Microsoft Tuesday kicked off its annual TechFest show of research projects by highlighting Internet-based telescopes, game-like software development tools, and new search and collaboration techniques.
In a break with tradition, Microsoft for the first time brought in customers, partners, press, analysts and invited guests to show off some of its innovations.
Microsoft’s TechFest is a yearly event that brings together Microsoft’s researchers and its product teams. The company has 7,000 employees at the event or nearly 25% of its workforce.
“When we have great ideas we work extraordinarily hard to get those ideas into our products,” says Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research said in his opening remarks at TechFest, which is held in Redmond, Wash. “These events are intended to be part of that mission.”
Rashid featured one Microsoft project called the World-Wide Telescope, which turns an ordinary PC into a looking glass into the universe. The technology is a combination of tens of millions of digital images of stars, galaxies and quasars collected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project and the Hubble Space Telescope. Rashid called it a Virtual Earth for the universe.
Using the Big Dipper as a reference point, researcher Curtis Wong showed how users could zoom in and find and examine galaxies, some 25 million light years away, lurking in the background out of sight from the naked eye.
“About six years ago we started thinking the Internet could become the best telescope,” Wong said.
In addition, Microsoft also showcased a project called Mix, which lets users pull data from many sources into a single document that can be shared with others. Rashid said Mix could be a boon to project teams looking to share data. Also highlighted was Boku, a virtual robot that uses an Xbox game control to teach kids how to program.
In addition to research projects, Microsoft announced that Henrique Malvar has been named the new managing director of Microsoft Research’s laboratory in Redmond.
Malvar takes over from Dan Ling, who is retiring as director in Redmond. Ling, who has worked at Microsoft Research for 15 years, has served in the director’s post since 1995.
Malvar followed Rashid on stage and showed search tools that incorporate context so results are returned based on what a user is working on. He also showed Community Buzz, a project that helps present a big picture of ongoing online discussions.
TechFest runs through Thursday.
Rss FeedRss Feed
The Leader in Network Knowledge
Comment