Back at Build 2016, the Windows team announced the Desktop Bridge, allowing developers to bring their existing desktop apps and games over to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) by converting their app or game with the Desktop App Converter and then enhancing and extending it with UWP functionality. This enables the path to gradually migrate the app or game to reach all Windows 10 devices over time, including phones, Xbox One and HoloLens.

Last month, along with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK, the team also announced a process for you to start bringing these converted apps and games to the Windows Store for easier and safer distribution to customers.

Now, the first apps are available in the Windows Store for Windows 10 customers running the Anniversary Update, which includes the Arduino IDE, Evernote, Virtual Robotics Kit, and several others.

These are the same apps that customers know and love, but are now available for download in the trusted Windows Store. For your customers, the Windows Store is the safest and most secure place for them to find and manage content across a range of Windows devices, including PCs, phones, Xbox One and HoloLens. For developers, the Desktop Bridge enables you to make use of the new functionality available to UWP apps right out of the gate, including access to a host of new APIs like Live Tiles, Cortana and Action Center that provide best-in-class support for thousands of scenarios across all of Windows.

Want to learn more? You can read all about the apps and tooling updates for the Desktop Bridge here.

Last year, we announced on the blog how Windows became the first Arduino certified OS and introduced Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino and Windows Remote Arduino. Now, engineers at Windows have published a blog post showing how you can use Windows 10 IoT Core to create or port Arduino Wiring sketches that will run on supported IoT Core devices.

The setup and installation steps vary based on what hardware you have, but the resources below can assist with creating/porting Arduino Wiring apps running on Windows 10 IoT Core:

• Arduino Wiring Project Guide
• Arduino Wiring Porting Guide
• Building Arduino Wiring Libraries in 4 Easy Steps

Want to learn more? Read all about it on the Windows blog!

Microsoft is getting their latest OS into the Maker scene through SBC integration. Their latest update adds support for Arduino and Dragonboard.

Read more on MAKE

The post Microsoft Announces Windows IoT Support for Arduino and DragonBoard appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

At build 2015 Microsoft announced an important collaboration with Arduino. Windows became the first Arduino certified OS and introduced Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino and Windows Remote Arduino able to bridge technologies designed to connect the physical world of Arduino with the Windows ecosystem and computing power. Today on the Windows blog, an update on the topic:

Now you can get the Windows Insider Preview of Windows 10 IoT Core with the next four technology investment.

1)Windows 10 IoT Core Universal Windows Platform (UWP) support for Arduino Wiring

2)>Windows 10 IoT Core Universal Windows Platform support for direct memory mapped UWP Providers

3)Windows Store availability of the Windows Virtual Shields Application

4)Windows Store availability of the Windows Remote Arduino Experience Application

Arduino Wiring
We want to make it easy for you to use existing Arduino Wiring Sketches, libraries, and hardware with Windows 10 IoT Core Universal Windows Apps (UWA) on a Raspberry Pi 2 or other supported board. By creating a new Visual Studio template, supporting NuGet Packages, and platform improvements we’re making it easier than ever to build on Windows 10 IoT Core.Simply drag-and-drop (or cut-and-paste) your favorite and readily-available Arduino Wiring INO and library files into Visual Studio, connect your hardware over GPIO, SPI, I2C, ADC or PWM to your Raspberry Pi 2 or other supported Windows 10 IoT Core device, and run your code. Visual Studio and Windows will do all the heavy lifting to create a UWA and deploy it on your behalf, and you can also leverage the power of Visual Studio with Windows to debug your Arduino Wiring code.
With Arduino Wiring being supported as an extension to the Universal Windows Platform, you can even create a UWA that combines Arduino Wiring, C# and XAML. This enables you to build great projects with mixed mode programming like the plotter near the end of this video. Try out Arduino Wiring here.

Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino Application
This technology lets you leverage sensors and actuators on your Windows 10 device from an Arduino over USB, WiFi, and Bluetooth. For example, you can access your Windows 10 Phone accelerometer or your Windows 10 Desktop Screen from an Arduino over WiFi.
The Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino application is now in the Windows Store, and has improved the workflow to get started. The app is all you need on the Windows 10 device. Try it out here.

