MS research has produced a lot of stuff that is directly used in games today. Hugh Hoppes research on vertex cache optimization and SHPRT has been a shipping part of the DirectX SDK for years for example. Recently MS Research published a paper that greatly reduced Kinect latency that is likely to make its way into games and other applications.

I'm not as aware of other research to product transitions, but I imagine a lot of MS research's work has moved to .NET (I think F# might have started as a MS Research project?) Microsoft Research is one of the strongest divisions right now, they produce a lot of cool stuff, practical or not.

Microsoft Research has been involved in many projects and papers, being one of the best R&D centers around.

You're also kind of lazy for asking, as you could simply check their website, which contains a list of projects and papers published: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/research/default.aspx

The problem with Microsoft is that they aren't able to turn all that research into usable products. But that doesn't mean the research isn't valuable, some of the best ideas in the world have been happening ahead of their time you know ;)

Microsoft produces a lot of paper in a very large set of fields related to computer science. They invest a lot in research and I know it doesn't seem like it for those outside of academia. Hell I bet Bell labs didn't seem too impressive except for the transistor to the outside world.

Someone mentioned Haskell, they also do a lot in artificial intelligence, operating system research, security (yeah yeah I know), human computer interaction etc.

Not to long ago Apple passed Microsoft in profits, but that difference is much smaller than the difference in R&D budget. If you take that into account, Microsoft is much more profitable.

MS Research has been working on the life tracking hardware / software combo for awhile now. Which is something I've personally been interested in and I think is going to be huge going forward, especially with facebook getting people accustomed to a privacy free world. I just don't know how to turn that future technology into profits for me yet.

I expect lots of people to opt into a device the records their conversations... locations... images of the people around them... And the collates into some useable data using voice recognition + facial recognition + voice-to-text

The resultant data could be searchable by person... And bring up every picture of the person.. every conversation.. a map of locations where that person was with you (picture or voice)... etc... Anyway, MS Research has been working on similar stuff and I for one think that is going to be awesome technology someday.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/06/life-recorders-may-be-this-...

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/se...

interesting, but wont this clash with US wiretap laws? As far as I understand, many states require two party consent

As an Illinois resident, I wonder this myself.

My thoughts? Maybe you'd life-record in certain situations. For example, I do not believe representatives of businesses are required to be notified of recording while performing their official duties.

Here is the list some notable products from MSR: http://www.quora.com/Microsoft-Research/What-products-have-c...

A recent success is the Kinect, which was the fastest-selling consumer product on record.

Since I can't see comment scores (sigh), I don't know how well voted this is.. but it ought to be at the top of the comment list because it's the answer to my question, exactly.

Thanks for the compliments, but the credit should really go to Ankur Dave, who posted that answer on Quora :)

Didn't the MS Surface come out of the MS Research division.

edit: From wikipedia:

    The product idea for Surface was initially conceptualized in 2001
    by Steven Bathiche of Microsoft Hardware and Andy Wilson of
    Microsoft Research.

Which, to the questioner's point, ships maybe in quantity m's whereas the iPad ships in quantity mm's

MSR has the biggest R&D budget in the country after the U.S. federal government. I think they'd hit brilliance inevitably. Probability would demand it.

Although I don't use it, I think that Bing has forced google to up its game. I doubt the recent Panda update would have been as soon, as widespread (it even had a follow on update), or as publicized if not for bing.

Guess that's not really research.

Microsoft Research is one of the closest things to the old Bell Labs that still exists today.

I think they pay for a fair amount of Haskell work, no? Not that it'll impact the world directly, but a lot of that stuff "trickles down" eventually.

If that's the case, best example so far (next to Kinect, maybe).

Kinect is the closest I can think of. Not sure if you live in that world.

Would you credit Microsoft or Prime Sense for the Kinect?

Microsoft acquired the Kinect technology.

Oh my god not the "Kinect was acquired Herpa-Derp" argument again. On the kinect sensor, there's pose estimation being performed @ 200 fps which is the product of work done @ MSR. Here is the paper that describes how the kinect does pose estimation faster than any comparable tech on the market : http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1453...

did you forget ahem, MS.NET?

I think he said "making a dent" as in "improving". .NET has no positive impact on my life.