News and Awards

Microsoft says DNA could be a better way to store data for the long term than the magnetic tape companies rely on today.

Microsoft has made Project Malmo, a platform that uses the world of Minecraft as a testing ground for advanced artificial intelligence research, available for novice to experienced programmers on GitHub via an open-source license.

Cynthia Dwork was elected to join the American Philosophical Society (opens in new tab), the first learned society of the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin, which promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities…

Simon Peyton Jones received the 2016 ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award (opens in new tab) for his leading role over the past 30 years in the design, implementation and evolution of Haskell (opens in new tab) and the Glasgow…

Your house plants are definitely sending you a message when they wilt or drop leaves on the floor. But what if they could actually “speak” to you and convey how they’re feeling?

Thanks to Project Florence, you can now talk to the plants in your garden. We have been hearing and reading that talking to plants or playing music near plants help them grow better.

Adam Fourney received the Bill Buxton Dissertation Award (opens in new tab) for the best doctoral dissertation completed at a Canadian university in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. His dissertation: Web Search, Web Tutorials &…

Project Florence could have incredible implications for the future of farming—and revolutionize the way we understand our environment.

Researchers have decoded the genomes of mammoths and a 700,000-year-old horse using DNA fragments extracted from fossils in the past few years. DNA clearly persists far longer than the bodies for which it carries the…

Project Florence could have incredible implications for the future of farming–and revolutionize the way we understand our environment.