The challenge of DNA sequencing is central to all genomics research, and while the technology has existed since the 1970s, today’s massively-parallel sequencing instruments are capable of producing gigabytes of raw genomic data quickly and increasingly cheaply. Reconstruction of a DNA sequence from this data…
From November 9 to 12, 2011, Portland, Oregon, the City of Roses, becomes the City of Hoppers, as technology-minded women from the across the United States flock to the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing, an annual conference that brings the research and…
On October 25, 2011, Microsoft Research Connections released an update to Zentity, a repository platform designed to manage research objects—such as journal articles, reports, datasets, projects, and people—as well as the relationships among them. Zentity supports arbitrary data models, and provides semantically rich functionality that…
Posted by Rob Knies Can you remember details about what you were doing 10 years ago? Ken Hinckley certainly can.In 2001, he and co-authors Jeff Pierce, Mike Sinclair, and Eric Horvitz, had a paper called Sensing Techniques for Mobile Interaction accepted for the 13th annual…
Today (November 4) is the first anniversary of the launch of Kinect for Xbox 360 in the United States, with subsequent availability around the world. It has been a smashing success since its debut, thanks in part to contributions from Microsoft Research to its audio,…
When Microsoft Research unveiled the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) beta in mid-June, we expected it would be popular with academic and enthusiast developer communities. But even with our high expectations for the SDK, we didn’t anticipate the level of creativity that was…
Posted by Rob Knies Over the last few months, I’ve published a series of feature stories to outline the contributions Microsoft Research has made to the groundbreaking Kinect for Xbox 360 product, which Guinness World Records has dubbed the fastest-selling consumer electronic device ever. This…
Posted by Rob Knies It’s always interesting to put new technology into the hands of university students and see what they can devise, and such was precisely the case during the Student Innovation Contest, held in conjunction with the Association for Computing Machinery’s 24th annual…
Question: What precocious five-year old is writing parallel code to make the most efficient use of multi-core processors? Answer: The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)–Microsoft Research Centre in Barcelona, Spain, also known as BSCMSRC by those who enjoy trying to pronounce acronyms that contain no vowels.…
Posted by Rob Knies On Oct. 28, Hsiao-Wuen Hon, managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, signed Phase IV of the Ministry of Education of China-Microsoft Memorandum of Understanding, commonly known as the Great Wall Plan. (Pictured above are Hon, left foreground, shaking hands with Shen…
Posted by Rob Knies “Carefully hits to the forehead” instead of "Watch your head"? Well, I’m sure I’ve written things like that on occasion myself, and perhaps you have, too. Still, it’s not exactly the king’s English, is it?In China, such usages are referred to…
Posted by Rob Knies This morning, at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, Jennifer Tour Chayes, Microsoft distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England, became one of six recipients of the Leading Women Awards, bestowed by the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts. “It’s…
