[jankassens]

They're definitely doing research for efficient JS on low end devices:

- AOT compilation for a subset of JS: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-13...

- "A JavaScript engine for Internet of Things": http://samsung.github.io/jerryscript/

[msie]

The only thing JS has going for it is it's wide adoption. Basing a new language on it to run on low end devices just seems like a dead-end for me. At least the first link is to a typed subset of JS.