Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research (MSR) is a division of Microsoft created in 1991 for researching various computer science topics and issues. It currently employs Turing Award winners C.A.R. Hoare, Butler Lampson, and Charles P. Thacker, Fields Medal winner Michael Freedman, MacArthur Fellow Jim Blinn, Dijkstra Prize winner Leslie Lamport and many other highly recognized experts in computer science, physics, and mathematics, including Jim Gray up until his highly publicized disappearance while sailing.

Research areas
MSR research is categorized into the following broad areas:


 * 1) Algorithms and theory
 * 2) Hardware development
 * 3) Human–computer interaction
 * 4) Machine learning, adaptation, and intelligence
 * 5) Multimedia and graphics
 * 6) Search, retrieval, and knowledge management
 * 7) Security and cryptography
 * 8) Social computing
 * 9) Software development
 * 10) Systems, architectures, mobility, and networking
 * 11) Computational and Systems Biology

One of the stated goals of Microsoft Research is to "support long-term computer science research that is not bound by product cycles." MSR sponsors the Microsoft Research Fellowship for graduate students and the New Faculty Fellowship for new faculty members.

Laboratories
There are laboratories around the world in Bangalore, Beijing, Cambridge (United Kingdom), Cambridge (Massachusetts), Mountain View, Redmond, and San Francisco.


 * Microsoft Research Redmond was founded on the Microsoft Redmond campus in 1991 working in buildings 112 and 113 and has now moved to their own facility in building 99. It currently has about 350 researchers and is headed by Rico Malvar.
 * Microsoft Research Cambridge was founded in 1997 by Roger Needham and now numbers over 100 employees. It maintains close ties to the University of Cambridge.
 * Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) was founded in Beijing in November 1998. Advanced Technology Center was initially a group of MSRA until it became an independent R&D group of Microsoft.
 * Microsoft Research Silicon Valley, located in Mountain View, California, was founded in August 2001. In January 2006, the Silicon Valley lab merged with Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center (BARC) in San Francisco.
 * Microsoft Research India was established in January 2005 in Bangalore and headed by Dr. P. Anandan.
 * Microsoft Research New England was established in 2008 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Collaborations
Microsoft Research also collaborates with and jointly operate research centers at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, INRIA , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Trento. There are also nine jointly-operated labs in China and Hong Kong.

Microsoft Research also supports research centers at many other universities.

Published work at SIGGRAPH
Historically, Microsoft has performed well in having research papers accepted at the prestigious ACM SIGGRAPH conference, having contributed since 2002 on average 14% of the papers published.

Research projects

 * Microsoft Live Labs
 * Microsoft Virtual Labs (for Window Server family research)


 * Allegiance (computer game)
 * Audio Watermarking
 * Bartok compiler
 * Color Barcodes, to enhance capacity of barcodes
 * Community Bar, context sensitive content plugin
 * Data visualization library
 * Digital Green, a farmer-generated, video-based social network service for agricultural extension in rural India
 * ESL Assistant, a proofing tool for ESL English learners
 * GLEE graph layout engine
 * Gyro, which matured as .NET 2.0 generics
 * Group Shot
 * IceCube shared data synchronization engine
 * HD View, a viewer that can aid in the display and interaction with very large (Gigapixel) images
 * Hotmap, a mashup that shows where people have looked at using Virtual Earth
 * Image Composite Editor
 * Kodu
 * JCluster clustering engine


 * MSBNx, Bayesian network toolkit
 * MultiMouse, for shared usage of PC
 * Penny Black Project
 * Scalable Fabric, a Windows task management system
 * Search Result Clustering toolbar
 * SecPAL grid authorization language
 * SenseCam
 * SenseWeb Project
 * SLAM project
 * Strider GhostBuster rootkit detection system
 * Strider URL Tracer / Typo-Patrol anti typosquatting system
 * TulaFale, language for verifiable description of Web Services
 * Virtual Ring Routing driver
 * Vault, a safe version of C programming language
 * Virtual WiFi, a WiFi adapter virtualizer
 * Virtual India
 * Web Assistant, a contexual search system
 * WWMX, geotagging digital images
 * ZenZui
 * Zing model checker