Quantum computing has the potential to utterly overturn what it means to compute. At Microsoft, we have been studying quantum computation since the late nineties with an eye towards a scalable universal quantum computer. Quantum computers compute in a massively parallel fashion with computing power…
Posted by George Thomas Jr. Many programmers recognize Don Syme's name, but even more are influenced daily by his research and development. After all, Syme, a principal researcher in Microsoft's Cambridge, U.K., lab, has helped to develop and influence features of popular computer languages used…
I read through some of the papers to be presented at CVPR 2015 this week and noticed interesting trends emerging. The opening session addresses two of the most exciting and active areas of research within computer vision, namely deep learning and modeling from depth cameras. The…
Posted by George Thomas Jr. You may already have heard about the Microsoft technology that can automatically identify objects in a picture and write an accurate caption for it, but those types of research advancements don’t occur in a vacuum. Indeed, interdisciplinary research combining computer…
Posted by Richard Eckel The race among computer scientists to build the world’s most accurate computer vision system is more of a marathon than a sprint. The race’s new leader is a team of Microsoft researchers in Beijing, which this week published a paper in…
When it comes to research, the concept of “head-banging” most likely conjures images of researchers banging their heads against walls or dry-erase boards. But for Microsoft researcher Andrew Fitzgibbon, it’s about inspiration. “I was on a 10-hour flight recently,” he says with a grin. “I…
In recent months, we’ve heard a lot about deep neural networks and deep learning—take Project Adam, for example—and the sometimes eye-popping results they can have in addressing longstanding computing problems. The field of image recognition also is benefiting rapidly from the use of such networks,…
Can you tell the difference between the two breeds of corgis? If you’re like many, you probably are barely even aware that such dogs exist, let alone the fact that there are two—and only two—kinds of corgis. Add the detail that those two breeds are…
As part of its commitment to basic research, Microsoft invests in creating joint research centers around the world. These collaborative engagements typically involve multi-year research programs across a broad range of projects that push the boundaries of computer science. In the last week, Microsoft Research…
Posted by Rob Knies Pardon Zhengyou Zhang if he retains a certain fondness for the year just past. In early December 2013, Zhang, a research manager and principal researcher for Microsoft Research, was named a recipient of the inaugural Helmholtz Prize, a test-of-time award…
“Makes HDTV look low-res.” “Wow, how did they make this?” “Hyper-detailed and actually looks 3-D.” These are just some of the words reviewers have used to describe the new Photosynth. A technical preview, launched December 10, enables photography enthusiasts to create even more realistic 3-D…
Cyrus Bamji had encountered a challenge. Luckily for him, Microsoft Research had just the solution. Bamji, Microsoft partner hardware architect for Microsoft’s Silicon Valley-based Architecture and Silicon Management group, and members of his team were trying to incorporate a time-of-flight camera into Xbox One, the…
