14 DAY TRIAL // A combination of MSN and Microsoft Research was announced Thursday, January 26th. Gary William Flake, ex Chief Scientist at Overture and now an engineer at Microsoft, talked about Live Labs and how it will consist of researchers from MSN and Microsoft Research that will work with researchers across Microsoft and the academic research community.
Flake said, "Live Labs is a fantastic alliance between some of the best engineering and scientific talent in the world. It will be the pre-eminent applied research laboratory for Internet technologies? This is a very exciting opportunity for researchers and technologists to have an immediate impact on the next evolution of Microsoft's Internet products and services and will help unify our customer's digital world so they can easily find information, pursue their interests and enrich their lives."
Flake isn't the only R&D genius behind this idea; Ray Ozzie, Craig Mundie and David Vaskevitch, Microsoft's chief technical officers, will serve as the Live Labs Advisory Board. Ray Ozzie truly believes in the benefits that can come from Live Labs, he said "Live Labs is taking an exciting approach that is both organic and consumer-driven? Within the context of a broad range of rich usage scenarios for Windows Live, the labs will explore new ways of bringing content, commerce and community to the Internet."
It isn't your typical research lab though. This lab will investigate a broad and comprehensive set of research topics such as multimedia search, machine learning, distributed computing and data mining, and will engage in rapid prototyping and the incubation of disruptive technologies.
It won't look at revolutionary new ideas, but instead will look at problems and solutions for what we already have in front of us. In other words, it will study the relationship and applicability of theories or principles to the solution of a problem or an actual product or service.
Gary finished by calling "A Call to Action - As we launch, expand, and evolve Live Labs, we will need many partners to succeed. Whether you are an engineer, scientist, product designer, leader, or are merely just curious, there will be ample opportunity to collaborate. If our vision for the evolution of the Internet, its impact on society, and Microsoft's role in this process resonates with you, then please join us in what we believe is a historic time for Microsoft and the world."