Microsoft Research’s WorldWide Telescope (WWT) has brought spectacular images and engaging, informative tours of the night sky to countless personal computers—including, we hope, yours. But WorldWide Telescope also offers a powerful tool for planetariums, large and small, providing two things…
Posted by Rob Knies If you are feeling hungry, you go to the kitchen. If you’d like to take a swim, you head to a swimming pool. If you want to catch a movie, you’re bound for a theater. And,…
Posted by Rob Knies It’s not often that people get a chance to peek into the future, but that will be the case May 21 in Washington, D.C., when Microsoft Research hosts its biennial D.C. TechFair.During an afternoon open house…
In the age of big data, the challenge is no longer how to collect or store vast quantities of data—it’s how to make sense of it and use it for practical benefit. Scientific researchers, governmental agencies, nonprofits, and businesses of…
Posted by Rob Knies John Cleese, the acclaimed Monty Python actor, spent time as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large. So did renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. And Oliver Sacks, noted author and neurologist. And epic novelist Toni Morrison. And short-story writer Eudora…
Posted by Rob Knies Do you speak Klingon? If not, that could all be about to change—thanks to Bing Translator’s just-released Klingon machine-translation system, developed in part by Microsoft Research.For more details, see the post over at the Bing Translator…
Speech-to-speech translation promises to help connect our world Among the futuristic gadgets in the classic TV show Star Trek, none seemed more useful than the universal translator, a handheld gizmo that helped foster understanding among intergalactic civilizations. Well, we needn’t travel…
Big Data: these words are on the lips of researchers everywhere these days. But it’s more than a catch phrase—it’s a reality in the burgeoning world of eScience, as investigators strive to make sense of the seemingly endless flow of…
Posted by Rob Knies Many people talk to their plants. But what if those plants were able to talk back?That’s the premise behind Botanicalls, a project to enable communications between plants and people. A sensor network provides the flora the…