Why is that dude holding Oscar from Sesame Street? Well it turns out you don't get a real Oscar if you win a Technical Achievement Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - so John Platt's friend gave him the Sesame Street character in its place. I went to talk to John about Machine Learning and found out a whole lot more. 

Imagine being able to search through a video, TV show or movie for particular phrases or words. Sounds good...now how about being able to jump to the precise point where that word occurs? That's what MAVIS from Microsoft Research enables and the US Department of Energy just announced they're using it. I wish I'd had it for Super Bowl Sunday! 

Scott Saponas of Microsoft Research explores the world of "off-desktop interfaces" including Physiological Computing and Natural User Interfaces. A perfect candidate for our Tools of the Trade series then...

Today's Farsight 2011 event titled Beyond the Search Box didn't turn out quite as planned - a wee story at the beginning of the day put the cat amongst the pigeons - but eventually we did get to talk about the future of search. Read on for a snapshot recap and then a full rundown of the days events and key moments.

I'm starting to see Microsoft Tag show up in many more places...and have some ideas for where I'd really like it to show up. Last week, USA Today announced they'll be featuring at least one Tag in every print section providing readers with access to videos and online content and it showed up my apartment block. This week, Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit edition arrives with Microsoft Tag content.