This is some exciting stuff (well, if you are a geek like me, anyway):

http://www.microsoft.com/netmf/about/default.mspx

This is Microsoft’s new .NET Micro framework.  This is designed for small devices such as phones, remote controls, toasters, or whatever, which have a processor and can benefit from communications infrastructure (to talk to other appliances or whatever).  Home automation and energy control are big applications for this.

The cool part is, you can write in C# or VB, using Visual Studio, and there really isn’t much to learn to start developing small device applications!