Trossen Robotics PC based robotics tutorials

I found a good resource for PC based robotics at Trossen Robotics. They have some nice tutorials about what's called bridgeware (ie, a way of connecting electronics to a computer via USB or serial port, allowing to develop programs in advanced languages for computer, communicating with electronics components, sensors, motor controllers, etc.), and other stuff. Phidgets is, I think, the best company for this kind of products.
Here's the bridgeware introduction video:


It's definitely a good way to make PC based robots, either using simply normal programming environments (C++, Java, or .NET), but also a way to use Microsoft Robotics Studio in a more powerful way than remote control. The point of using the power of a laptop is that it allows you to do advanced algorithms for Vision, Speech Recognition and AI, which I'm really looking forward to do.

If I had the money, I would love to use a kinda old laptop I have as a PC based robot, using MSRS and those Phidgets stuff, but for the moment, the mechanics needed are pretty expensive, and I would need huge batteries, motors etc. Maybe one day...