A number of new technologies in computer graphics, online searching, and workplace collaboration — many of which may soon become available to colleges and universities — were on display Wednesday at the Microsoft Research TechFair 2009, in Washington D.C.
Many of the 13 projects on exhibit — all of which are under development in Microsoft’s six worldwide labs — involved workplace communication and research. Project designers say the tools could help make academic collaboration, either between students and professors or among universities, much easier.
“Our goal really is, how can we further research, how can we further education, how can we really change the way people think about the work that they do?,” said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research.
Highlights from the fair included:
The Social Desktop
It’s easy to share a link to a Web site because of its URL, but there’s no way to link directly to items stored on a computer’s desktop, said Cezary Marcjan, principal software design engineer for Microsoft Research.
Mr. Marcjan’s project, Social Desktop, adds URLs to files and folders on a computer desktop, allowing other users to access them — and add comments or make changes — using any type of browser.
“Especially if people are using different operating systems, it becomes very, very hard,” Mr. Marcjans said. “This way, we can just publish this content and ask people for annotations, and we can collect those items on the desktop.”
Viveri: A Platform for Search Incubation
Scott Imig, a senior software-design engineer, calls Vivieri, Microsoft’s ongoing search-engine project, a “platform for new search ideas.” Vivierie collects content from multiple sites and can present that data in typical search-engine style or in a topic-specific form. Results from a general search may be listed or categorized by Web site, Mr. Imig said, but topic-specific searches can be represented as word clouds or other interactive features.
Mr. Imig also says researchers are experimenting with ways to use tools like OpenSearch and RSS to sort search results intelligently.
For highlights of the research behind other projects including Social Views of E-Mail and the Research Desktop, watch our video coverage of the fair:
—Erica R. Hendry
