Posted by Rob Knies With March 2012 upon us, you could say that, from a calendar perspective, the drama of this leap year already has passed. February has enjoyed its quadrennial enhancement. The ides of March are nearly upon us. A change of season…
On February 9, 2012, Russian astronomers of all levels—professional, amateur, student, and teacher—congregated at Moscow’s Sternberg Astronomical Institute for WorldWide Telescope Day. Russia’s foremost astronomy institution, the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, also known as GAISH, represents the top echelons of the country’s astronomical research and science…
Imagine the informational and cultural isolation that can result if you don’t speak one of the world’s major languages. Think about how limited your Internet experience would be. This is a reality for billions of people worldwide, who find themselves cut off linguistically from this…
Posted by Paul Coebergh The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology announced today that Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England, has been selected to receive the Women of Vision Leadership Award. Founded in 1997 by renowned computer…
Posted by Rob Knies Sometimes, things can go sideways. There are an infinite number of ways that a project can get derailed. We’re human. We understand this.But every once in a while, it seems as if everything just stays on track, from start to finish.…
In December, I blogged about the beta release of Layerscape, a free set of research tools from Microsoft that enable earth scientists to visualize and tell stories around large, complex data sets. The full release is now available to the public at Layerscape. We’re calling…
Youngsters love gadgets. So wouldn’t it be great if they could build their own, and at school? This is exactly what more than 70 British students, ages 13 to 16, are doing by using .NET Gadgeteer. On January 30, they gathered at the Microsoft Research…
Posted by Rob Knies One of the singular advantages of working for Microsoft—and for Microsoft Research, in particular—is the opportunity to work on products and technologies that have a positive influence on multitudes worldwide.Henrique Malvar, Microsoft distinguished engineer and chief scientist at Microsoft Research, knows…
Two major computing conferences take place this month in the Seattle area: the ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM 2012), which runs February 8–12 in Seattle and focuses on how to improve web search algorithms, and the ACM Conference on Computer…
On December 2, 2011, Microsoft Research Asia held the Kinect for Windows Workshop 2011 in Beijing, China. The event, which drew more than 100 participants, including faculty and students from Chinese universities, provided a forum for exploring research that utilizes Kinect for Windows. It not…
Last year, women accounted for only 14 percent of computer science college graduates in the United States, according to the Computing Research Association. That’s down from 35 percent in 1985, despite U.S. Labor Department statistics that show computing to be among the fastest-growing, most in-demand…
Posted by Rob Knies A few months ago, I got a chance to talk with Thore Graepel of Microsoft Research Cambridge about Project Waterloo, a Facebook game that is part of the Research Games project exploring behavioral game theory at a global scale.Now, Graepel and…
