By Rob Knies That long-awaited vacation is almost here—just you, your spouse, and your teenage son, all eager to embark on a leisurely adventure to sunny climes for some much-needed R&R. But your planning has not kept pace with your anticipation. There is work to…
Ken Hinckley always thought that searching for information on his computer was like going on a fishing expedition. Every so often, he’d even catch whatever it was he wanted. Hinckley, a senior researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research Redmond, has…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research The breathtaking ascendance of Internet search over the past decade has tended to obscure the limitations of the underlying technology. So quickly has search been embraced by hundreds of millions worldwide that it is entirely natural for people…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Who knows you better than anybody? Your friends and family, of course. Who is best-positioned to understand your wants and needs? Your closest acquaintances, naturally. Doesn’t it make sense, therefore, to take the opinions of your dearest companions…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research It’s fair to assume that anyone who knows anything about the Web—anyone reading these words—is comfortably familiar with text search. It has become perhaps the pre-eminent way to extract information from the Internet, and it is extremely simple…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Battling search spam. Streamlining Web-page monitoring. Helping protect online privacy. Enabling the illiterate to use computers. These are just a few of the ways Microsoft Research is demonstrating its commitment to making the Internet a more secure, easily…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research The research and academic community is rife with conferences. Just about any subject or discipline you can name has its own annual gathering, where the learned and the innovative come together to discuss their work, review the work…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Have you seen the one about …? From time immemorial, mankind has maximized its ability to share information orally. Whether it is passing along a recounting of a movie, recapping last night’s sporting event, or simply telling a…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research There’s a new restaurant in town. Wonder what people are saying about it? Take a photo. That handy gadget you’ve been coveting is on sale at the mall. How does its price compare to those offered elsewhere? Snap…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research When you’re looking for information you have stored on your computer, you have a couple of choices. You can search for it, using, for example, Windows® Desktop Search. Or you can browse for it in your file structure.…
By Rob Knies, Managing Editor, Microsoft Research Vacation’s over. You’ve had a grand time: intriguing locales, fun events, delicious food, memorable moments. You’re relaxed, your batteries recharged. Life is good. You get home and fire up your laptop to see how things have been going…
Senior Microsoft Corp. Researcher Susan Dumais predicts that in 10 years, we will look back on today's search interfaces and recognize them as a simple and limited way to interact with information. After all, she explains, a 5-inch-long rectangle with a long list of text…
