Microsoft Windows
IN PHOTO: Microsoft Corp's Ashley Frank talks about Windows 10 at the annual shareholders' meeting in Bellevue, Washington December 3, 2014. Reuters/Jason Redmond

For nearly two weeks now, Windows 10 has been available on PCs and tablets. At the recent Gamescom 2015, Microsoft also introduced Windows 10 to the world of gaming consoles through Xbox One.

Today Microsoft announced the public release of Windows 10 IoT Core for the Raspberry Pi 2 and the MinnowBoard Max. Both are small, low-power and single-board computers. The Raspberry Pi 2 features an ARM-based processor whereas the MinnowBoard Max has an Intel chip.

Windows 10 IoT Core is Microsoft’s tiny version of Windows designed for sensor-laden Internet-connected devices. It is one of the seven versions of Windows 10 alongside Home, Mobile, Pro, Enterprise, Education and Mobile Enterprise. It is not designed to be a desktop operating system that runs Office or Photoshop. But it can power robots and home automation systems.

In April, Microsoft launched a preview version of the “Internet of Things” (IoT). The official release of Windows 10 IoT Core contains more improvements wrote Steve Teixeira, director of program Management for the Internet of Things team in Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group.

  • Now it will support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connections
  • GPIO performance on the Raspberry Pi 2 will be improved by 8X to 10X
  • Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and pulse-width modulation (PWM) will now be supported via breakout boards and ICs
  • Microsoft boasts improved support for programming languages Python and Node.js
  • It contains the New Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs which give apps easy control over system management features (like time zone and network connections)

The Raspberry Pi is a computer resembling the size of a credit card which is mostly used by educators and developers. MinnowBoard MAX is a compact, affordable and powerful development board with better customisation options and again mostly focused on developers. The arrival of Windows 10 IoT Core on these devices would make things easier for the developers.

For making apps they can acquire tools via the Windows IoT Dev Center. Now distributing and sharing projects should be more convenient for the developers. But they would require a computer running the full version of Windows 10 alongside Visual Studio 2015 to use it.

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