By John Roach, Writer, Microsoft Research After a handful of years writing code for the telecommunications and design automation industries, computer bugs got the best of Sriram Rajamani. He witnessed firsthand how poorly constructed code caused programs to crash and swung doors open for hackers.…
By Judith Bishop, Director of Computer Science, Microsoft Research Throughout his life, Albert Einstein, who pioneered the theory of relativity, was skeptical about quantum computing. He was of the opinion that the quantum mechanical theory was incomplete, and was “spooky action at a distance.” How…
By Jessica Watkins, Writer, Microsoft “The scientific endeavour is one of the crowning achievements of humankind, contributing to our culture and civilisation and to improving our quality of life”. The Royal Society Simon Peyton Jones is known for many things – foremost his boundless enthusiasm,…
By Judith Bishop, Director of Computer Science, Microsoft Research In the world of information technology, the word “open” can mean many different things. For me, it refers to how software is both written and used, throughout its lifetime. At Microsoft Research, I am fortunate to…
By George Thomas Jr., Writer, Microsoft Software verification — the crucial process of assuring programs perform as expected — may not be top of mind for most of us. But considering its role in the development of just about anything based on software — which…
Who walks away from success? In his decade with Microsoft Research, Sumit Gulwani enjoyed a self-described “blissful” tenure, co-authoring more than 100 papers and giving dozens of keynotes and lectures—so why, then, would he leave? “Research alone is not a sustainable growth model,” said…
By John Kaiser, Research News Convex optimization, prized for its efficiency and utility in solving small and medium-size problems across multiple disciplines, could soon be extended to handle much larger problems and tasks, such as those found in image and vision processing. Explaining how and…
By George Thomas Jr., Writer, Microsoft Cynthia Dwork, Mary Czerwinski and Sriram Rajamani Three Microsoft researchers have been honored as Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery for their significant contributions to the development and application of computing across multiple disciplines. Mary Czerwinski, whose work…
Microsoft researchers have figured out a way to build software systems spanning many computers that can be proven free of bugs, a significant feat in the decades-long quest to create perfect software.
Twenty years ago, the film Hackers gave that term a shady, illicit meaning. Now, geeks around the world are taking back the term “hacker,” restoring its original connotations of creativity and intellectual curiosity. Nowhere was that restoration more apparent than at the Microsoft Student Summer…
The 2015 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit is over, but I am still recovering my voice from all the great hallway conversations! The summit reminded my fellow Microsoft researchers, our myriad collaborators in academia, and me of what we have already accomplished and the exciting opportunities…
On May 27, 2015, Suzhou, a historic, scenic city in southeast China, hosted this year’s finals of the Beauty of Programming (BoP) competition, a creative contest among talented young programmers. Sponsored by Microsoft in collaboration with IEEE, BoP encourages contestants to use their programming skills…
