

Microsoft Research Publications - Legend
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=publications

======
jdmitch
How is it that they can say "Our research" about publications from 1951, like:

[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=6500...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=65008)

and

[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=6503...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=65035)

are they just part of Microsoft's IP portfolio, or are these authors previous
incarnations of Bill Gates?

~~~
packetslave
This is just a guess, but maybe those are papers that are cited in others from
MS Research authors, and there was a data migration bug at some point that
mixed citations with authored papers.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is obviously a bug since MSR was founded in...1991. Many researchers also
insert papers into the system written in other labs or universities before
joining MSR; these seem to be included as well even though these days we
clearly get to distinguish between was written when at MSR and what wasn't.
This behavior seems to only apply to older papers and not newer ones.

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Flenser
I didn't know they made videos of visiting speakers available:

[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?p=1&...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?p=1&sb=no&ps=25&t=videos&sf=&s=&r=&vr=105128&ra=)

There's also an RSS feed:

[http://research.microsoft.com/rss/visitingSpeakers.xml](http://research.microsoft.com/rss/visitingSpeakers.xml)

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pradn
I'm curious about this paper: The use of Melodic Scales in Bollywood Music: An
Empirical Study

Cool that Microsoft does research into Bollywood music?

[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1983...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=198398)

~~~
zmitri
I took an interdisciplinary course in University and one of the CS professors
did a whole lecture series on research in music and analysis. A lot of beat
analysis, understanding rhythms and predicting popularity of songs based on
the distribution of the timing between their beats. It was very cool and
extremely creative.

Here's his homepage if you want to learn more
[http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~godfried/](http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~godfried/)

Edit: Looks like he recently published a book on it too
[http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466512023](http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466512023)

~~~
morgante
His research is definitely fascinating. Funny to see my CS professor pop up in
here though. :)

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citrin_ru
Be aware - some algorithms described in publications on research.microsoft.com
can be patented by microsoft (and this fact not referred in publication
itself, google patent search can be useful for this).

~~~
marcosdumay
How interesting.

Isn't there a requirement to mark every publication of a patented idea? Did
Microsoft just invalidated those patents? (Do they even know what patents
apply?)

~~~
DalekBaldwin
I'm not an academic, but I read a lot of scholarly publications in computer
science and I have never seen a single reference to a patent in any of them.
Usually I only discover that something is patented or patent pending later,
after some heavy Googling.

I copied down this quote from somewhere earlier this year but I can't find the
source now: "One of the things they tell us developers here at Microsoft is
that we should never read any patents. That's because you're liable for triple
damages if you knowingly infringe on a patent."

~~~
RyJones
Yes, I went through that training, and that's an accurate summation of the
commandments given. Do not peruse patent databases because it only takes one
person at Microsoft reading the patent, and someone else totally unrelated
infringing, to turn a simple "oops" into "knowing infringement".

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mtdewcmu
There are lots of machine learning papers in there, and lots of papers about
mobile, search, social networks, etc. This one seemed a little out of place:
"Taking Stock of Toilets in Bangalore’s Government Schools: Status, Challenges
and Opportunities"

~~~
msutherl
Many if not most large corporations employ anthropologists who conduct
ethnographic studies of how people all over the world use technology. Toilet
jokes aside, this is not at all out of place.

~~~
mtdewcmu
I had no idea that Microsoft did that kind of research. Maybe this is
connected to Bill Gates's philanthropic work.

~~~
msutherl
I don't think so. It's pretty standard for companies with a global presence –
they need to employ to find out how (potential) customers use technology in
other parts of the world with different cultural and socioeconomic conditions.
Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, etc. all do this. A great blog from a Nokia
ethnographer: [http://janchipchase.com/themes/future-
perfect/](http://janchipchase.com/themes/future-perfect/).

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balakk
Also this:

[https://github.com/MicrosoftResearchSVC/](https://github.com/MicrosoftResearchSVC/)

Dryad under an Apache license!

------
Erwin
See also this more applied site, where you can try out results of some of a
part of MS research in your browser --
[http://rise4fun.com/](http://rise4fun.com/) \-- this comes from the "research
in software engineering" group: [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/groups/rise/default.aspx](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/groups/rise/default.aspx)

------
err4nt
Am I the only one who noticed they had articles published in August 2014 on
that site?

Also, the first blog post I clicked on [1] brought this quote: "We propose a
new progressive analytics system based on a progress model called Prism" _WHY_
is Microsoft so terrible at picking names for their products?

1:
[http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=2001...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=200169)

~~~
ac
> Am I the only one who noticed they had articles published in August 2014 on
> that site?

It's probably the papers that have just been accepted for publication, but
haven't actually been published yet. The submission-reviewing-publication
process is very slow and usually takes at least 5 months in CS conferences.
So, many authors make the papers available right after they get an acceptance
notification from the program committee. So, my best guess is that the
publication date refers to the date those papers would be published
_officially_.

