Save money, stay smart, skip the snacks

With today’s compressed schedules and restricted travel budgets it’s hard to keep up with the latest happenings in the embedded world. For example, the Embedded Systems Conference was recently held in Boston and although over 3,300 attended, that leaves about 130,000 of our readers including yours truly that did not. But with a little on-line research at the ESC and EDN websites and you can get a pretty good idea of what was there. Venture Development Corporation went one step further and published a show summary with awards (they call them “Embeddies”) for the best products at the conference. Best of show went to the latest version of Rhapsody from iLogix (recently acquired by Telelogic), and best demo went to Sun Microsystems’ model race track (sorry I missed that one).

Microsoft is also catering to the stay-at-home crowd with their upcoming virtual launch event for Windows Embedded CE 6.0. They plan to stream a live keynote by Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, plus ten technical sessions and seven hands-on labs starting on November 1, 2006. Topics include embedded software architecture, development tools, device drivers, and real-time performance. On-line attendees will receive 90 to 180 day evaluation copies of Windows CE 6, Visual Studio 2005, and Windows XP Embedded plus a chance to win prizes. These desktop updates may save time and the travel budget but you’ll have to provide your own entertainment, adult beverages, and snacks.