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Standing on the banks of the Seine, I found myself marveling at the beauty of “April in Paris” (cue the 1930s song). Perhaps it was the scent of the flowers in bloom in the Jardin du Luxembourg or the warmth of the Continental spring. But, most likely, my contentment stemmed from the success...

Arrivederci, Roma: As the 40th ACM Principles of Programming Languages conference ( POPL 2013 ) drew to a close on Friday, January 25, 2013, I was struck by how much it was a celebration of excellence, and I was pleased that Microsoft Research could play a big part in that. With three of our labs represented—Cambridge...

Snow fell across the United Kingdom on January 18, 2013, but it was not about to deter some of Microsoft Research’s leading visionaries from making their way from the brand new Cambridge lab down to University College London (UCL). They headed to UCL for a special day that would commemorate the...

Can scientists predict what happens when they introduce a change into a living system—for example, if they change the structure of a gene or administer a drug? Just as changing one letter can completely change the meaning of a word, the change of a single letter of the genetic code (referred to...

As computer scientists, we have the privilege of working on challenging problems, the solutions to which can markedly improve lives—and in some cases, even save them. It is just such a challenge that Senior Researcher Antonio Criminisi and his team at Microsoft Research Cambridge have undertaken...

What do the California condor, the snow leopard, and the Wollemi pine have in common? They’ve all made the least desirable position on one of the nature’s most important lists: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . Now, what do Microsoft and the Zoological Society of London have in common...

Almost 90 PhD students convened for the seventh PhD Summer School The first week of July was an exciting one for us here at Microsoft Research Cambridge, as we hosted the seventh PhD Summer School . Each year, we invite scholars in the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme , as well as students...

Youngsters love gadgets. So wouldn’t it be great if they could build their own, and at school? This is exactly what more than 70 British students, ages 13 to 16, are doing by using .NET Gadgeteer. On January 30, they gathered at the Microsoft Research Cambridge Lab to present their final projects...

Question : What precocious five-year old is writing parallel code to make the most efficient use of multi-core processors? Answer : The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)–Microsoft Research Centre in Barcelona, Spain, also known as BSCMSRC by those who enjoy trying to pronounce acronyms that...

Computers are everywhere, controlling everything from phones and traffic lights to airplanes and buildings. And inside each computer is software: line after line of complex code that tells the program, and any attached hardware, what to do. It’s amazing how the world has come to rely on software...

On October 5, 2011, on the stately campus of the University of Edinburgh, Sir Tim O’Shea , principal of the University of Edinburgh, and Rick Rashid , chief research officer of Microsoft Research, officially inaugurated a significant joint initiative in informatics. It was standing room only in...

Collaboration can be a great catalyst for new ideas. Whether working with colleagues from down the hall or a team from another continent, we have found that working together strengthens our ideas. A prime example is the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre – Microsoft Research Centre in Barcelona, Spain...

As the saying goes, “ Seeing is believing. ” But with computers, that’s only half the story. Cameras are becoming an ever-present part of our world. They are built into cell phones and laptops, and dot the landscape in storefronts and on street corners. Their pervasive images present...

With the academic year drawing to a close, Microsoft Research Cambridge was delighted to welcome more than 60 doctoral students for the sixth PhD Summer School at the end of June 2011. Participants came from as far afield as Israel and Russia, numerous European countries, and locales across the UK. It...

Earlier this year, Lee Dirks, Cheri Ekholm, and I attended Phil Bourne’s Beyond the PDF workshop at the University of California, San Diego. This workshop advanced the premise that scholarly communication can and should evolve from static and disparate data and knowledge representation, as embodied...

I am pleased to announce the release of Microsoft Biology Foundation (MBF) 2.0 beta 1, an open-source Microsoft .NET library and application programming interface for bioinformatics research. This beta provides the first significant update since MBF 1.0. Notable improvements include: Increased...

What could be better than Paris on a spring day? How about Paris on a spring day at the inaugural Software Summit sponsored by Microsoft Research? Yes, I'm here at the Microsoft Le Campus in Issy-les-Moulineaux, just southwest of central Paris, along with more than 200 of the foremost figures in the...

Back in February at TechForum, Craig Mundie , Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, and Don Mattrick , president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), announced that Microsoft Research and IEB would release a non-commercial Kinect for Windows software development kit this...

Interest in cloud computing is growing at a rapid pace, particularly in commercial environments. We believe there is a real opportunity to fulfill the potential of cloud computing—and we're working to bring about that full potential. We have partnered with the European Union to develop the VENUS...

Computers have increased the reach of biological science, altering the path of medicine with such revolutions as human genome sequencing—which is already causing a shift in treatment approach from epidemiological (based on patterns in the general population) to care that is tailored to individuals...

The latest innovations in multicore technology are meaningless if the software you run is not written to take advantage of the advanced hardware design. To help address this and other issues, attendees at the Second Barcelona Multicore Workshop (BMW) met October 21-22, 2010, to critically examine developments...