Microsoft announces slimmed down version of Windows 10 for the Internet of Things segment

To address emerging IoT device categories, Microsoft has launched a new version of Windows 10 for small devices that is free for Makers and commercial device builders and device services to unlock new scenarios.

Today, Microsoft announced the public release of Windows 10 IoT Core for the Raspberry Pi 2 and the MinnowBoard Max. Developers can visit the Windows IoT Dev Center to choose their target board, then walk through the steps to provision the board, acquire the tools, and get started Making. This release of Windows 10 IoT Core requires a development machine running the 7/29/2015 release of Windows 10 (Build 10240) and Visual Studio 2015.

Windows 10 IoT Core is a new edition for Windows targeted towards small, embedded devices that may or may not have screens. For devices with screens, Windows 10 IoT Core does not have a Windows shell experience; instead developers can write a Universal Windows app that is the interface and “personality” for your device. IoT core is designed to work with a variety of open source languages and works well with Visual Studio.

Developers can use the languages and frameworks they prefer to build IoT device apps. This not only means full support for the standard UWP languages like C++, C#, JS and VB, but it also means bringing support – including full tools, debugging, and project systems – for Node.js and Python

Some sample IoT projects are given below:

From IoT team members
Rover Robot Kit – Make and program your own robot using a Raspberry Pi 2 running Windows 10 IoT Core
Windows Remote Arduino- using an Arduino from a Windows Phone app to control an LED
Home Automation with the RPI2

From the community
Cooling off in the Summer: Handheld fan control from an RPI2
Even more robots : GoPiGo

You can download Windows 10 IoT Core here