Us Zunchers in the Dev Pit (soon to be the Dev Office Array, hah) love to geek-out on anything cool going on in the wild world of tech-knowledgy, so the idea of dabbling in robotics raises more than one eyebrow in this pleasant little cube farm we call home 2.0.

This week, Microsoft announced Microsoft Robotics Studio, a new software suite designed to help simplify the process of interfacing with robotics hardware.  The current system will integrate with the upcoming Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics hardware kit, and is geared towards early adopters in Industry as well as collegiate and hobbyist users.  It’s also going to expand to support many other robots from other manufacturers.

The application integrates everything you need – a visual programming tool, debug support, modular interface support (for windows/web based controls), *and* a 3D physics engine for doing real-world simulations so you don’t destroy your hardware when you try something.

We are unsure yet on whether the robot will require product activation in order to function.  :-)

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Google has quietly launched its new Web-based spreadsheet software today, currently in a limited test run over at Google Labs.  Whether this is the Microsoft Excel killer some people might be looking forward to, I have no clue.  Unfortunately, you must sign up to have access and I'm still waiting for my invite to come into my Gmail.  But, it does have one very unique feature that really caught my eye - after you save your document on the web, you can share it with people on your Google Talk contacts by entering their email.  Once shared, they can open the document at the same time as you and you can *both* make changes at once.  To me, this is the holy grail of office applications - integrated support of live collaboration.  Once the document is complete, you can download the Excel file (XLS format) document to keep.

This is the first direct stab at a Microsoft product.  Well, technically I guess you could consider Google Page Creator to be a competitor with Microsoft Front Page, but that might be kind of a stretch since Page Creator doesn't come close to the same feature set of Front Page.  Either way, you can bet this means war.  Computer software is about to change forever :-)

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The FCKEditor is one of the best opensource compenents to reach the web.  Written purely in Javascript/DHTML, this rich text editor brings forth a whole new level of website management, allowing you to use a Word-like interface to manage web content.  We've talked about the benefits of the FCKEditor before (checkout WYSIWYG Of The Stars). 

Now, we've been working on taking the next step though.  What if you want to open the editor using AJAX without doing a page refresh?  And what if you also wanted to submit the revised content using an AJAX call as well?  Dig no further, the Zunch Geek Squad has found a workable answer :-)  First, lets review the problems...

Typically, you'd create the instance of the editor by creating the proper iframe element and a hidden input element.  When you first create the iframe dynamically using AJAX, it's not really that big of a deal, everything loads just as you'd expect.  The first problem is that you can't just query the hidden input element for the current value of the editor - that was set when the page loaded, and the hidden input field hasn't been updated since then.  To pull the content out of the editor to send in through an AJAX call, use this Javascript code:

var content = FCKeditorAPI.GetInstance('HiddenInputName'').GetXHTML();

The next problem you'll encouter is that Firefox doesn't seem to like to close and then reopen the editor without refreshing the page first.  This is a simple issue of certain variables already being intialized, so all ya have to do to work around it is destroy the interferring variables.  Turns out the two offending variables can be simply set to Null before ya load the iframe!

FCKeditorAPI = null;
__FCKeditorNS = null;

Now that we've figured out that little nuscance, be expecting to see alot more interactivity in our applications.  We're working hard to build the next generation of applications that will keep your website easily updated and flooded with potential customers. 

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Are ya keeping up with the latest on the future of Internet Explorer 7.0?  Well, you may not have to, if you’ve got a great firm like Zunch to manage or build your website.  But, if you’ve got some code loving monkeys on your team (like us crazy kids here in the Zunch Dev Pit), then the odds are someone should be paying attention to the latest release of worlds most used browser. 

We’re eagerly awaiting to see the direction Microsoft takes the browser, and have been following along with news surrounding the new platform over at IEBlog, which is regularly updated by members of the Internet Explorer dream team.  There you can find useful geeky topics such as CSS Support, the Developer Toolbar, Tabbed Browsing, and plenty more late breaking information.

We can't wait - some of the Zunchers here have already installed the new IE and are actively using it to start learning it's capabilties.  If you care to take a walk on the wild side, you can download the latest beta here.  Faint of heart beware!  This is a beta (read: not finished yet!), and is likely to have some bugs, so don't install this if you aren't willing to encounter some technical issues, as some users have been.

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In a new deal announced this week, Dell has announced that Google will begin distributing its Google Desktop Search, Google Toolbar, and a Dell-customized Google Homepage inside of some new Dell PCs.  While Google has been distributing the Google Toolbar inside HP, Gateway, & Apple computers for a while, this new arrangement is a first for Google Desktop Search, a search engine that searches files on your own PC and displays immediate results as you type.

Microsoft has historically used their operating system agreements with PC manufacturers to prevent certain competing applications from being bundled into PCs.  For instance, when Netscape was gaining market share in the late 90’s shortly after Internet Explorer 3.0’s release, they motivated manufacturers to stop bundling Netscape software by offering a discount to those manufacturers.  This is partly what started the anti-trust case against the company by the U.S. Department of Justice back in 1997.  Since then, Microsoft has been disallowed from such practices.  This opens the door for software companies to start making deals with manufacturers to get their software bundled into Windows PCs.

Enter Google.  Users equate to advertising revenue for Google; so of course, they want to make as many loyal users as they can.  Also looming in the ranks is Windows Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system that is to revolutionize the way we interact with computers.  One of the many noticeable enhancements to Vista is its built in search capabilities, both for searching your local files, but also for searching the web via their new MSN Search.  And if the past is any indicator, when Microsoft seriously decides it wants to get into an area of technology, there aren’t many forces that can stop it.  Just ask Netscape, IBM, Oracle, or the many other companies that have been eliminated, or at least squelched, by Microsoft’s intents.

Now, given all this, it seems Google’s quest to gain user’s loyalty is going to be the only way to prevent Microsoft’s search brigade from taking down the recently gone-public company.  A month or two back, Google released the “Google Pack” - a suite of free software, some written by Google, some free or open-source, which combines loads of software goodness into a single, self-updating software package.  Included in the pack is: a web browser, virus scanner, screen saver, two chat/instant message clients, their own Desktop Search & Toolbar, and more.  They’ve even hinted that a Microsoft Office competitor could be an upcoming part of the Google Pack.  If so, Google Pack users would likely be automatically notified that the Office-alternative is now available as a free download.

Investing in desktop users is only one way which Google can help retain user’s loyalty.  The rumor-mill has been backlogged with talks of Google doing many things: targeted digital TV advertisements; a world-wide Wi-Fi network that could allow them to have the home page of every connected user; broadband access over power-lines with integrated digital phone & television services; even building their own operating system for low-priced PCs;  While there is no official word of a plan from Google, there have been investments in various companies that could back any of these ideas.  In the end, though, there is no telling whether Google is looking at any of these options as a serious marketing effort or is simply diversifying investments for financial gain.  We have seen an announcement that Google would be building an in-car navigation system in conjunction with Volkswagen utilizing Google Earth technology, and of course this more recent entry into pre-packaged desktop PC software.

With all this activity at Google, and the counter-activity of its chief rival, Microsoft, it will certainly be interesting to see how this battle pans out.  In the end, this is nothing more than a healthy, competitive industry that has been churning out new innovations on a pace faster than many folks ever expected.  And, who knows, maybe there will never be a winner.  Perhaps Microsoft and Google will eventually learn to coexist and allow each other a turf of their own.  Or, they’ll be forever enemies like the many Microsoft has already created in its relatively short lifespan.  One thing is certain – right now, the consumer can be declared the winner.

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