Presenting at the Microsoft Company Meeting - Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows Embedded for Point Of Service Device Demo

Friday September 23rd, 11am (approx), it’s time to walk out onto the stage at the 30th Microsoft Company Meeting and show some of the cool/interesting devices shipping on Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows Embedded for Point of Service (WEPOS).

This is what the seating looks like from the stage – imagine walking out to see roughly 30,000 people staring back at you! – The MED Crew (now the Entertainment and (Embedded) Devices Division) were in the section slightly right of the pitchers mound.

Here’s some of the devices we had on show, first up (far left) was everyone’s favorite, the Bernina Artista 200E Sewing Machine, running Windows CE, this device has a display, external CD-Rom, and the ability to download images or stitching patterns from Bernina or from the Internet. Next is the WinCon PLC, this was used as an example of an industrial control device which is also running Windows CE, the WinCon was used as a placeholder to show a short video of the Kuka RoboCoaster (which is apparently in use as a virtual roller coaster ride at Legoland!) – next is Windows Embedded for Point Of Service (WEPOS), now the really interesting thing about this part of the demo is showing Plug ‘n’ Play running on a POS system, it would appear that most POS systems are still using COM as the glue between hardware peripherals, if a device fails then it could be hard to find a replacement part, especially if the barcode scanner, cash drawer or whatever has been in use for quite some time – Supporting PNP and an abstracted driver model for common POS peripherals means that it’s quick and simple to replace hardware components on the fly. Next is the Pathfinder a product designed for people with disabilities, the pathfinder has a QWERTY keyboard and a pictographic keyboard, commonly used words or phrases can be downloaded from a desktop PC or entered through the keyboard, there’s also support for an IR head-band which can remotely control the unit. And finally, the NOMAD from Microvision, a heads up display that produces a 17” monitor floating about 3ft in front of the user, the image is produced by scanning a laser directly onto the retina of your eye – pretty cool!

The demo finished with Anil Dhawan showing his Bluetooth remotely controlled Windows CE Embedded Media box (MSDN Channel 9 video here)

– Mike