AllThingsD » Microsoft Research

Microsoft Hires 14 Yahoo Researchers to Kick-Start New NYC Research Lab

Liz Gannes — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:00:41 +0000

Over the weekend, I reported that Duncan Watts, the well-known social network researcher, had left Yahoo to join Microsoft. Turns out he’s not the only one.

Microsoft snatched up not only Watts, but 13 other Yahoo researchers to kick-start a yet-to-be-opened New York research lab. That includes algorithmic economist David Pennock — who will oversee day-to-day lab operations — and machine-learning expert John Langford.

Microsoft has an extensive research organization that includes 850 PhDs. New York City will be its 13th global office, according to Jennifer Chayes, who manages Microsoft Research New England as well as the new New York group.

The hires came after Yahoo made significant layoffs last month that hit its research organization hard.

Chayes said the Yahoo researchers didn’t necessarily come as a package. “I don’t feel like we hired a group; I feel like we hired 15 amazing individuals, some of which became available because there were some problems at Yahoo,” she said.

Though Microsoft might seem like a bit of an odd fit for Watts, given its lack of social products, Watts said today that he’s looking forward to working with data from Microsoft’s Xbox, Hotmail, MSN Messenger and Skype for research projects on topics like group performance and network structure. He also said that Microsoft’s partnerships with Twitter and Facebook enable extensive data access that he might have had trouble getting elsewhere.

Why Microsoft? “It’s an extremely distinguished research organization with long history and stable culture for both basic and applied science,” Watts said. Starting a lab from scratch, he said, is “a once-in-a-career opportunity.”

As for how Watts’s research might influence Microsoft products, that’s to be decided, but he said he had ideas for the search and news teams, once he gets a chance to go to Redmond to meet them.

The New York research team doesn’t have an office yet — for now, it’s working out of Microsoft’s sales office there.

(Image courtesy of Robert Scoble)

Viral Video: Microsoft Songsmith Demo (Justin Bieber Can Relax Now)

Kara Swisher — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:08:05 +0000

Some things you cannot even make up. Take, for instance, this achingly awkward demo video for Microsoft’s Songsmith software.

[Update: The video has now been removed from YouTube. Can't imagine why ...]

Released several years ago, Songsmith is a product of Microsoft Research.

It has kind of been hawked in a goofy way over the years, but this just-posted video is simply the goofiest.

Using Songsmith, you can “make up your own hit sooooong,” growls the cheery Microsoft Store lady in the video.

Then she does and, somehow, the doomed Zune digital player is involved.

Oh, just watch it:

Kinect Not Just for Gamers -- Microsoft Wants Geeks to Play With It, Too

Ina Fried — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:38:52 +0000

Almost from the moment Microsoft released the Kinect add-on for the Xbox, developers have been finding other ways to use the device and its depth-sensing camera.

Hackers quickly created their own set of tools to access the Kinect, and it soon found uses well beyond the game console. Nordstrom, for example, used it in a window display. Indeed, there is a whole Web site devoted to Kinect-related hacks.

Recognizing the interest, Microsoft promised back in February it would come out with tools to allow programmers deeper and more versatile access to the Kinect. On Thursday, Redmond made it official, introducing a software developer kit for the Kinect.

As part of the launch, Microsoft held an event where developers were given 24 hours to come up with a cool use of the Kinect kit. In one project, a team from Oregon State used the motion-sensing controller to steer a remote-controlled toy helicopter.

While the development tools released on Thursday came from Microsoft Research, the software maker said it is also working on a kit that will allow developers and businesses to create their own commercial applications.

Of course, Microsoft is also plugging away at using the Kinect for its primary purpose — as a gaming and entertainment controller for the Xbox. At E3 earlier this month, Microsoft showed off several new titles and uses for the Kinect. Microsoft has already sold 10 million Kinect controllers, providing a much needed boost not only to the Xbox, but to Microsoft’s overall revenue.

For those less familiar with Kinect, here’s a video of it in action as demonstrated at last year’s D8 conference.

