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Systems biology under the microscope
You can't capture the thrill and excitement of a football match by describing the individual players. Similarly, it is not possible to understand biological processes and pathways by looking just at the component parts.
A lifeline for systems biology
It is a fact universally acknowledged: the pharmaceutical industry needs a new drug development paradigm. Systems biology promises the ability to place drug targets in the overall physiological context - offering a possible route out of the destructive cycle of spiralling R&D costs and low productivity that is hitting the pharmaceutical industry – but it will take new tools and programming languages to underpin the vision of computerising biology.
Genomics and proteomics: the emerging role of machine learning
Computing and communication technologies have already had a massive impact on today's healthcare system. Even so, there is great potential for these technologies to not only improve, but profoundly change healthcare in several ways.
Microsoft sponsors prestigious award for European research
One of Europe's leading pioneers in the field of medical image analysis has been awarded the €250,000 Royal Society and Académie des sciences Microsoft award to apply computational techniques to build composite three-dimensional images of hearts, brains and other organs from the 2D slices obtained with MRI and PET.
Next generation devices: pocket supercomputers for doctors
Are we prepared for the next generation of embedded and mobile computing devices?
Model your own climate
Few research issues are as significant as trying to work out how climate change might affect the environment. Unlike many scientific experiments, this isn't something that we can try in a laboratory several times to see how things pan out under different conditions. Nor do we have the luxury of being able to wait to see which of the many theories on offer is the most scientifically complete. This is why computer modeling is so important to understanding climate change.
What a GIG!
One of the gigs at this year's Roskilde Festival, the largest music festival in Europe, didn't take place on the stage but in the trash. Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen joined forces with its trusted partner Tegos, a solution provider for the recycling and waste management industry, to implement an innovative solution for “Garbage Information Gathering” (GIG) that simply cleared the place up.
Saving energy with home automation
As computers become more prevalent in our offices and homes, not only as PCs but also in media and entertainment devices and embedded in appliances, so-called home networks can connect these computers and offer new convenience to users.
Collecting data on the environment
European Environment Agency and Microsoft Eye on Earth Observatory bring Europaan beach quality into sharp focus
Managing your household energy use
For most consumers, the amount of energy that each electrical appliance in a household consumes is hidden.
Training THE next generation
If Europe is to prosper in the global economy, it needs a lot more people like Fabian Suchanek. The 27-year-old German student is full of enthusiasm for his field, computer science. He talks animatedly about his current PhD research, into the database structure of online encyclopedia Wikipedia. And as for computer science itself, it's a field in which “you can be creative. Many other sciences try to understand what exists. In computer science, I am creating a new thing that hasn't been there before.”
Innovation for social and economic empowerment
Innovation isn't just what scientists and engineers do: it's also a feature of many community-based organisations and social entrepreneurs. But the result is the same: new ways of doing things and new products and services that enable people to change their lives.
Innovation in IT training: the fit approach in Ireland
Working with Ireland's most disadvantaged communities, the Fastrack to IT (FIT) is a successful example of an industry initiative which brings together government organisations with companies such as Microsoft to couple IT skills with a structured programme to help individuals to secure full-time employment.
Supporting Latvia’s innovation economy through technology training for SMEs
Through its Digital Skills for SMEs program, the Latvia@World project is providing special training for small and medium sized enterprises and enabling entrepreneurs to make use of the latest technologies, thereby enhancing their business skills and overall competitiveness.
Flying high: a technology volunteer’s story
Ali Tarabit has been a volunteer with the charity organization Aviation Sans Frontières (ASF) for almost three years. With his help, ASF has revolutionised its office operations, improving its efficiency and opening up new possibilities.
A push to reform the way EUROPE does research
“EUROPE has a team of star players, but it is not a star team.” That frank assessment of EUROPE's weaknesses and strengths in research was how Dr Janez Potocnik, the EU Science and Research Commissioner, opened a campaign earlier this year to reform how R&D is governed in EUROPE. His effort is the most-sweeping look at EU research policy in years, and is expected to result in a series of new policy proposals from Brussels early in 2008 – proposals that could make a fundamental difference in how much EUROPE gets out of its research budget.
The researchers’ directive
Implementation of the Directive by member states is essential to the paradigm of ‘brain circulation' and the development of the European Research Area.
The next phase of the IPTV revolution
Merely a concept at the start of the century, Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) has already completed the first stage of its growth, moving from an idea to a real service that has now achieved a broad market penetration across many European countries.
Microsoft mediaroom: Microsoft’s connected TV services platform
Driven by computer and network technologies, TV is undergoing a paradigm shift that is not only changing TV itself but also how people consume media and make it an integral part of their daily lives.
European Microsoft innovation center (EMIC): overcoming information overload and ‘the crisis of choice'
Year by year, the flood of content is rising all around us: television channels, books, music and the Internet - where not only traditional media but millions of individuals are adding content. So, in this flood, how do you find the content that matters to you? How do you discover multimedia information and entertainment in ways that suit you personally? Isn't there an easier way?
The EU needs clusters of excellence
Is the essence of a cluster physical proximity or, given broadband Internet and associated communications platforms, is it possible to create virtual clusters ?
Online privacy: a continuous innovation agenda
Innovation in the ICT sector has transformed how a large segment of the world's population works, communicates, learns, shops and plays. Today's online consumer benefits from unprecedented access to information and services - and most of it for free.
Forming innovation clusters
Cluster Stew: the European Commission is formulating an all-embracing strategy on cluster development to boost innovation and maximise returns from structural funds and related budgets. But what is the right policy recipe for a perfectly formed cluster?
How to solve the cluster equation?
In 1997, Microsoft opened its first big European lab – and it placed it in what was then Europe's only serious answer to Silicon Valley: Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.
Wanted: more ‘gazelles’ in Europe
The Science|Business Innovation Board says Europe's innovation policies need to change, to encourage high-growth entrepreneurs.
Austrian start-up secures funding for video telephony project
Vienna-based start-up IQ Mobile found that obtaining funding to develop innovative solutions was a straightforward exercise. It was awarded 15 per cent of the costs for its video telephony project and now names Sony BMG as one of its customers.
Hungarian start-up secures 100 per cent funding for photosmart project
Budapest-based start-up eSpirit sought help from European Union Grants Advisor (EUGA) and applied for government funding to develop a new Web-based application. In just over six months, eSpirit received notice that it had secured a grant to cover 100 per cent development costs. The new product will result in significant rise in the company's market share.
Europe’s digital future: the challenges ahead
The Lisbon Strategy's aim is to make the EU ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010'.
Eyes on the prize
Europe will see its first continent-wide prizes for academic spin-off entrepreneurs awarded in Stockholm on 5 December.
European Research Council set for growth, says president
The ERC head urges basic research for economic growth – and charts a course for expansion
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