The weather is warm and balmy along Mexico’s renowned Riviera Maya, the venue for the 2012 Microsoft Research Latin American Faculty Summit. I’m sure my friends would tell me to get outside, walk along the beach, and think peaceful thoughts. Great suggestions, but I find…
If you visit the University of Washington (UW), you’ll likely see students glued to their smartphones. That’s not surprising—smartphones seem to be everywhere now, and for students, these “computers in your pocket” have become constant digital companions. But on May 4–5, some UW students were…
Posted by Rob Knies Making efficient use of resources and tools is a hallmark of many computer-research projects, and that target is exemplified in a pair of videos that illuminate work coming from Microsoft Research India.The videos, recently made publicly accessible, represent two distinct research…
Posted by Rob Knies Aleksander Madry and David Steurer are both postdoctoral researchers at Microsoft Research New England focused on theoretical computer science. Each of them is intrigued by the challenges posed by graphs, and each has devised new algorithms to address those challenges.And,…
Posted by Rob Knies Life consists, in large part, of seeking answers to the questions that perplex us, and Neeraj Kayal is no exception. But for Kayal, a researcher at Microsoft Research India, those questions can take a distinctly singular direction.Such as: What is…
Posted by Rob Knies Recently, I wrote about Microsoft Research contributions to the new Translator App for Windows Phone, available for free download on Windows Phone Marketplace.Some of them, anyway.As it turns out, the story goes a bit deeper than the earlier post was…
Posted by Frank McSherry, senior researcher at Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Big data is pretty popular at the moment. Systems such as MapReduce, Hadoop, Dryad, and DryadLINQ have made writing and executing ad hoc big-data analyses easy. Still, there are several programming patterns such systems…
Posted by Rob Knies You might have noticed in your most recent Bing search that, these days, you often can get an answer to your query without having to click through to one of the search results.For example, I recently wondered about this year’s…
Posted by Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England and the newly announced Microsoft Research New York City One of the wonderful elements of basic research is that you never know where it will take you. In this case,…
Looking for a fun, educational, and inexpensive way to observe Space Day? The Museum of Flight in Seattle is throwing an early-bird celebration the evening before, and the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope team will be celebrating with them. On Thursday, May 3, the museum is offering…
For baby boomers who grew up watching The Jetsons, the idea of the fully automated home was the futuristic stuff of cartoons. Today, the technology is available to make a Jetsonesque home a reality, by using inexpensive network devices that remotely control locks, lights, thermostats,…
With spring in the air, I am excited to be heading to Seoul, South Korea, to attend the Second Congress of the Asian Association of World Historians, which runs from April 27 to 29, 2012. There, I will have the honor of overseeing the Asian…
