Next year is one of those years that can’t come soon enough for Microsoft.

It’s not that 2011 was a particularly difficult year. The company posted record revenue for the fiscal year that ended June 30. And its 2-year-old PC operating system, Windows 7, hit 500 million copies sold, further embedding it as the most widely used operating system in the world. But 2011 had few big product launches at the company, Office 365 and Internet Explorer 9 notwithstanding.

Next year will be altogether different. Microsoft is prepping the big kahuna of its product arsenal, Windows 8. The company hasn’t set a date, though most analysts expect the flagship operating system to debut before the end of the year, and perhaps in time for back-to-school shopping. From that product, much else from Redmond flows.

So here are five things to look for from Microsoft in 2012:

1. Windows 8 tablets

Windows 8 is one of the boldest bets Microsoft will make, radically changing the interface on the operating system to the company’s tile-based Metro look, first used by Windows Phone 7 last year. The familiar desktop photo covered with application and file icons will be available to PC users who want it. But Microsoft is pushing the new touch-friendly interface to convince consumers to buy tablet computers that will run it.

It won’t be an easy sell. Microsoft will be coming to the tablet market more than two years after Apple iPad launched and quickly became a commercial success. And this holiday season, Amazon debuted its Kindle Fire, which became the first non-Apple tablet to gain a meaningful foothold. Market analyst Forrester recently reported that consumer interest in Windows tablets is waning.

As the core of computing moves beyond the PC, Microsoft needs Windows 8 tablets to succeed. It’s all the more pressing as PC growth sputters and the tablet computer market soars.

The market muscle of Microsoft and its partners will help propel Windows tablets at their debut. But unless Microsoft can convince developers to create tablet-specific apps that users can’t live without, the devices will have a hard time making a dent in iPad’s massive lead.

2. Xbox moves farther into live TV

Even in its earliest days, Microsoft’s video game console business was pegged as a Trojan Horse to bring the company’s technology from the office to the living room. But the brains behind Xbox knew they had to make a great gaming experience job No. 1. Now, leading the United States in console sales in 2011, Xbox is pushing in earnest beyond gaming.

Microsoft just brought the first hint of live TV to Xbox consoles with an updated look to its Xbox Live service earlier this month. In addition to introducing the Metro-style look to Xbox, it also let customers of Verizon’s Fios cable television service choose from 26 different live TV channels–Comedy Central, HBO, and Nickelodeon. A handful of other partners are offering live programming through Xbox as well.

That’s clearly just the start for Microsoft. The company is moving toward the goal of getting consumers to fire up their Xbox whenever they flip on their TVs, not just when they want to play a game. Next year will see more live television content come to Xbox Live. It’s a foundation that Microsoft will build out as it readies the next version of the Xbox console, something a source on the Xbox team says will happen in 2013.

3. Windows Phone: We’re No. 3

It may be a measure of the decade-long struggle to succeed in mobile telephony that, for Microsoft, a victory would be grabbing the third place spot in terms of smartphone market share for its Windows Phone software. While the company has wrestled to arrive at a winning formula, rivals Apple and Google have introduced mobile-phone operating systems that have seized business that Microsoft had hoped to grab.

Microsoft rebooted its phone effort at the end of last year, introducing a passel of new phones from partners running its brand new operating system, Windows Phone 7. The slick-looking software, refreshed in September with an update dubbed Mango, has won plaudits from reviewers for its animation and app integration.

While the technology is catching up with rivals, Windows Phone’s market share hasn’t. According to market research firm Gartner, just 1.5 percent of the smartphones worldwide run Microsoft’s operating system. And rivals aren’t standing still. Apple’s new iPhone 4S has outsold every other mobile phone since its debut in October. And despite the market fragmentation of Google’s Android, with different handset manufacturers running different versions of the mobile operating system, it continues to pull ahead in the marketplace.

