Microsoft Hires Yahoo! Researchers for New NYC Lab

Microsoft Research - which focuses on the application of advanced computing tools to the social sciences - is opening a new lab in Manhattan, where it has employed fourteen former Yahoo! researchers.

In March, Prabhakar Raghavan - the head of the Yahoo! Labs research unit - left the company to join Google, in advance of a 'large-scale restructure' which resulted in the loss of 2,000 jobs across the firm's PR, marketing and research teams.

The new Microsoft Lab has employed several members of the former Yahoo! Labs team, including online social behavior specialist Duncan Watts, machine learning practitioner John Lanford, and prediction markets expert David Pennock, who will oversee the day-to-day operations of the new venture.

Microsoft says this team will tap into existing work in social media, empirical economics and machine learning, and investigate complementary research areas such as experimental social science, algorithmic economics, and information retrieval, in order to shape 'technology of the future'.

Jennifer Chayes, who leads Microsoft's Research Center in Cambridge, Mass, will also head the New York Lab.

Rick Rashid, Microsoft's Chief Research Officer comments: 'The addition of Microsoft Research New York City reflects the company's long-term investment in basic research. In concert with Microsoft's product groups, Microsoft Research guides and influences the company's pursuit of applying transformative technologies and new technology trends to its products and services.'

The new Research Lab becomes part of a network of 13 global offices.

Web site: www.research.microsoft.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.