Microsoft Looks to Get More From Live Labs Researchers

Microsoft is restructuring its Live Labs research group, sending about half the researchers to work within product groups at the company.

The goal is to increase the likelihood that Microsoft's investments in research will translate into products that will actually ship, said Stacy Drake, a spokeswoman for Microsoft.

"Economic conditions do play a role" in the changes, she said. Moving the Live Labs researchers into product groups will allow them to contribute directly to those products.

Drake would not say how many people were in the Live Labs group, but she said roughly half would remain there. They'll focus broadly on Web experiences including exploration, information retrieval and discovery, navigation, and organization approaches, she said.

Live Labs launched early in 2006 under the direction of Gary Flake, who will continue to lead what remains of the group. He came to Microsoft from Yahoo, where he ran the company's research lab.

Researchers at Live Labs developed and launched Photosynth, a technology that can stitch together hundreds of photographs into one large image that viewers can navigate around. They also developed Seadragon, another photo application that lets users view a photo of a distant city skyline, for example, and zoom in close enough to clearly see a person in a window.