There’s little doubt that Windows Phone share will grow, if only because of the marketing push Microsoft and partners, particularly Nokia, will make, coupled with the tiny toehold it currently has. But it’s most likely to grab customers from Research In Motion’s foundering Blackberry business rather than established Apple and Google customers.

4. Patent litigation aggressor

The ground Microsoft hasn’t been able to take away from Android in the marketplace may well be covered by the revenue it’s able to generate through the threat of litigation. The software giant has persuaded several handset makers–including HTC, Wistron, and Compal– to pay it a vig for each Android device they sell to settle allegations that the mobile operating system violates Microsoft’s patents.

The Android device makers that don’t pay? Microsoft’s taking them to court. Two high profile cases will move toward resolution next year– Microsoft’s suit against Barnes & Noble, whose Nook e-reader runs Android, and a separate suit against Motorola. (Google is in the process of acquiring Motorola Mobility.)

The tactic has proven so successful that in 2011, Microsoft started collecting fees from companies that make devices running Google’s Chrome operating system as well, including Acer and ViewSonic. Expect Microsoft to continue to press device makers that use its rival’s technology. Likewise, count on those manufacturers, particularly the smaller ones, to pay up rather than face Microsoft in the courthouse.

5. Growing search through social

Like the mobile-phone business, Microsoft has bounced from one strategy to the next in a bid to be more relevant in Internet search. It’s re-branded its search engine a few times, added key partners, and cycled through senior executives, and still significantly trails market leader Google.

There’s one Microsoft partnership that could start to pay off in 2012, and it’s not the deal to handle search queries from Yahoo. It’s Microsoft’s deal with Facebook. In May, Microsoft began including recommendations from Facebook friends into its Bing search engine, creating customized results by elevating the ones that receive a “like” from someone in the searcher’s Facebook network. So when someone is looking for a Thai restaurant in Seattle, for example, a spot that earned a like from a Facebook friend will rise in that person’s particular search rankings.

Google is on to the same formula too, creating its Google+ social network to infuse its search results with customized answers to Web surfer queries. But in social networking, Facebook remains king. Using Facebook “likes” are just the first step. Microsoft clearly plans to add more social signals to Bing in 2012. And while that won’t topple Google, it does offer the opportunity to grab a large slice of the search business by providing more relevant results.

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Percento Technologies

Here’s a New Year’s resolution that you’ll want to keep: pay less for nearly everything you buy for your business. I’m talking computers, printers, tablets, hard drives, software–the works!

Easier said than done, right? Wrong. There’s actually a ridiculously simple, but little known, way to save money on most online purchases: start them at a cash-rebate site.

It works like this: Suppose you’re planning to order one of HP’s spiffy Pavilion dm1z laptops. The base configuration starts at $399.99, and because it’s a brand new model (well, newly refreshed, anyway), there are no deals to be found online.

All you have to do is head to a site like BigCrumbs. Or Ebates. Or FatWallet Cash Back. Search for HP, click “Shop Now,” and then make your purchase like you normally would.

In about 90 days, you’ll get back a percentage of your purchase. It might be 8 percent, or 5 percent, or even just 2.5 percent (the amount varies from store to store and rebate site to rebate site), but it’s still money back.

And think about it: if you save 5 percent on a $400 purchase, that’s $20. If you’re buying 10 new laptops, that’s $200. All for just a few extra clicks when you start your online shopping trip. Kind of a no-brainer, right?

Of course, I haven’t told you the catch yet. That’s because I haven’t really found one. I recently used Ebates to order the aforementioned Pavilion dm1z, and everything worked like a charm. I was even able to use a promo code to get a discount on the laptop (which, granted, lowered my rebate a bit, but I still came out way ahead).

Indeed, I’ve become something of a cash-back convert. Although it takes a few months to get your rebates (which, depending on the site, can come in the form of PayPal or an honest-to-goodness check in the mail), the percentage points do add up. My take: why not use one?

