7 ms·
Two disconnected thoughts that came to mind reading this... 1. I agree with Google's approach. Microsoft spends $10 billion a year on R&D yet I can't think o
by TomOfTTB 16y ago
Two disconnected thoughts that came to mind reading this...
1. I agree with Google's approach. Microsoft spends $10 billion a year on R&D yet I can't think of a revolutionary product they've come up with (Kinect was bought from the outside)
2. I notice the word "patent" is never mentioned in this piece. A big reason companies like Microsoft and Intel have research labs is to patent protect themselves in the future (wasn't there an article on HN just a few days ago that mentioned Google's anemic patent portfolio?)
- ikuygtyuiouy 16y agoAs were Google earth, gmail, google docs, wave etc
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jackowayed 16y agoGMail was definitely internally done (by Paul Buchheit). I'm pretty sure Wave as too. But yes, maps/earth, docs, voice, etc. were acquisitions.
- kgarten 16y agoI agree mostly, though your assessment of Microsoft Research is not completely true. Don't forget they came up with the Songsmith :D
- hnhg 16y agoI read repeatedly that much of Kinect's software was derived from their in-house R&D. Is that not true?
- ot 16y agoIt is true. Microsoft bought from PrimeSense the IR depth sensor technology, but all the body recognition/tracking software was developed by Microsoft Research.
- stevenbedrick 16y agoI don't know specifics about Kinect, but I do know that MSR has done a ton of work on computer vision and its applications over the last ten or fifteen years, and I would be extremely surprised if that work didn't inform the efforts of whoever did invent Kinect.
- apu 16y agoThe computer vision aspects to the Kinect (and there are a lot, and very well done), were headed up by Andrew Blake at MS Research Cambridge, who's one of the foremost vision scientists in the world. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/ablake/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/ablake/ Most recently they have built the machine learning technology inside the Xbox Kinect human motion tracking system.
- kenjackson 16y agoMS's approach to research is fundamentally different than Google's. Google's approach is about creating better Google products. Microsoft's approach (which is really Bill Gates's dream) is to advance science. Both are good goals. But if you ask a researcher from MS how important it is to get in a future version of Windows, they may well shrug their shoulders. Their feeling is if they can advance technology then all boats rise, which is good for Microsoft. I must say when I'm actually doing research, and not just dev work for product Version Next, I don't want to do unit tests and a whole bunch of other cruft. My code isn't meant to be shipped to customers. Its meant to test a hypothesis.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ikuygtyuiouy 16y agoMSFT research is much more like research of great American companies of the past, Bell, AT+T etc - I'm sure this is what they were aiming for.
- xtacy 16y agoThis is what scares me about Microsoft Research. Since Google's research adds direct value to what it's doing, it is quite unlikely to disintegrate.
- kenjackson 16y agoI suspct if left completely up to Sinofsky or Ballmer MSR would shut down (or be substantially smaller). I think as long as Gates is alive and/or has large influence, it will be a relatively big part of MS.
- Maro 16y agoI agree. For example, Leslie Lamport, who invented many distributed algorithms that are used at Google (eg. Paxos is used in Chubby and in Megastore) works at Microsoft Research. Watching or reading interviews with him, I get the feeling that he is a "pure [computer] scientist", probably not that interested in getting his stuff into the next product.
- gaiusparx 16y agoIsn't what Google practicing a kind of applied research? Where MS Research is doing basic research which advances the science.