Research
Posted by Rob Knies Last August, my colleague Janie Chang wrote a feature story titled Speech Recognition Leaps Forward that was published on the Microsoft Research website. The article outlined how Dong Yu, of Microsoft Research Redmond, and Frank Seide, of Microsoft Research Asia, had…
In December 2011, Dr. danah boyd and I were pleased to announce an RFP (request for proposal), funded by the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit and Microsoft Research, for projects that investigate the role of technology in the human trafficking of minors in the United States.…
It’s been a busy month for the ChronoZoom team, as we’ve zoomed (literally) around the world promoting this amazing tool. For those of you who are coming in late, here’s a little background: ChronoZoom is an open-source community project dedicated to visualizing the history of…
I’m back home after an exciting and inspiring Microsoft Research Latin American Faculty Summit, which took place in the Riviera Maya, Mexico, from May 23 to 25. The 2012 Latin American Faculty Summit marked the eighth edition of a research event that started as my…
Posted by Rob Knies The term “natural user interfaces” has been in vogue in recent months, generally invoked to describe different ways that humans can interact with computing devices beyond the longtime pairing of keyboard and mouse.Surface computing is one example with its roots…
Posted by Rob Knies Fifty years ago, the Century 21 Exposition—the Seattle World’s Fair—provided visitors with a vision of the future. With its gleaming Monorail and its towering Space Needle, the fair trumpeted the advances made possible by science and space travel, thereby extending…
Posted by Rob Knies Distributed computing is critical for most modern, Internet-scale services, enabling high availability and the ability to scale to massive, worldwide audiences. The web as we now know it is unimaginable without advances achieved in distributed computing.It is challenging, though, to…
For the past three days I’ve been at the NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) 2012 Summit on Women and IT, and what a three days it’s been! The annual NCWIT Summit is a celebration of girls and women in technology, but above…
Posted by Rob Knies This spring, London’s Royal Court Theatre issued a most peculiar press release, announcing the forthcoming production of Ten Billion: An Exploration of the Future of Life on Earth, to debut July 12.“Scientist Stephen Emmott and director Katie Mitchell deliver a new…
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…