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Claiming that the timing of the event meshes poorly with the company’s product launches, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications Frank X. Shaw announced on Tuesday that after CES 2012, Microsoft would no longer deliver a keynote address or have a large booth at the annual trade fair. CES’s organizers, the Consumer Electronics Association, confirmed that the 2012 keynote would be Microsoft’s fourteenth and last.

Shaw’s explanation appeared to make sense. Microsoft’s major consumer product launches tend to fall in the second half of the year, and next year’s big release—Windows 8—isn’t going to buck that trend. There’s an outside chance that Microsoft might talk Xbox 720 at CES 2012, but that too won’t be launching any time soon. The company’s presence at CES has traditionally been big and expensive, and the company no longer feels it yields a valuable return on that investment.

After the 2011 keynote earlier this year, this was hardly surprising. The 2011 keynote was dominated by a mix of products already on the market—Kinect, Windows Phone—and the Windows-on-ARM processor announcement. Though significant, this announcement had no relevance to consumers or indeed 2011. Windows-on-ARM products will only ship in 2012, and most consumers have little interest in the vagaries of instruction set architectures or system-on-chip designs.

But intrigue was added to this apparently straightforward announcement when GigaOM reported that according to people “inside Microsoft,” the withdrawal was due to CEA refusing to allow Redmond to make the keynote presentation beyond next year. In other words, it wasn’t the software giant’s decision at all. In retaliation, Microsoft pulled its future booth plans.

The story took another twist when The Verge reported said that its sources backed Shaw’s original explanation. CEA tried to get Microsoft to sign on for another three years of keynoting after 2011, but Microsoft refused, signing on for only a single additional year (2012)—showing that the company’s plans to leave the event are long-standing. CEA did want more money for future keynotes, which helped push Microsoft away, but ultimately the decision to leave was Microsoft’s.

Microsoft will still be at future CES events in some capacity to connect to partners, press, and the general public. But big reveals and launches of major products will in the future be made at Microsoft-organized, Microsoft-specific events. Events that happen when Redmond says they should happen, and that make Microsoft products the star of the show.

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Texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed, federal safety investigators declared Tuesday, urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies.

Inspired by recent deadly crashes — including one in which a teenager sent or received 11 text messages in 11 minutes before an accident — the recommendation would apply even to hands-free devices, a much stricter rule than any current state law.

The unanimous recommendation by the five-member National Transportation Safety Board would make an exception for devices deemed to aid driver safety such as GPS navigation systems

A group representing state highway safety offices called the recommendation “a game-changer.”

“States aren’t ready to support a total ban yet, but this may start the discussion,” Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, said.

NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman acknowledged the recommendation would be unpopular with many people and that complying would involve changing what has become ingrained behavior for many Americans.

While the NTSB doesn’t have the power to impose restrictions, its recommendations carry significant weight with federal regulators and congressional and state lawmakers. Another recommendation issued Tuesday urges states to aggressively enforce current bans on text messaging and the use of cellphones and other portable electronic devices while driving.

“We’re not here to win a popularity contest,” she said. “No email, no text, no update, no call is worth a human life.”

Currently, 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, while nine states and D.C. bar hand-held cellphone use. Thirty states ban all cellphone use for beginning drivers. But enforcement is generally not a high priority, and no states ban the use of hands-free devices for all drivers.

A total cellphone ban would be the hardest to accept for many people.

Leila Noelliste, 26, a Chicago blogger and business owner, said being able to talk on the cellphone “when I’m running around town” is important to self-employed people like herself.

“I don’t think they should ban cellphones because I don’t think you’re really distracted when you’re talking, it’s when you’re texting,” she said. When you’re driving and talking, “your eyes are still on the road.”

The immediate impetus for the recommendation of state bans was a deadly highway pileup near Gray Summit, Mo., last year in which a 19-year-old pickup driver sent and received 11 texts in 11 minutes just before the accident.

NTSB investigators said they are seeing increasing texting, cellphone calls and other distracting behavior by drivers in accidents involving all kinds of transportation. It has become routine to immediately request the preservation of cellphone and texting records when an investigation is begun.

