Increases in the occurrence and global effect of mental illness have made the prevention and treatment of mental health problems a public health priority. To address the need for more access to mental health treatment, digital psychotherapy programs, such as internet-delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (iCBT),…
For developers, writing bug-free software that doesn’t crash is getting difficult in an increasingly competitive world where software needs to ship before it becomes obsolete. This challenge is especially apparent with online cloud services, which are often dictated by aggressive shipping deadlines. Cloud services are…
Humans subconsciously use perception-action loops to do just about everything, from walking down a crowded sidewalk to scoring a goal in a community soccer league. Perception-action loops—using sensory input to decide on appropriate action in a continuous real time loop —are at the heart of…
In September last year, the Microsoft AI Residency program graduated its first class. The second class is already settled in and undertaking an exciting range of projects, and recruitment for the third class is underway! The AI Residency program is a 12-month program for early-…
If you haven't ever been in a casino, you may have found yourself asking one very pertinent question: On which slot machine am I going to hit the jackpot? Standing in front of a bank of identical-looking machines, you have only instinct to go on.…
The fields of cryptography and machine learning (ML) are evolving at a rapid pace and are each complex in their own ways. The Cryptography and Privacy Research Group at Microsoft Research has led the way in creating a new research area at the intersection of…
Cecily Morrison wants to build technology that enables people to live their lives the way they want and accomplish things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to. The Principal Researcher landed on the personal mission years before joining Microsoft Research. Experiences first teaching children robotics and…
Graduate students are often coached to pursue a career in higher education, yet the number of available tenure-track positions falls far short of the number of candidates looking to fill them. In reality, about 14 percent of graduates with advanced science, engineering, and health degrees…
There is a growing interest in the use of deep generative models for sampling high-dimensional data; examples include high-resolution natural images, long-form text generation, designing pharmaceutical drugs, and creating new materials at the molecular level. Training these models is, however, an arduous task. Even state-of-the-art…
Having experience in deep learning doesn’t hurt when it comes to the often mysterious, time- and cost-consuming process of hunting down an appropriate neural architecture. But truth be told, no one really knows what works the best on a new dataset and task. Relying on…
Last summer we announced Microsoft Research Open Data—an Azure-based repository-as-a-service for sharing datasets—to encourage the reproducibility of research and make research data assets readily available in the cloud. Among other things, the project started a conversation between the community and Microsoft’s legal team about dataset…
Imagine moving to a new city. You want to get from your new home to your new job. Unfamiliar with the area, you ask your co-workers for the best route, and as far as you can tell ... they’re right! You get to work and…