[ See post to watch video ]

Microsoft Has Big Plans for Kinect's Future

Arik Hesseldahl — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:00:35 +0000

Microsoft apparently has some pretty big plans for the Kinect. Best known as a gaming accessory for the XBox 360, its future potential for other things was a big highlight at an event for journalists which I attended at the Microsoft campus in Redmond Monday.

In one demo, we got to see more details about the Avatar Kinect feature that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month. In the first video below, a member of Microsoft’s development team showed how she could host a virtual “talk show” with two other live participants.

In the second, Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, shows a video sampling of work done by enthusiasts and hobbyists using the Kinect for things like simulating a light saber from Star Wars to driving a toy helicopter. The videos show projects that people did on their own without any official help or support from Microsoft.

Sensing opportunity, Microsoft said today that it will release a software developers kit for the Kinect to academics, hobbyists and enthusiasts, but not yet for commercial developers.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s own researchers have been hard at work trying to figure out other things that the Kinect might be useful for. One of them may one day have something to do with creating 3D digital renderings of the environments we live in. In another demonstration we weren’t allowed to photograph or film, a Kinect took a series of images of a bunch of reporters sitting on a couch around a coffee table with a lot of stuff on it: toys, a telephone, a plant, a vase. The resulting image looked a little like something out of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. We could see detailed 3D rendersings of everything on the table, and of ourselves that increased in detail as the minutes passed. I was wearing a scarf and after a minute or two I could see its wrinkles, yet the renderings looked as though everything were covered with a layer of dust or snow.

During this demo, one interesting effect occurred when someone got up and walked away from the couch. On the screen, that person seemed to melt away a little at a time. Then he returned to the same place, and he slowly re-materialized into the scene as if he had just been beamed back into place by the Starship Enterprise.

This is all just at the research and experimental phase right now. But the work could one day lead to a future version of the Kinect where the avatar is a more photo-realistic version of yourself, and not a cartoon-like representation, as seen in the talk show video below. Plus? Our more realistic avatars will meet in more realistic looking environments that closely resemble the real thing. Imagine what you could do with that in the fields of communication, entertainment and others. You could use it make a detailed model of a room in your home to try and figure out how things would look redecorated.

This is all part of a theme of research at Microsoft into natural user interfaces that will one day replace the graphical users interfaces we’re so used to on the Mac and Windows today.

Avatar Kinect Demo from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Kinect Development projects from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Microsoft Loses a Top Kinect Researcher to Google

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:59:28 +0000

Microsoft Research’s Johnny Chung Lee, a core contributor to Microsoft’s Kinect, the highly successful gaming sensor, has joined Google to work on a special project.

Lee’s departure was first reported by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, who discovered the update on Lee’s Web page, where his title is listed as “Rapid Evaluator” for Google.

In a Jan. 18 blog post, Lee had very little to say about his new position, and spent most of his time praising his former babies, the Xbox and Kinect: “I look forward to seeing all the creative and unexpected ways that game developers will use the data from the camera to create fun experiences. The Xbox is exceptionally well positioned to do great things in the entertainment space.”

Microsoft’s Xbox has been selling well, compared to the other consoles in the space, led by eight million Kinects that flew off store shelves during the holidays.

If his past record is any indication, there’s no telling what Lee will do next. Among the projects he’s dabbled in, he lists: The Wii remote, giant paint-balloon slingshots, brain-computer interaction, kinetic typography, a poor man’s steadycam and more.

A CNET story about Lee’s contribution to the Kinect project, back when it was called Project Natal, explains how Lee gained attention for his projects using the Nintendo Wii to work as a head-tracking device, a multitouch user interface and more.

QUOTED

John Paczkowski — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:17:13 +0000

The reason you do basic research is for survival. You (provide) the agility to change when change is critical. That’s true for society and humanity more broadly, like if something really bad happens–war, famine, Google–you can respond.”

–Rich Rashid, a founding member of Microsoft Research, adds Google to the Seven Plagues of Revelation.