Windows Remote Arduino Experience
This technology lets you develop on your Windows 10 device and access the physical world via an Arduino over USB, WiFi, and Bluetooth. For example, you can program in C# on your Windows 10 Phone and drive a servo connected on your Arduino over Bluetooth.
We also created a Windows app that enables you to explore GPIO, ADC, and PWM functionality without writing any code on your Windows 10 device. The Windows Remote Arduino Experience app is now available in the Windows Store. Give it a try!

Keep reading on their blog.

If you’re not stuck in the tech news filter bubble, you may not have heard the Microsoft Build Developers Conference is going on right now. Among the topics covered in the keynotes are a new Office API and a goal to have Windows 10 running on a Billion devices in a few years.

There are, however, some interesting things coming out of the Build conference. Windows 10 is designed for hackers, with everything from virtual Arduino shields running on phones, Windows 10 running on Raspberry Pis, and Visual Code Studio running on OS X and Linux.

This is not the first time in recent memory Microsoft has courted the maker market. Microsoft begrudgingly supported the hardware dev scene with the PC version of the Microsoft Kinect, and a year or two ago, Microsoft rolled out drivers for 3D printers that were much more capable than the usual serial interface (read: the ability for printer manufacturers to add DRM). To the true, tie-die wearing, rollerblade-skating, acoustic coupler-sporting, Superman III-watching hackers out there, these efforts appear laughable – the product of managers completely out of touch with their audience.

Depending on your perspective, the new releases for the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and other ‘maker-themed’ hardware could go one way or the other.

As far as educational efforts go, the Windows Remote Arduino and Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino are especially interesting. Instead of filling a computer lab up with dozens of Arduinos and the related shields, the WVSA uses the sensors on a Windows 10 smartphone with an Arduino. Windows Remote Arduino allows makers to control an Arduino not through the standard USB port, but a Bluetooth module.

If Arduinos aren’t your thing, the Windows 10 IoT preview for the Raspberry Pi 2 and Minnowboard Max is out now. The Win10 IoT distribution does not yet have working WiFi or Bluetooth, making it the single most useless operating system for Internet of Things devices. It was, however, released at the Build conference.

Also announced was a partnership with a fabulous hardware project hosting site, Hackster.io. Microsoft and Hackster.io will be collaborating with hackathons and other events focused on Windows technology. I get why they wouldn’t want another, vastly more popular project hosting site doing this, but I’m a little confused at why Instructables wasn’t the top Microsoft pick.

As always, you may express your infinite derision in the comments below. Spelling Microsoft with a dollar sign will result in a ban.

It’s a special day for the Makers’ community. Massimo Banzi is in San Francisco attending Build Conference, the biggest developer event of the calendar year for Microsoft and today Microsoft is  announcing a strong partnership with Arduino: Windows 10 is in fact the world’s first Arduino certified operating system!

‘Arduino Certified’  Windows 10 enables makers to easily create smart objects combining hardware-driving capability of Arduino with the software capabilities of Windows.

For example, a security camera can be built by using Arduino to power the motors controls to tilt/turn the camera and using Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to create great UI, to connect the camera to the cloud, to process the image for motion detection and for adding facial/voice recognition.

The makers’ community can now also enjoy Windows Remote Arduino and Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino technologies – both released as open source libraries.

With Windows Remote Arduino developers can (wirelessly) access the capabilities of  Windows 10 devices as if they were physically attached to an Arduino Shield and leveraging Arduino functions directly from Universal Windows Application.

In this way Microsoft is enabling developers to extend their Universal Windows Platform Application with Arduino commands (that execute on a wirelessly connected Arduino device). Combining the power of Windows 10 devices including features such as Image processing, Speech recognition, Website parsing, Cameras and Advanced Audio pipelines with the power of physical world interactivity through Arduino enables incredible new scenarios to be created. Take a look at this Basic Windows Remote Arduino project to learn how to leverage this technology in any interactive project.

With Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino, users can tap into the incredible power of their Windows 10 devices through wireless protocols. For example Lumia 530 contains a lot of Arduino Shield capabilities and allows designers/makers to connect all those components seamlessly. Imagine being able to create an Arduino project that includes GPS, Web connectivity/parsing, touch display, speech technologies and more! Take a look at this Picture the Weather project created to bring children’s drawings to life!

Arduino is really happy that Microsoft got inspired by the enthusiasm and passion for technology represented by the Maker community and we look forward to see the amazing projects opening up from this unique offering.