In the past few years the board has investigated a train collision in which the engineer was texting that killed 25 people in Chatsworth, Calif.; a fatal accident on the Delaware River near Philadelphia in which a tugboat pilot was talking on his cellphone and using a laptop computer, and a Northwest Airlines flight that sped more than 100 miles past its destination because both pilots were working on their laptops.

Last year, a driver was dialing his cellphone when his truck crossed a highway median near Munford, Ind., and collided with a 15-passenger van. Eleven people were killed.

The board said the initial collision in the Missouri accident was caused by the inattention of the pickup driver who was texting a friend about events of the previous night. The pickup, traveling at 55 mph, hit the back of a tractor truck that had slowed for highway construction. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle. A second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.

The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured. About 50 students, mostly members of a high school band from St. James, Mo., were on the buses heading to the Six Flags St. Louis amusement park.

Missouri had a law banning drivers under 21 years old from texting while driving at the time of the crash, but wasn’t aggressively enforcing the ban, board member Robert Sumwalt said.

“Without the enforcement, the laws don’t mean a whole lot,” he said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported earlier this year that pilot projects in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., produced significant reductions in distracted driving by combining stepped-up ticketing with high-profile public education campaigns.

Before and after each enforcement wave, NHTSA researchers observed cellphone use by drivers and conducted surveys at drivers’ license offices in the two cities. They found that in Syracuse, hand-held cellphone use and texting declined by a third. In Hartford, there was a 57 percent drop in hand-held phone use, and texting behind the wheel dropped by nearly three-quarters.

However, that was with blanket enforcement by police.

The board’s decision to include hands-free cellphone use in its recommendation is likely to prove especially controversial. No states currently ban hand-free use although many studies show that it is often as unsafe as hand-held phone use because drivers’ minds are on their conversations rather than what’s happening on the road.

Hersman pointed to an Alexandria, Va., accident the board investigated in which a bus driver talking on a hands-free phone ran into a bridge despite his being familiar with the route and the presence of warning signs that the arch was too low for his bus to clear. The roof of the bus was sheared off.

The board has previously recommended bans on texting and cellphone use by commercial truck and bus drivers and beginning drivers, but it had stopped short of calling for a ban on the use of the devices by adults behind the wheel of passenger cars.

The problem of texting while driving is getting worse despite a rush by states to ban the practice, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week. In November, Pennsylvania became the 35th state to forbid texting while driving.

About two out of 10 American drivers overall — and half of drivers between 21 and 24 — say they’ve thumbed messages or emailed from the driver’s seat, according to a survey of more than 6,000 drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

However, the survey found that many drivers don’t think it’s dangerous when they do it — only when others do.

At any given moment last year on America’s streets and highways, nearly one in every 100 car drivers was texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a hand-held electronic device, the safety administration said. Those activities were up 50 percent over the previous year.

Driver distraction wasn’t the only significant safety problem uncovered by NTSB’s investigation of the Missouri accident. Investigators said they believe the pickup driver was suffering from fatigue that may have eroded his judgment. He had an average of about five and a half hours of sleep a night in the days leading up to the accident and had had fewer than five hours of sleep the night before the accident, they said.

The pickup driver had no history of accidents or traffic violations, investigators said.

Investigators also found significant problems with the brakes of both school buses involved in the accident. A third school bus sent to a hospital after the accident to pick up students crashed in the hospital parking lot when that bus’ brakes failed.

However, the brake problems didn’t cause or contribute to the severity of the accident, investigators said.

Another issue involved the difficulty passengers had getting out of the first school bus after the accident. Its doors were unusable and passengers had to exit through an emergency window. The raised latch on the window kept catching on clothing as students tried to escape, investigators said. Escape was further slowed because the window design required one person to hold the window up in order for a second person to crawl through, they said.

