By Suzanne Ross, Writer, Microsoft Research How would you feel if a co-worker barged into your office every few minutes to blurt out updates about their life or project? You might tell them that you are busy, but the damage…
By Suzanne Ross, Writer, Microsoft Research Sometimes the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Sometimes the whole doesn't even represent its parts. Take a Web page for instance. Is all the text on a Web page…
By Suzanne Ross, Writer, Microsoft Research If you've never seen some of the ingenious ways that researchers have invented to make viewing data on a small screen easy, you might say, "I'll never do all my computing on a PDA…
By Suzanne Ross Bigger used to be better, but smaller is suddenly superior. The only problem with small versus big in high-tech gadgets is that our eyes weren't designed to peer at small screens on mobile phones. Even if we…
By Suzanne Ross Remember when you brought your favorite toy, household object or bug and shared it with the class on Show and Tell day? Most kids were excited about sharing anything and everything with anyone. But then we grew…
By Suzanne Ross People read stories to find out what happens next. That's easy enough in a book, but if the story is about real life, and it's online in the news media, it's harder to find out what happens…
We don't like worms, in any incarnation. Not the crawly ones, not the human ones, not the computer ones. Especially not the computer ones. We can usually avoid the other kinds. That's why Helen Wang and her colleagues decided to…
By Suzanne Ross History is being written in a new way. It is being written by people through the big and the small events in their lives. We write history through personal Web sites, discussion boards, and the legacy of…
By Suzanne Ross What happens when two children decide to share a teddy bear, but then one of them changes his mind? The children will likely tear the stuffed toy in two, leaving only bear parts and crying children. A…