News & features

Research Focus: Week of April 29, 2024
In this edition: Can LLMs transform natural language into formal method postconditions; Semantically aligned question + code generation for automated insight generation; Explaining CLIP performance disparities on blind/low vision data; plus recent news.

Collaborators: Teachable AI with Cecily Morrison and Karolina Pakėnaitė
| Gretchen Huizinga, Cecily Morrison, and Karolina Pakėnaitė
Cecily Morrison and Karolina Pakėnaitė are collaborators on a research prototype designed to help members of the blind community find their personal items. Learn how the work is advancing an approach to empower people to shape their own AI experiences.
In the news | Ahmedabad Mirror
Microsoft’s AI Tech Helps Blind Kids To Make Friends, Build Confidence
Tech giant Microsoft has developed a novel Artificial Intelligence-based technology that helps blind children and young people better understand their immediate social environment, interact with peers and gain confidence more easily.
In the news | The AI Blog
Shrinking the ‘data desert’: Inside efforts to make AI systems more inclusive of people with disabilities
Saqib Shaikh says people who are blind, like himself, typically develop highly organized routines to keep track of their things — putting keys, wallets, canes and other essentials in the same places each time. But sometimes life gets messy: A…

Awards | Microsoft reporter
Microsoft’s Cecily Morrison awarded MBE for services to inclusive design
Cecily Morrison, a principal researcher at Microsoft’s Research Lab in Cambridge, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. The 39-year-old, who is currently working on a project that uses technology to help people with low vision understand who’s around them, has been recognised…

Where’s my stuff? Developing AI with help from people who are blind or low vision to meet their needs
| Simone Stumpf, Cecily Morrison, Daniela Massiceti, Ed Cutrell, and Lida Theodorou
Microsoft AI for Accessibility is funding the ORBIT research project, which is enlisting the help of people who are blind or low vision to build a new dataset. People who are blind or low vision can contribute to the project…
In the news | Microsoft Innovation Stories
Using AI, people who are blind are able to find familiar faces in a room
Cambridge, United Kingdom – Theo, a 12-year-old boy who is blind, is seated at a table in a crowded kitchen on a gray and drippy mid-December day. A headband that houses cameras, a depth sensor and speakers rings his sandy-brown…

Empowering people with AI with Dr. Cecily Morrison
| Cecily Morrison
Episode 60, January 23, 2019 - Dr. Morrison gives us an overview of what she calls the “pillars” of inclusive design, shares how her research is positively impacting people with health issues and disabilities, and tells us how having a…
In the news | The AI Blog
With Project Torino, Microsoft creates a physical programming language inclusive of visually impaired children
A team of Microsoft researchers and designers in the company's Cambridge, UK, lab has created what they are calling a physical programming language—a way for kids to physically create code by connecting pods together to build programs.