot be said about the JVM.
“WTF? .Net suddenly has Java licked? Sun has been in this market space for years!! I cannot believe some of the B.S. that I see here.”
I fully agree. Most of my comments get strange responses too!
> JVM is only 1.1 compatible at this
Huh? You must be looking at the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) version or the Mobile Information Device Profile (MDP) version, not the JVM version. Some old Nokia phones use MIDP 1.1, but nearly everything produced in the last two years has been at least MIDP 2.0.
In J2ME, there’s no Swing, but there is AWT and servlets. When you’re in a embedded tight space and have to optimize the tight screen real estate, you need to have that level of control and low memory usage.
J2ME has several possible standard configurations and profiles that match different needs. They may not be the greatest APIs, but at least you’re not left re-inventing the wheel or using nonstandard flavour of the week APIs that you find in other embedded systems. J2ME is popular because it manages to unified a once fragmented embedded world.
.NET Embedded may become successful in time, but from the little that I know of .NET Embedded, it’s just the CLR and (possibly) the HAL layer. If you want to do anything more, you have to resort to a nonstandard API (or make your own). In time, it will develop these standard APIs, but at this stage, it’s playing catch up.
My biggest concern would be JIT performance. Microsoft’s track record with the .NET Compact Framework is not very good. Their .NETcf CLR appears to be mostly interpretive with very little JIT compilation. If you run the full .NET framework and the .NETcf on the same piece of hardware and run any sort of non-I/O-bound code, it is quite obvious.
Unless you have the luxury of lots of extra CPU cycles on your embedded device to make up the difference (when does that happen in embedded development?), you’ll still need to write your non-UI code in native code to get acceptable performance. The .NETcf appears to be designed for resource-constrained clients, not resource-constrained servers that do any of their own significant data processing.
…slays me. I have been using Windows 98 with Java for years. Every time I boot up my computer and then run a .net application, the disk drive thrashes like crazy (I only have 256 MB memory on that machine.)
On top of that, we have a .net application at work that’s *supposed* to be for *all* employees. Somehow, the Mac users are “out in the cold.” They have to borrow PC laptops to run the darn thing.
So, if I were to (gasp!) decide to switch to a G5 at home, maybe even running Linux, where would I be with those .net applications?
Sun is really *trying* to produce a “write once, run anywhere” environment. Can the same be said for Microsoft?