News & features
In the news | Microsoft The AI Blog
‘Aha, now I get it!’ Microsoft is building technology to put numbers in perspective
When people in the United States ask Microsoft’s search engine Bing how big Syria is, they learn the country is 71,498 square miles and about equal to the size of Florida. When they ask Bing how many calories are in…
‘Contextual bandit’ breakthrough enables deeper personalization
| Miro Dudík
News portals that simultaneously personalize every part of the landing page for every visitor and mobile health apps that adaptively tweak every part of an exercise regimen to maximize the benefit of every user are becoming plausible due to an…
Opportunities abound in the creative and collaborative culture of STEM
| Jennifer Chayes
The explosion of data available today everywhere from biomedicine to the arts is opening new opportunities for researchers with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math to pursue creative and collaborative endeavors that have deep societal impact. My research has…
In the news | The AI Blog
Divide and conquer: How Microsoft researchers used AI to master Ms. Pac-Man
Microsoft researchers have created an artificial intelligence-based system that learned how to get the maximum score on the addictive 1980s video game Ms. Pac-Man, using a divide-and-conquer method that could have broad implications…
In the news | The Wall Street Journal
Grasping Giant Numbers Is Far From Second Nature
Microsoft researchers have developed templates that use ratios, ranks, and unit changes to make large numbers easier to understand; a method that helps inform Bing search results.
In the news | The Wall Street Journal
It’s Time for a Revolution in Investor Disclosures
Microsoft researchers have shown that numbers become much easier to grasp — and remember — when the words “to put this in perspective” are coupled with a familiar reference.
Making better use of the crowd
By Jennifer Wortman Vaughan, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Over the last decade, computer scientists have harnessed crowds of Internet users to solve tasks that are notoriously difficult to crack with computers alone, such as determining whether an image contains a…
Awards | Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research
Hanna Wallach honored with the Borg Early Career Award
Hanna Wallach was honored with the Borg Early Career Award from the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W). For a woman in computer science and/or engineering who has made significant research contributions and who has contributed…
Awards | National Academy of Sciences
Yuval Peres and Robert Schapire join the National Academy of Sciences
Yuval Peres elected as Foreign Associate and Robert Schapire elected as a member to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Read more >