Microsoft to Present its Deep and Machine Learning Advancements at NIPS 2015

More than 20 papers from Microsoft researchers and engineers will be presented next week at the 2015 Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS). NIPS is the premiere conference on machine learning. Microsoft points to how its advances in machine learning as well as deep learning have become increasingly a part of Windows 10 and by extension, our lives. It points to three examples:

• Skype Translator is learning how to translate spoken words into more and more languages in near real-time, allowing for face-to-face communication once exclusive to Star Trek’s fictional universal translator.
• Cortana, the personal digital assistant that debuted on Windows Phones and is now widely available on Windows 10 and for Android and iPhone users, learns from your interactions and helps you do things like manage your calendar, track packages and even chat with you and tell jokes — all the while customizing the experience for truly personal interaction.
• Clutter, a feature of Microsoft Office 2016, learns which emails are most important to you and automatically redirects less important mail to a separate folder, helping keep your inbox clean.

But, as Microsoft says, these examples are just a tip of the iceberg. Indeed they are, if you want to learn about all of the ways Microsoft researchers are advancing these increasingly important fields, I encourage you to read a great blog post by George Thomas Jr here.