One of the great things about Microsoft Research is that their research projects can directly relate to what is happening in the company’s business units. Their years of research efforts on intensive, data-driven problems have resulted in cutting-edge technology transfers throughout the company. Bing is just one example of a business unit that has benefited heavily from the work of the MSR team. Today at our Mountain View campus, Microsoft Research will display some of their work which has directly transferred into Bing. Some of the projects and features that they have contributed that you might recognize are:
Bing Maps Features
MSR is regularly delivering new features and services that are defining the cutting edge of mapping technology, such as geotagged panoramas, astronomical imagery, and bird’s-eye-image stitching.
WISE: Large-Scale Web Image Search and Exploration
WISE is a Web-scale, content-based image-retrieval system. There are many applications: Imagine that you could submit to Bing a photo taken by your phone—a face, a product, or a historic landmark—and get back relevant information about the photo. With WISE, the researchers addressed two major challenges in such an image-search system: large-scale machine learning for image representation and efficient image indexing and querying. WISE showcases general image search as well as specific applications, such as facial-image search, logo search, landmark search, and product search.
Worldwide Telescope in Bing Maps
The WorldWide Telescope Map App in Bing lets you to seamlessly move from earth to sky, using WorldWide Telescope data and images within your Bing Maps. This functionality provides context for where celestial entities are in real time if you were to look up at the night sky, allowing you to navigate the universe the same way you do Bing Maps by grabbing an area and dragging the map around.
Real Time Search
Bing merges real-time content with Web search technology to present compelling new search results for users. Find out how Microsoft Research contributions helped build this powerful feature in Bing, and try it yourself at www.bing.com/twitter.
Interactive Search
We are changing the paradigm of search, from the system guessing what you want based on a few words you type, to a dialog where you can continue to clarify your intent. At the TechFair event, the researchers responsible for this feature will demonstrate Bing Active Answers, which allow the user to interact with Bing to refine what they meant, get results from Bing at keystroke speeds, share information with friends, and more. Microsoft Research built and shipped the first Active Answer to let users check their airline flight status, and then helped interactivity become more widespread across Bing’s properties, including local results, travel, reference, and even connections with Bing’s partners.
Today the Microsoft Research team will also demo additional ways in which Microsoft Research is pushing forward the state of the art in computer science. Attendees will have an opportunity to tour interactive demonstrations showcasing research in the areas of data-center services for data-intensive computing, privacy, cloud services, and natural user interfaces, all of which demonstrate how Microsoft Research is pushing forward the state of the art in computer science.
You can read more on this event and projects coming out the Microsoft Research team at http://research.microsoft.com. You can also follow them on twitter @MSFTResearch for all the latest.
Kristin Meldahl – Bing