Brief

MSR India and MSIDC showcase innovations at TechXchange 2008

Microsoft Research India (MSR India) and Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) today demonstrated more than 20 of their latest research projects, and products. The demos were part of TechXchange 2008, the second edition of the forum that was held at the Microsoft Hyderabad Campus. Dr. P. Anandan, Managing Director, MSR India and Srini Koppolu, Corporate Vice President and Managing Director, MSIDC, jointly addressed the media and walked them through demonstrations of some of the latest technologies being developed by Microsoft in India.

Robust Location Search is a good example of collaboration between MSR India and MSIDC. Robust location search solves two key problems that arise when users search for addresses: often these are unstructured, incomplete or misspelled, and there is no single common address format. This project takes a fresh approach to location search by using keywords to find places, rather than commonly used address rules, to answer queries. This enables relevant results regardless of the address type and structure and also enables cross-lingual address searches. For example, an address specified as being ‘near NIMS’ with a building name in Hindi can be located by using Robust Location Search. This automatically identifies the building near Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad. This Robust Location Search started as a research project at MSR India, and is now being developed by MSIDC as a feature of the Live Search Maps service.

“TechXchange provides a great opportunity for our researchers and product groups to ideate about the next wave of innovations and technology. It is a platform that demonstrates the abundant talent and potential we have in India to become world leaders in technology,” said Anandan.

In addition to Robust Location Search, MSIDC and MSRI are also collaborating on some key areas such as software engineering, multilingual systems and security.