It was critical for passengers to leave as quickly as possible because a large amount of fuel underneath the bus was a serious fire hazard, investigators said.

“It could have been a much worse situation if there was a fire,” Donald Karol, the NTSB’s highway safety director, said.

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The proliferation of large-scale data sets is just beginning to change business and science around the world, but enterprises need to prepare in order to gain the most advantage from their information, panelists said at a Silicon Valley event this week.

So-called “big data” is both a challenge to manage and a tool for competitive advantage, according to speakers at a Churchill Club event on Wednesday night in Mountain View, California. The discussion at the Computer History Museum followed the launch of EMC Greenplum’s Unified Analytics Platform, which lets business and IT staffs analyze both structured and unstructured data.

New networked devices and applications are collecting more data than ever and more organizations are holding on to it, creating huge demands for storage. In the second quarter of this year, storage companies shipped 5,429 petabytes of disk capacity, up 30.7 percent from last year’s second quarter, IDC reported last week.

“Data growth is already faster than both Moore’s Law and … network growth,” said Anand Rajaraman, senior vice president of Walmart Global E-Commerce and head of @WalmartLabs. His lab has developed tools for Walmart to take advantage of the new types of data being generated, including applications that collect and analyze information from sources such as Twitter and Facebook to gauge trends and individual consumer preferences.

The benefits of big data stretch beyond business to earth sciences, biology, psychology and other fields, Rajaraman said.

“Science has become more and more about collecting large amounts of data and doing analysis,” he said.

Big data can be any volume of data that requires new tools to analyze, said Luke Lonergan, chief technology officer and co-founder of Greenplum, which EMC acquired last year. For example, it would take 27 hours to run a logistic regression algorithm, which can be used to predict the probability of an event, on 30G bytes of data, Lonergan said. If run on 32 computers, the process takes 60 seconds, he said.

“‘Bigger than previous-generation, non-parallel infrastructure could handle’ might be a useful definition. Anything that blows you out of the old way of doing things,” Lonergan said.

Analyzing data also has gotten harder not only because there is more of it but because it comes from new sources, panelists said. Blogs, Web comments and other information comes in the form of unstructured data, which can’t be crunched the way relational databases are. The need to mine different types of content has led to new data analysis platforms, most notably the open-source Hadoop framework that was pioneered by Google and Facebook.

The market for new tools to manage and exploit big data is still growing, said Ping Li, who heads the Big Data Fund at venture capital company Accel Partners.

“A lot of the applications that ride on top of these new data platforms have yet to be invented,” Li said. Traditional business intelligence and ERP (enterprise resource planning) platforms are being adapted to deal with big data, but what’s needed are native applications developed specifically for the new world, he said.

Developing countries are active participants in this process, sometimes because companies there have skipped over legacy systems that are ingrained in first-world enterprises, Li said.

Trying to get value out of big data today is like creating an online store in the early days of e-commerce, said Walmart’s Rajaraman, who helped develop Amazon.com’s marketplace business. Amazon had to invent its own systems for payment, fraud detection and other tasks, each of which later spawned independent vendors that specialize in each area, he said.

It’s important for an enterprise to understand the implications of big data and how the new tools work before embarking on a big-data initiative, panelists warned.

“Those who are just standing up Hadoop as is, with no management framework, writing directly to it … there’s going to be some real disillusionment there,” said Keith Collins, senior vice president and chief technology officer of SAS.

Big-data tools such as Hadoop can’t create value out of information by themselves, Collins warned in an interview at the event. Enterprises have to know what they want to find out from their data and then deal with how to get that out of their data. “The data issues come after the question,” he said.

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General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE:GD), has added Email as a Service (EaaS) to its U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 Contract. General Dynamics can provide Federal agencies with cloud-based email services that deliver greater effectiveness, flexibility and lower total cost of ownership.

