Microsoft Research News and Highlights

Jeannette Wing, corporate vice president at Microsoft Research, says computational thinking is a fundamental, basic ability that all people will be using, just like everyone learns to read, write, and multiply.

Peter Lee and Jian Sun discuss the "ultra-deep learning" approach to successful image recognition and its potential for future applications.

Microsoft's Vikram Dendi discusses the importance of neural networks in Skype Translator's near-real time speech-to-speech translation in this feature about the future of machine learning.

Deep learning is nowhere close to reaching its potential, but researchers are identifying new ways to build deep neural networks that can get way deeper.

Microsoft researchers Jennifer Listgarten and Nicolo Fusi helped create a machine learning system to predict which part of a gene to target when a scientist wants to knockout -- or shut off -- a gene.

Computer vision technologies ranging from face detection to visual recognition have contributed to the Microsoft Selfie app's meteoric rise in popularity, and new features include social sharing.

Researchers say the CNTK could be useful to anyone from deep learning startups to more established companies that are processing a lot of data in real time, and can help drive artificial intelligence breakthroughs.

Besides Skype, other services that have benefited from the recent transformation include cloud productivity tools in Office, faster and more power-efficient servers running Bing, and the augmented-reality headset HoloLens.

Microsoft has tested a prototype of a self-contained data center that can operate hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, eliminating one of the technology industry’s most expensive problems: the air-conditioning bill.

Microsoft researchers believe placing datacenters under water could solve several problems by introducing a new power source, greatly reducing cooling costs, closing the distance to connected populations and making it easier and faster to set them up.

Introducing LiveOcean: A cloud-based predictive system from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research of ocean acidification properties that may help the shellfish industry survive changing conditions by providing forecasts about ocean water.

Collaboration between Microsoft Research's Cambridge (U.K.) lab and biotech company Novartis holds the promise of helping doctors more quickly bring better treatments to patients who are suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Man's best friend has inspired a new app: Fetch! Using your iPhone camera or photo library, it can identify and classify dogs by breeds and tell you what kind of human personality fits best with specific breeds.

Microsoft researchers in partnership with academia have dramatically increased the speed of homomorphic encryption systems, which allow software to analyze and modify encrypted data without decrypting it.

Becoming open source and being managed by the American Astronomical Society has allowed WorldWide Telescope to widen its capabilities, inspire scientists, heighten scientific understandings, and enrich our experience of the universe.

The Microsoft Translator app for Android gets the world's first Deep Neural Network-powered offline engine for near online-quality translations, while OCR for iOS delivers translation capabilities for signs, menus and more.

Plumbago, a new app for Windows 8.1 and 10 tablets released through the Microsoft Garage, is a digital notebook with technology that smooths out handwriting so your scribbles are easier to read later.

Communicate with the Pegasus II craft during flight and receive text messages as it reaches its milestones in space in this Internet of Things experiment based on Microsoft Research's Project Orleans.

Yong Rui, assistant managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, is among the recipients of the IEEE Computer Society 2016 Technical Achievement Award for "pioneering contributions to multimedia analysis and retrieval."

With data on thousands of taxiways at different airports and tools available to anyone on GitHub, researchers are developing models to improve aircraft taxiing to reduce pollution and improve airport efficiency.

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