Microsoft researchers from tits labs around the world gathered earlier this week to conspire on innovations intended to change the world. Scores of scientists from Microsoft labs in China, India, Britain, and the U.S. gathered at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to share their accomplishments and challenges.
Microsoft Research has about 750 scientists and the ranks are expected to grow to 800 by June, according to division vice president Rick Rashid. "We do research in just about everything," Rashid said at the annual gathering commenced. "Our goal is to change the world, and to change the technologies that make the world a better place."
Researchers were expected to demonstrate 150 creations for more than 7,000 of Microsoft employees, approximately 25% of the company's work force in the Redmond area, by the time TechFest ended on March 7.
Rashid touted research projects including "Worldwide Telescope" that enables people to scrutinize the universe via the Internet by organizing images from space and Earth-based telescopes.
Rashid spoke of being in an era of "human scale storage," a time when memory technology was advanced enough to create a "black box" capable of recording every moment of a person's life. A "Sensecam" invention in that spirit was designed by Herbert's lab in Cambridge and is undergoing clinical trials by doctors treating patients with memory problems, according to Microsoft.
"Events like the TechFest today are really meant to be part of our mission to get the technologies transferred into the products right away," said Rashid.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2007
