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(Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc. has started a new research team to work on areas like virtual-reality and augmented-reality content creation, and raided Microsoft’s research labs for its first three hires.

The social network’s new Seattle-based Computational Photography applied research group website lists Michael Cohen, Rick Szeliski and Matt Uyttendaele. All three were previously at Microsoft Research, working on projects like Hyperlapse, a technology for stabilizing videos, and Blink, which takes a burst of multiple photos to get a good shot.

Uyttendaele’s LinkedIn says he joined Facebook in October, although his page on Microsoft’s research site is still there. When asked about the hires, Menlo Park, California-based Facebook referred to the Web page, and declined to make the new employees available for interviews.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, confirmed the departures in an e-mailed statement.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net; Sarah Frier in San Francisco at sfrier1@bloomberg.net; Jack Clark in San Francisco at jclark185@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net Andrew Pollack