One of Europe's leading pioneers in the field of medical image analysis has been awarded the €250,000 Royal Society and Académie des sciences Microsoft award to apply computational techniques to build composite three-dimensional images of hearts, brains and other organs from the 2D slices obtained with MRI and PET.

Computing has come a long way since the invention of the diminutive mouse. Unlike the keyboard, which was an adaptation of old technology, the mouse was the first purpose built approach to interacting with computers to catch on with consumers.

Earlier this year Microsoft Research Cambridge, in partnership with Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio team, Lionhead Studios and Rare Ltd, brought together finalists from the international games development contest, ‘Silicon Minds’.

As more and more people share data and opinions over the Internet, geographic and location information is becoming an increasingly important dimension of the way people intuitively organise, view and analyse data.

New geoweb applications such as Microsoft’s Virtual Earth are at the confluence of two massive innovation trends – user-generated content and smart environments. To browse what the augmented reality of where virtual worlds collide with the real one, you need a good map.

Football supporters and other visitors to this summer's Euro2008 football championships in Austria and Switzerland can enjoy a new experience as they log onto websites in search of information to plan their trip.

Imagine a search engine capable of recognising the details of paintings rather than words. This is the challenge facing a joint Microsoft/INRIA research project to recreate, in 3D virtual form, a two thousand year old house in Pompeii.

Few research issues are as significant as trying to work out how climate change might affect the environment. Unlike many scientific experiments, this isn't something that we can try in a laboratory several times to see how things pan out under different conditions. Nor do we have the luxury of being able to wait to see which of the many theories on offer is the most scientifically complete. This is why...