Microsoft Research Turns 10

Alec Muzzy writes: "Did you know that Microsoft Research, the first research laboratory started by a software company, just turned 10 years old? Their website is currently featuring some highlights of their research in the past 10 years and how it is applying to the new products Microsoft is making today - for instance their work in Real-Time Fur will be used in some XBox games, and Speech Recognition may be in future Pocket PC's. Reading these pages gives you a real insight into what new technologies Microsoft is working on."

Re:What, techs they've stolen?

[Slynkie]

I think too often people assume that just because the higher-ups in Microsoft display an infinite amount of stupidity, everyone that works for Microsoft is an idiot. Get real.

I'm far from a M$ lover, but you gotta give a research department like this the credit it's due.

Re:first research lab from a software company?

[whydna]

Perhaps by "software company" they mean "software only company." DEC also makes hardware... MS didn't get into the hardware game (if you count mice and keyboards) until fairly recently.

-Andy

First research lab started by a software company?

[geophile]

Uhh, no.

Digital was not, strictly speaking, a "software company" but had a major research lab a long time ago.

Same for IBM.

CCA (Computer Corporation of America), creator of the venerable Model 204 database system, had an excellent research group. The did some of the classical database research in the 70s and 80s. (In fact, Phil Bernstein, who did this work while at Harvard U. and CCA, is now at Microsoft although not in research, I believe).

In 2006 or so, someone is going to submit to Slashdot about the 10th anniversary of Microsoft inventing the browser.

Re:Credit where credit is due

[Anonymous Coward]

"As usual, MS takes credit for the work of others. I was particularly incensed by the article on fur textures. The algorithms for fur were first developed by Rhythm 'n Hues, an award-winning Hollywood effects shop (and an SGI shop). Their first applications of this algorithm should be familiar to all: the furry Coca-cola polar bear commercials."

And even those fine folks were never happy with their fur. It was the best they could do at the time but no one was truely completely satisfied. If MS can do better using a different method (possibly in real time on a game console)then why cry fowl?

Oh ya this is Slashdot.

Come on give MS a break regarding digital fur especially on pages justifying their own divisions exsistance as much as celabrating the fact they are still around after ten years.

Finally one might note that in 1997 Jin Kajiya of Cal Tech (who moved to MSR)got an Academy Award for development and application of CGI hair and fur.

Re:Microsoft Research HAS done some good

[Anonymous Coward]

That keyboard sucks IMO. I hit the 'y' half the time with my left hand, which makes the whole thing a pain in the neck. and its just uncomfortable for me.

but the mouse is good.

And i believe that a few companies(HP,IBM, and a few others) have already started an Open Source Lab in Western US.

Did you bother checking the MSR page?

[Carnage4Life]

. E.g., Microsoft research spent a lot of time and money to develop a technique using Baysean probability to analyze what a user was doing and figure out what they were trying to do. The end result of that was the mother-#$! Office Paperclip that popped up whenever you typed the words, "Dear John".

Most people who have worked on both research and real world development can tell you that there are always trade-offs to make between what works under limited conditions in a lab and what works in a production system with dozens of variables. Hypothetically, what if the Paperclip algorithm developed by the researchers actually were pretty smart at learning and predicting the user's behavior but would either eat up too much RAM take up too much time do perform their predictions?

What would you do if you were a PM for Office? Scrap the research opr pare it down to where it works in a reasonable amount of time and uses a reasonable amount of resources but isn't as clever asd you'd like? Real managers and real developers make decisions like this everyday.

Microsoft Research should be figuring out how to improve the performance of NT's Microkernel architecture, improve virtual memory management on multi-media machines and a host of other useful technologies. But they don't. Go figure.

I just looked at the MS Research page which lists the current research areas [microsoft.com] and noticed the following

• Research into Systems and Networking [microsoft.com]
  
• Research into Systems and Performance [microsoft.com]
  
• Research into Advanced Compiler Technology [microsoft.com]
  
• Research into Collaborative and Multimedia Technologies [microsoft.com]
  
• Research into Security [microsoft.com]

These are just the ones that address your immediate questions. There are several dozen more cool and worthwhile research areas at MS Research. Of course, being a typical slashdotter it is easier for you to bash them unthinkingly than do an ounce of research.

PS: For those who think Microsoft isn't interested in the work done by MSR, when I was at a presentation at BillG's house this summer he kept on going on and on about the interesting projects being worked on at MSR and about how of all of MSFT that is probably one place where he is familiar with all the projects being worked on.

Re:peachy on the surface...

[Lilior]

As far as special relativity is concerned the general consensus is that that would have been formulated within that approxiate time frame (several people had promising work in that direction, some pople say about 3-5 years later for the non-Einsteins). Einstein gets the creds for General Relativity which was a much more complete and robust theory that actually did more than explain some few special exceptions from Newton's Laws, but created (or formulated) an entirely new perspective on the mechanics of the Universe, wholly separated from Newton's Laws.
Most people say that Einstein was way way ahead of his time to be able to come up with General Relativity.

Newton, on the other hand, deserves not at all any innovation award -- For Calculus, there was an independent inventor, a sure sign that neither person was way ahead of their time (Leibniz -- who ahd better notation anyway) -- For Physics he merely stood on the shoulders of Kepler and Galilleo. That achievement is comparable to coming up with Special Relativity -- coming up with an explanation for well-observed, documented, and predictable (ie: have equations for) phenonema, preferably one that explains multiple such phenonma at once. (like planets orbiting and objects falling).

General Relativity does not fit under that category because the theory came before the data -- well well before the data. (For many of the expirements there had to be wierd conditions present, like eclipses over correct spots on the globe). It is the only case I know of (at least in Physics) where anyone has come up with a theory, and then had it verified (since Einstein himself didn't actually do the expirements -- he knew he was right), instead of attempting to theorize about data already collected.

-Lilior

Re:Huh?

[WildBeast]

Apple, IBM and Xerox are all mostly hardware companies so they don't count.