From Crossbow’s blog:

Embedded programming has historically involved pulling out your C compile, and writing detailed code that needs to carefully manage limited memory resources, hardware interrupts, and low-level bus interfaces. The benefits brought by newer high-level languages such as Java and C# have lagged entry into this space by about 5-10 years. The delay can be attributed to limits to memory and processing speeds within the space due to aggressive cost requirements, and a lack of tools and software support for embedded platforms compared to PC/server platforms. More recently, the J2ME and Windows CE platforms have made Java and C# respectively available to smart phone and PDA application developers. But both of these environments continue to limit the amount of control the developer has over low-level interrupts and hardware resources. The Microsoft .NET Micro environment that powers the Crossbow Imote2 .Builder kit allows programming an embedded device with C#, while providing native control over hardware resources such as the I2C, SPI, and UART buses. Programming a native IEEE 802.15.4 radio driver for example is possible in this environment, and the full source code for such an implementation is provided.

More here.

The 3rd European Conference on Smart Sensing and Context (EuroSSC) will be held on October 29-31, 2008 in Zurich, Switzerland.
This annual conference explores techniques, algorithms, architectures, protocols, and user aspects, underlying context-aware smart surroundings, and cooperating intelligent objects, and their applications to provide context-aware smart assistance.

EuroSSC was held before in Enschede (NL) and Kendal (UK). Building on the success of the last years, EuroSSC 2008 will include a highly selective single-track program for technical papers, accompanied by posters, demonstrations, invited speakers, and an industrial panel.

Submissions of original and unpublished work are welcome covering all areas related to smart surroundings, context-awareness and networked embedded sensor and actuator systems, in one or more of the following categories: technical papers, posters, and demonstrations. The topics include (but are not limited to):

* Distributed smart sensing and context recognition
* Context processing
* Context-aware actuators, interaction methods, and human aspects
* Applications, deployment, test beds and case studies
More info here