Microsoft's Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs was started by Ray Ozzie and is run by Lili Cheng. The group focuses on real-time and media rich experiences and is located in Bellevue, WA. It used to have offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Cambridge, UK. A similar, earlier initiative was Microsoft Live Labs, a collaboration between Microsoft Research and MSN which ended in 2010. [1] [2]
Raymond "Ray" Ozzie is an American software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for his role in creating Lotus Notes.
In computing, a visual programming language, also known as diagrammatic programming, graphical programming or block coding, is a programming language that lets users create programs by manipulating program elements graphically rather than by specifying them textually. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions, spatial arrangements of text and graphic symbols, used either as elements of syntax or secondary notation. For example, many VPLs are based on the idea of "boxes and arrows", where boxes or other screen objects are treated as entities, connected by arrows, lines or arcs which represent relations. VPLs are generally the basis of Low-code development platforms.
Social computing is an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing.
The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts's Interactive Media & Games Division first accepted M.F.A. students in 2002. The division currently offers both undergraduate (B.F.A.) and graduate programs in interactive media and game design, as well as B.F.A. programs in game art and themed entertainment and an M.A. in media, games and health. The programs include courses in game design, game development, production, audio, animation, and user research as well as experimental work in gestural and immersive interfaces, transmedia design, and interactive cinema.
Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technological innovation in collaboration with academic, government, and industry researchers. The Microsoft Research team has more than 1,000 computer scientists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians, including Turing Award winners, Fields Medal winners, MacArthur Fellows, and Dijkstra Prize winners.
Microsoft Live Labs was a partnership between MSN and Microsoft Research that focused on applied research for Internet products and services at Microsoft. Live Labs was headed by Dr. Gary William Flake, who prior to joining Microsoft was a principal scientist at Yahoo! Research Lab and former head of research at the Web portal's Overture Services division.
Photosynth is a discontinued app and service from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington that analyzes digital photographs and generates a three-dimensional model of the photos and a point cloud of a photographed object. Pattern recognition components compare portions of images to create points, which are then compared to convert the image into a model. Users are able to view and generate their own models using a software tool available for download at the Photosynth website.
T. L. Taylor is an American sociologist and professor. Taylor specialises in researching the culture of gaming and online communities, in particular, esports, live-streaming, and MMOGs such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft.
Kodu Game Lab, originally named Boku, is a programming integrated development environment (IDE) by Microsoft's FUSE Labs. It runs on Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace on June 30, 2009. A Windows version is available to the general public for download from Microsoft's FUSE web portal.
Xbox Live Indie Games were video games created by individual developers or small teams of developers released on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace for the Xbox 360. The games were developed using Microsoft XNA, and developed by one or more independent developers that are registered with App Hub. Unlike Xbox Live Arcade titles, these were generally only tested within the local creator community, had much lower costs of production, and generally were less expensive to purchase. The service was released to widespread use alongside the New Xbox Experience, and as of November 2014, over 3,300 games had been released on the service, many receiving media attention. All Indie Games currently require the user to be logged into their Xbox Live account to initiate the start-up of each game. Indie Games were not available in Australia due to local classification requirements which were unable to be fulfilled, though there were workarounds which allowed Australian users to download them regardless. The Xbox Live Indie Games program did not continue with the release of the Xbox One, and the marketplace for these games was shuttered on October 7, 2017.
Jennifer Tour Chayes is dean of the college of computing, data science, and society at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining Berkeley, she was a technical fellow and managing director of Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she founded in 2008, and Microsoft Research New York City, which she founded in 2012.
Microsoft adCenter Labs, is an applied research group at Microsoft that supports Microsoft adCenter. Microsoft adCenter, is the division of the Microsoft Network (MSN) responsible for MSN's advertising services.
Docs.com was a website where users could discover, upload and share Office documents. Supported file types included Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Mix video presentations and Sways. Users could also add PDFs and URLs on to their page. Docs.com was a part of Microsoft Office Online.
Microsoft Research Labs are laboratories operated by Microsoft Research for researching computer science topics and issues.
A second screen involves the use of a computing device to provide a different viewing experience for content on another device.
So.cl was a social networking service and social search engine operated by Microsoft FUSE Labs. They announced on March 7, 2017 that it would be closing down So.cl on March 15, 2017.
Project Spark is a game creation system video game developed by SkyBox Labs and Team Dakota and published by Microsoft Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One. The game was announced during Microsoft's E3 2013 press event, and was launched as a Windows open beta in December 2013, and an Xbox One beta in March 2014. Project Spark is not available for purchase and online services are also not available as of August 12, 2016. Although no longer available for sale, players can continue to play offline so long as they have both a physical disc, and downloaded local copies of any custom-made creations.
The Game Awards 2016 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2016. It was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on December 1, 2016, and was live streamed across several platforms. At the event, Overwatch won Game of the Year, Blizzard Entertainment won Best Studio, and game designer Hideo Kojima was honored with the Industry Icon Award.
Walden, a game is a first-person open-world video game developed by Tracy Fullerton and the USC Game Innovation Lab for Microsoft Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game translates the experience of naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond in 1845–47 to a video game.
Haiyan Zhang is a designer and engineer. She is Director of Innovation at Microsoft Research and Technical Advisor to Lab Director, Christopher Bishop. She appeared on the BBC show "Big Life Fix".