“Email as a Service enhances email functionality for government agencies and supports the movement to cloud-based applications for flexibility and mobility without changing how users interact with their email,” said Woody Hall, chief information officer for General Dynamics Information Technology. “General Dynamics’ solution provides agencies with the ability to rapidly provision a shared environment, as well as build out and foster communication capabilities without interrupting the user experience.”

For its new EaaS offering, General Dynamics partnered with several key IT industry vendors to develop a streamlined email system that can be tailored to unique requirements, allowing agencies to achieve their mission objectives more effectively. The EaaS solution leverages a network of highly available data centers. These redundant sites are all located within the United States, and provide high level service availability.

In addition to providing the core email functionality, General Dynamics’ solution includes archiving and eDiscovery, records management and office automation tools. The EaaS solution also integrates email with other agency systems and applications to allow users to view, collaborate and exchange information from external systems such as procurement, enterprise monitoring and time tracking – extending the functionality of email and providing immediate access to mission-critical information from a single view.

The GSA IT schedule is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, multiple-award acquisition vehicle that provides Federal agencies direct access to IT products and services from industry partners. General Dynamics has added Email as a Service in category 132-52, Electronic Commerce and Subscription Services category. With this addition General Dynamics now provides five key offerings available through the Schedule 70 contract:

• Email as a Service
• Office Automation (Virtual Office)
• Electronic Records Management
• Migration Services
• Integration Services

Each of these solutions can be provided in a government community, private cloud, secret enclave or public cloud environment.

Adding Email as a Service to the IT Schedule 70 builds on General Dynamics’ cloud offerings to government customers. General Dynamics was selected as one of 12 awardees by the GSA for the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement in October 2010.

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With its newly unveiled Windows Store, Microsoft is aiming for a market long dominated by Apple, and coveted by other rivals such as Google. The long-anticipated online storefront, integrated into Windows 8, will give consumers and business users access to a wide variety of apps and games.

For third-party developers, the chance to port their apps onto Microsoft’s next operating system could prove a lucrative relationship—so long as those apps prove popular. Apps that pass $25,000 in revenue will earn their developers 80 percent of every dollar generated; for those that never pass that revenue mark, Microsoft will pay out 70 percent, a
ratio that has become something of the industry standard.

By baking an app storefront into Windows 8, and giving developers a larger slice of the revenue pie for successful products, Microsoft has fired a significant shot across the bow of Apple and its App Store franchise.

Originally launched in 2008 as a platform for iOS, the App Store model proved successful enough for Apple to port it onto Mac OS X “Lion.” Other companies followed suit with their own mobile-app storefronts, although only the Android Marketplace has managed to achieve a similar scale in terms of app offerings.

In the battle against Apple’s App Store, Microsoft is likely banking on Windows 8 attracting a broad audience of both consumers and business users, which in turn would generate a significant market for everything from games to enterprise applications. Businesses are a key audience for Microsoft products, and thus a target of the company’s earliest communications regarding its new storefront.

“Enterprise developers have been asking about their path to market with Metro style apps,” Ted Dworkin, partner program manager for the Windows Store, wrote in a Dec. 6 posting on the new Windows Store blog. “And, in turn, IT administrators have been asking about deployment and management scenarios, such as compliance and security.”

Microsoft’s way of fulfilling those enterprise needs, apparently, centers on giving businesses direct control over app deployment. “Enterprises can choose to limit access to
the Windows Store catalog by their employees, or allow access but restrict certain apps,” he wrote. “In addition, enterprises can choose to deploy Metro style apps directly to PCs, without going through the Store infrastructure.”

Microsoft is also giving developers controls over in-app advertising, and highlighting how the app certification will be “predictable.” The latter is another swipe at Apple, whose app-approval process has attracted criticism from some developers as too opaque. Windows 8 beta will arrive in February 2012, with the final release later that year. Unlike previous versions of the operating system with their desktop-style interface, the upcoming operating system’s start screen centers on a set of colorful, touchable tiles linked to applications—the better to port it onto tablets and other touch-centric form-factors.

