By Roy Zimmermann, Director, Microsoft Research The theme of this year’s Faculty Summit 2017, which occurred earlier this week, was The Edge of AI. The meeting on Microsoft’s sun-splashed Redmond campus involved more than 500 prominent AI academic and Microsoft researchers who brought depth and context to the theme with thought-provoking presentations and demos of leading-edge research. We heard from leading luminaries in collaborative AI, deep learning, machine comprehension, deep neural nets and more. We saw…
July 21st, 2017
By Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Managing Director, Microsoft We’re at an inflection point for AI technologies. Rising capabilities and possibilities have been catalyzed by jumps in the availability of data and computational power. Increasing competencies in such areas as face recognition, speech recognition, translation among languages, and semi-autonomous vehicles have been met with enthusiasm by people and organizations. However, there have also been rising discussions about the uses of the systems, especially in high-stakes…
July 16th, 2017
By Yuanchao Shu, Associate Researcher, and Börje Karlsson, Sr. Research Dev Lead, Microsoft Research Mobile outdoor GPS navigation apps have proven to be lifesavers to countless people. With a smartphone in hand, it is easy to find your way to a destination, even in an unfamiliar city. However, it is still easy to get lost indoors, where GPS satellite signals are not accurately traceable for navigation applications. How often have you had a hard time…
July 14th, 2017
By Vani Mandava, Director, Data Science Outreach, Microsoft Research The National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Big Data Innovation Hubs launched a National Transportation Data Challenge with a kickoff event in Seattle in May 2017. Microsoft Outreach, through its partnership with the Big Data Hubs organized an Azure workshop and participated in a panel discussion on ‘How Cloud Computing Can Enable Transportation Data Science.’ The kickoff was the first in a series of events that are being…
July 13th, 2017
By Christopher Bishop, Program Co-Chair of Faculty Summit, Technical Fellow & Laboratory Director, Microsoft Research Cambridge The development of machine intelligence that amplifies human capabilities and experiences is at the heart of our AI research at Microsoft, which is why I’m delighted by the tremendous lineup of keynotes and panels focused on human-machine collaboration at the 2017 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit – The Edge of AI, July 17-18. The shift toward building machines that are…
July 13th, 2017
New paper suggests quantum computers will address problems that could have substantial scientific and economic impact With rapid recent advances in quantum technology, we have drawn ever closer to the threshold of quantum devices whose computational powers can exceed those of classical supercomputers. But when a useful, scalable general-purpose quantum computer arrives, what problems will it solve? Much work has already been done towards identifying areas where quantum computing provides a clear improvement over traditional…
July 5th, 2017
By Evelyne Viegas, Program Co-Chair of Faculty Summit and Director, Microsoft We are looking forward to another informative Microsoft Research Faculty Summit (July 17-18, 2017) where this year’s theme is The Edge of AI. The event will consist of keynotes, sessions, panels, and showcased technologies. The summit brings together thought leaders and researchers from a broad range of disciplines including computer science, social sciences, human design and interactions, and policy. Together we will highlight some of the…
July 5th, 2017
Support for under-represented Ph.D. students in computer sciences By Lynn Parker, Writer, Microsoft The Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant program offers financial support to selected doctoral students from groups that are under-represented in the field of computing in the form of grants to complete their dissertations. The grants were announced today, so I sat down with Dr. Meredith (Merrie) Ringel Morris, chair of the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant program and a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research,…
June 27th, 2017
By David Pennock, Principal Researcher and Assistant Managing Director The 18th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'17) starts today at MIT in Cambridge, MA, featuring some of the latest research findings at the interdisciplinary boundary between economics and computer science. Microsoft researchers will have a significant presence at the conference, co-authoring many papers, serving in leadership roles, giving an invited talk, and receiving an award. One theme at the conference is the design and…
June 26th, 2017
By Nuno Lopes, Researcher, Microsoft Research Cambridge Think compilers cannot compromise the security of your application? Think twice! Compiler writers work around the clock to continuously deliver better compilers. They are driven by the ever-increasing importance of: Increasing performance (everyone wants their code to run faster!); Reducing code size (so that your app can fit on people’s phones); Reducing energy consumption (it’s nice to not drain phone batteries and to save power in energy-hungry datacenters).…
June 22nd, 2017
By John Roach, Writer, Microsoft Research Charles P. Thacker, a visionary and hands-on electrical engineer who designed the first instances of key computing technologies that define modern life, died June 12 at his home in Palo Alto, California. He was 74. Bringing an idea to life: The personal computer Chuck, as he was known to friends and colleagues designed the Alto, the first modern personal computer with a mouse and graphical user interface, in the…
June 20th, 2017
By Kangping Liu, Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Asia Imagine when you leave your house or apartment that a smart home security system can automatically "look after" your home, giving you real-time notices about events happening at home, or providing you with a short video including all events of interest that happened while you were gone. With this system, parents could keep track of their older kids' activities, and get real-time alarms about potential…
June 16th, 2017
