Microsoft Provides Academia With $300k Research Relevant to Virtual Earth

Microsoft Corp. has announced the recipients of approximately $1 million in academic research funding. Through a request for proposal (RFP) process, Microsoft is encouraging academic research focused on advancing Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ technology as well as developing Trustworthy Computing curriculum projects. The 23 grant recipients represent universities from countries around the world, including in Belgium, India, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The eight winners of the Virtual Earth RFP will receive a total of $300,000 (U.S.), while the 15 winners of the Trustworthy Computing RFP will receive a total of $750,000 (U.S.). The maximum individual grant amount for each RFP is $50,000 (U.S.). More bout the initiative... "The Virtual Earth RFP, initiated and funded by Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and Local Search business units, is designed to encourage university research in areas relevant to digital geography, including spatio-temporal databases, routing, computer vision, ontologies, map user interfaces and visualization. " The eight winners of the Virtual Earth RFP will conduct basic research in digital geographics that is expected to advance the state of the art. More on this including details of the winners can be found inn the offical Pr announcement - see http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/8173/ & see also http://www.research.microsoft.com