That focus on tablets will necessarily place Windows 8 in direct competition with not only Apple’s iPad, but the host of Google Android tablets on the market. Against those opponents, a robust app store is a necessity—something that Microsoft is intent on building now.

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MIT‘s Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which I toured Friday, is piled high with all kinds of hardware, including laptops, unmanned submarines, and mechanical limbs. But when it comes to equipping robots with artificial eyes and ears, robotics hackers are clearly enamored with the Kinect motion-sensing controller and sensors like it.

The Kinect motion-sensing controller is attached to the head of the humanoid PR2 robot as it tries to bake cookies. It’s also attached to a robotic wheelchair, as well as unmanned vehicles for exploring the ocean and the air. For robot builders, Kinect’s depth camera provides a relatively cheap set of eyes–crucial to giving them more autonomy–that plug in nicely to onboard computers.

“Kinect costs $150 and replaces $7,000 in sensors,” said mechanical engineering student Mario Bollini. And plugging the control into a robot–Bollini is working with Willow Garage’s PR2 robot–and writing software for it is straight-forward, he said.

In another effort, the Kinect motion-sensing controller is attached to a wheelchair to improve automated navigation. Researchers are writing algorithms that would allow a person to teach the wheelchair the ins and outs of a nursing home by following a person around or taking voice commands.

The depth camera of Kinect can also be used to navigate environments where robots can’t take advantage of GPS. The Robust Robotics Group at MIT and a team at the University of Washington have equipped a quadrotor, which is a four-propeller helicopter, with a Kinect motion-sensing controller to create a three-dimensional map of a location, which could be a building post-earthquake.

As the system flies around, the Kinect sensor sends out an infrared beam and, based on the reflections, can start to build, point by point, a colored map of an indoor or outdoor space in software. The cameras also allow the quadrotor to avoid colliding into other objects.

All that sensor data requires some hefty onboard processing. The Robust Robotics Group’s machine, which is about as wide as a pizza box, has two computers, including one that’s about as powerful as a laptop processor, according to a researcher.

Giving robots a better way to understand their environment with off-the-shelf products is helping lead to more capable robots. iRobot CEO Colin Angle said because of its low cost and capabilities, the sensor in the Kinect controller is “incredibly disruptive” because of its consumer electronics price.

For its part, Microsoft is trying to attract more developers to use Kinect for robotic applications and is upgrading the hardware so that it can better “see” very close objects rather than have to rely on a separate sensor.

“Microsoft will continue researching even better Kinect hardware. This means that 3D depth data is now here to stay, so sharpen up your 3D geometry skills and get cracking on applications that take full advantage of these new devices,” said Trevor Taylor, program manager for Microsoft Robotics in a recent blog.

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The threat of cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid  should be dealt with by a single federal agency, not the welter of groups now  charged with the electric system’s security, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported on Monday.

While acknowledging there is no absolute insurance  against such attacks, the MIT researchers said a single U.S. agency would be  better able to address the problem than the disparate federal, state and local  entities responsible for various aspects of safeguarding the power grid.

In a report on the future of the U.S. electric grid,  through 2030, the team recommended that the federal agency should work with  industry and have the appropriate regulatory authority to enhance cybersecurity preparedness, response and  recovery.

To cope with an expected increase in renewable  sources such as wind and solar power, where energy is often generated far from  the densely populated areas where it is used, the panel recommended granting  more authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to site transmission facilities that cross state  lines.

Other recommendations include:

- Utilities with advanced metering technology should  start the transition to customer prices that reflect the time-varying costs of  supplying power, to improve the grid’s efficiency and make rates lower.

- The electric power industry should fund research  and development in computational tools for bulk power systems, methods for  wide-area transmission planning, procedures for responding to cyberattacks and  models of consumer response to real-time pricing.

- To improve decision-making, more detailed data  about the bulk power system, results from “smart grid” demonstration projects  and other measures of utility cost and performance should be compiled and  shared.

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