Posted by George Thomas Jr.

Addressing one of the core problems in statistics and machine learning, Microsoft researchers have developed a new, more efficient algorithm that enables exact sampling.

Researchers Daniel Tarlow, Tom Minka, and former Microsoft intern Chris Maddison introduced the algorithm in their paper, A* Sampling, one of only two of the 1,700 submitted that received an Outstanding Paper Award at NIPS 2014, the renowned machine learning conference of the Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation.

Posted by Microsoft Research

Our most popular blog posts of 2014 reflect the breadth of our research and our collaborative efforts across multiple product groups as well as with external organizations worldwide. From 3-D visualization to unveiling the mysteries of quantum computing to elevating the science of predictive analytics, learn more about how Microsoft Research continues to advance the state of the art in computing.

Posted by Microsoft Research

Machine learning and big data are certainly hot topics that emerged within the tech community in 2014. But what are the real-world implications for how we interpret what happens inside the data centers that churn through mountains of seemingly endless data?

For Microsoft machine learning researcher Hanna Wallach (@hannawallach), opportunity lies outside the box. As an invited speaker at the NIPS 2014 workshop on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning, Wallach spoke about how her shift in research to the emerging field of computational social science led her to new insights about how machine learning methods can be applied to analyze real-world data about society.