Posted by Rob Knies TechFest 2013 began promptly at 9 a.m. March 5 in the Kodiak Room of the Microsoft Conference Center with a keynote address by Rick Rashid, Microsoft chief research officer and head of Microsoft Research. Rashid discussed the present-day shift toward more…
Posted by Rob Knies Welcome to TechFest 2013, Microsoft Research’s annual tech showcase featuring many new, fascinating projects that point toward the future of computing.Over the next couple of days, we’ll be shining a light on some of the high-profile projects being shown during the…
Posted by Rob Knies Setting an objective is often the first step to achieving it. Case in point: Image Watch.Image Watch is a Visual Studio 2012 plug-in from the Interactive Visual Media (IVM) group at Microsoft Research Redmond. The tool enables anyone building image-processing applications…
Posted by Elizabeth Grossman, Technology Policy Group, Microsoft Many of the amazing capabilities of technology today are made possible by research done years ago, and innovations and impact sometimes result from unexpected combinations and outcomes at unexpected times. One example is Kinect for Xbox 360,…
Engineers Week: it takes place every February, a celebration of accomplishments in mechanical, civil, chemical, and biomedical engineering. Why, I wonder, do we hear so little about the breakthroughs powered by computer and information sciences? And why do we almost never hear about the importance…
Posted by Rob Knies Last year, David Rothschild of Microsoft Research New York City used a versatile, data-driven model to predict correctly the results of the U.S. presidential election in 50 of 51 jurisdictions—the nation’s 50 states and the District of Columbia.Given the overwhelming accuracy—better…
I WANT YOU…. Anyone who grew up in the United States, as I did, is familiar with the famous World War II recruiting poster of Uncle Sam exhorting young Americans to enlist in the armed forces. (No, I wasn’t alive then, but the poster is…
Arrivederci, Roma: As the 40th ACM Principles of Programming Languages conference (POPL 2013) drew to a close on Friday, January 25, 2013, I was struck by how much it was a celebration of excellence, and I was pleased that Microsoft Research could play a big…
Posted by Rob Knies You’ve no doubt experienced that sinking feeling—we all have—after taking a photo and realizing that you pressed the shutter release just a bit too late. The moment is gone, the action elusive, the opportunity squandered. It’s frustrating, but what can you…
Powerful Research Tools Shared at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting We love our jobs at Microsoft Research, and a big part of that is about how much we love physics and technology. And chocolate. Consider: if you place helium in a (well-made) bag and…
Snow fell across the United Kingdom on January 18, 2013, but it was not about to deter some of Microsoft Research’s leading visionaries from making their way from the brand new Cambridge lab down to University College London (UCL). They headed to UCL for a…
Top headliners on the Las Vegas strip might include Celine Dion, Penn and Teller, and Carrot Top, but from our perspective, they’ve got nothing on the Vegas premiers of such CCNC Mobile Code Jam stars as BlueWay and Fling-It. That’s right: during the second week…
