Thursday, 28 September 2006

Microsoft Research Turns Fifteen, Lifts the Lid Off New Innovations

Microsoft's research facility is celebrating its 15-year anniversary this week. Microsoft Research held an event at Microsoft's Redmond, campus where Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates appeared via video to applaud the organisation, Microsoft said...

Microsoft's research facility is celebrating its 15-year anniversary this week. Microsoft Research held an event at Microsoft's Redmond, campus where Chairman and co-founder Bill Gates appeared via video to applaud the organisation, Microsoft said.

"From the beginning, Microsoft Research has provided an open, collaborative environment where minds in computer science can work together to tackle the hardest problems in computing and explore new ideas for reinventing the PC,” Gates said. “During the past 15 years, Microsoft researchers have contributed insights that have advanced the state of the art in dozens of technology fields.”

Microsoft was one of the first software companies to create its own computer-science research organisation with the founding of Microsoft Research in 1991. It works independent of the product groups to invent new technology. It also works with academic programs and provides grants to help promote IT research and innovation in universities.

With more than 700 researchers at five laboratories worldwide, Microsoft Research contributes to Microsoft products as well as long-range technology advancements, often in collaboration with the academic community.

At the event, the research team demonstrated some new technologies currently in development, Microsoft said. They included visualisation technologies that combine maps from Windows Live Local with other maps such as those of bike trails or bus routes to create hybrid maps that can be helpful to users. Other technologies demonstrated included one that allowed images and data to be displayed projector-like on tabletops, walls and other surfaces and manipulated with hand gestures, thus doing away with the need for a mouse or monitor and graphics technology for transforming two-dimensional images into 3D graphics, Microsoft said.

Through a variety of academic programs, Microsoft Research collaborates with academia to create opportunities to pursue research in a variety of disciplines from search to robotics, from bio informatics to gaming technologies. Microsoft Research and leading universities across the globe are continually working together to advance the state of the art of computing.

“Microsoft Research is extraordinarily supportive of our student and faculty researchers, from collaborating with them on emerging technologies in areas like 3-D photo tourism to creating opportunities for our team to collaborate with researchers all over the world. Our students have access to technology and resources that truly spark their imaginations and drive their research to another level," said Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington. "Microsoft’s commitment to higher education is unsurpassed in the software industry."