Back in February at TechForum, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, and Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), announced that Microsoft Research and IEB would release a non-commercial Kinect for Windows software development kit this spring. Addressing a growing body…
These days, much is made of applications that run in the metaphorical cloud. Well, here's an example of hardware and software that soared through the clouds, both real and metaphorical. On March 4, the ASTRA 7, a stratospheric gas balloon carrying a mobile phone running…
Recently, when I delivered my presentation, The Revolution in Astronomy Curricula Introduced by WorldWide Telescope (WWT), at INTED2011, I heard frequent comments from the audience that the variety of potential educational uses for WWT is "fascinating." The presentation was made possible by a collaboration between…
From March 9-12, a group of Microsoft researchers had their wares on display at SIGCSE 2011, this year's annual convention of the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (ACM SIGCSE). Held in Dallas, SIGCSE 2011 attracted some 1,200 participants from…
(from left to right) Fayçal Djeffal, Konrad Scheffler, Moustafa Youssef received the 2010 TWAS-AAS-Microsoft Award in a ceremony held in Nairobi, Kenya. On February 26, 2011, three African scientists received the 2010 TWAS-AAS-Microsoft Award in a ceremony held in Nairobi, Kenya. The award, funded by…
We recently posted a preview of the Microsoft Biology Foundation (MBF) for development evaluation purposes. Now, we're following up with a special, free, two-day MBF workshop from April 19 to 20, 2011, at the Renaissance Computing Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, hosted by the…
I recently had the great pleasure of visiting with staff at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing, China. CAS is China's leading academic institution and comprehensive research and development center in natural science, technological science, and high-tech innovation. The Asia-Pacific Microsoft Research Connections…
On March 17, Microsoft Research Connections and the São Paulo Research Foundation (better known by its Portuguese acronym: FAPESP) held a workshop to mark the ongoing collaborative efforts of the Microsoft Research-FAPESP Institute. The theme of the workshop—revisiting the past and planning for the future—provided…
There is a significant dearth of women working in—or even entering—the computer science field. According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), only 18 percent of computer science degrees in 2008 were awarded to women. That was a dramatic drop from 37…
Researchers believe that pathogens are evolving to evade detection from the human immune system. I recently co-published a paper that discussed research into the ongoing evolutionary struggle between the immune system and pathogens. In this study, we sought to identify possible commonalities in HLA (human…
Back in January, I blogged about Project Hawaii, a research and academic outreach program sponsored by Microsoft Research in cooperation with 20 universities worldwide. Approximately 300 students at those universities are developing applications for Windows Phone 7 this semester as part of the program. These…
The neurosurgeon hovers over the patient, preparing to excise a life-threatening brain tumor. In this delicate operation, there is no margin for error: the tumor needs to be cut out with minimal damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. By using simple hand gestures, the surgeon…
