The citizens of Fulton, a town in Rock County, Wisconsin, will use the new system via VotingWorks machines for a Supreme Court candidate primary. However, the final vote will be tallied via paper ballots, which will also be printed after a user votes. To verify the reliability of Microsoft’s software, paper ballots will be checked against ElectionGuard results “ElectionGuard generates a ballot tracking code which voters can use to verify their vote counted in the final tally,” explained the Wisconsin Elections Commission....

We reported this week how the company is taking a pro-union stance in contrast to its Big Tech rivals. In the latest move, Microsoft is halting the use of non-compete agreements, post-settlement NDAs, and public information on salary ranges. Furthermore, Microsoft will also commission an audit into the civil rights culture within the organization. In a briefing, the company says the decisions are “further deepening our employee relationships and enhancing our workplace culture....

This latest release tackles new Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaws in the platform. Microsoft is warning customers to update their Exchange Server as quickly as possible, although no exploit for these vulnerabilities has been observed in the wild. The company was told of the vulnerabilities by the National Security Agency (NSA). Microsoft Exchange Server is in the midst of an attack through an exploit first used by the HAFNIUM group....

The expansion was announced by Microsoft president Brad Smith, who says the digital skills learning initiative will now reach more people. “Our plans are grounded in a vision of what is needed for a more inclusive post-pandemic recovery,” Smith writes. “A new generation of 21st-century infrastructure calls for new investments that will broaden access to the digital devices and broadband connectivity that have become the lifeblood of commerce, healthcare[,] and education....

In a blog post, Microsoft says users of Excel can now view up-to-date stock information across major U.S. exchanges in Nasdaq and stocks data from Refinitiv. The latter is a leading provider of financial markets data. “Anyone with an interest in financial information needs quick, reliable data to navigate today’s complex and fast-moving global markets,” said Brennan Carley, Global Head of Enterprise at Refinitiv. “Refinitiv has many years’ experience in delivering data to financial professionals within Microsoft Excel and we are now delighted to give everyday investors access to these capabilities via our partnership with Microsoft....

The Azure status history (via ZDNet) reveals the issue was caused by a faulty DNS migration. Microsoft was moving services from a legacy DNS system to Azure DNS when incorrect updates led to serious issues. “During the migration of a legacy DNS system to Azure DNS, some domains for Microsoft services were incorrectly updated,” reads the statement. “No customer DNS records were impacted during this incident, and the availability of Azure DNS remained at 100% throughout the incident....

It’s also not a sight you may have expected before Satya Nadella took over. Since 2014, the new CEO has rebuilt the company with a laser focus on cloud and enterprise, to huge success. The company’s share price has risen from $27.22 to over $96 under his guidance, and is poised for further growth. Still Trailing Apple Nadella re-organized the company for a stronger focus on Cloud and AI, two areas he believes will be essential going forward....

“An authenticated attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a specially crafted email message to a victim,” explained Microsoft. “The attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could then perform cross-site scripting attacks on the affected systems and run scripts in the security context of the current user.” XSS works by injecting scripts into a user’s webpages to trick the PC into believing they come from a trusted source. The Outlook vulnerability was found by security researcher Rafael Pablos....

Furthermore, Microsoft Flight Simulators is also getting updates for its partnership series. Insiders have also been given more information about the SDK. Looking at Alpha 4, it comes with new content. Specifically, Microsoft has added new flight models throughout the game. All plane models in Flight Simulator received improvements. Microsoft says these improvements focus on weight and balance to make plane behavior more accurate. In terms of plane tweaks, Microsoft has solved issues on the B747-8i, A320neo, C152, Bonanza G36, and the TBM 930....

GitHub will be a household name for any developer, and its inclusion here is a natural consequence of Microsoft acquiring the company in 2018. Its Enterprise subscription gives users unlimited collaborators per repository, 50,000 action minutes per month, 50GB of GitHub package storage, and advanced auditing. The PowerPlatform is the company’s umbrella for data analysis tool Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. Its inclusion should help young enterprises make data-driven decisions and increase efficiency across various aspects of the business....

Thanks to this Unity Package, users can project their OneDrive photos into the real world, using Microsoft HoloLens. Apart from HoloLens, this app requires a OneDrive account with albums of photos. The images can either be auto-generated or created by users. Holographic Photo Project lets users relive their memories in a much more immersive way. Here is what you can do with the new app: “Link OneDrive albums to 3D, holographic “souvenirs” Place holographic souvenirs in your physical space View your photos in 3D photo arrangements Cycle through all the photos in your albums”...

According to AndroidCentral, Microsoft has rolled out the full Android Office suite to ChromeOS. In doing so, Microsoft is bringing its popular, market leading, productivity suite to Google’s platform. This makes Chromebooks wholly more versatile and it is hard to see how Microsoft is not just doing Google a huge favor. ChromeOS may fall short of the functionality of Windows, but it has been hugely successful with education customers. A potent mix of affordable Chromebook hardware and ease of use have helped ChromeOS....

“We are freshening up the Start menu with a more streamlined design that removes the solid color backplates behind the logos in the apps list and applies a uniform, partially transparent background to the tiles,” Microsoft says in a blog post. The emphasis on this re-design seems to be focused on reducing the importance of Live Tiles on the Windows 10 Start. As Microsoft noted in March, Live Tiles don’t mesh well with its new Fluent Design icons....

Zebra Technologies develops devices in sectors such as healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, retail, and more. By leveraging Microsoft Intune, the company will get a more complete experience in Android device administrator mode. Microsoft says Android Enterprise management will arrive later in the year. It is worth noting Intune is already part of Zebra devices through the service’s Android settings management. However, the companies say a deeper integration allows customers to access complete device management tools on Zebra devices....

The collective is based in the office of Microsoft’s CTO, Kevin Scott, and headed by Jaron Lanier, one of the founding fathers of virtual reality and a prominent critic of data collection and social media. “Data is one of the most valuable resources in the world today. Right now, the ability to sell data is gated in a lopsided, artificially-limited market. Most people are unable to take any economic actions around their data, while it is collected and sold often without their knowledge or permission,” reads the project’s description....

“Since this is a new application, the number of coding challenges is high: taking advantage of conceptual services for voice command and control, identifying interesting components in the context of the application, interacting with the entire desktop, interacting with 10X OS in new ways within the scope of security and integrity,” said the job posting. We were unable to find the posting to verify this information, but it’s more bad news for Cortana if true....

For enterprises running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, it is less of a problem. Most desktop applications for those builds run perfectly in Windows 10. However, some legacy apps do not function well on a modern browser, such as Microsoft Edge. Rewriting these older apps for new browsers in impractical from a perspective of cost and time. Microsoft has brought Internet Explorer 11 to Windows 10 to ensure these legacy apps are supported without any new versions needing to be made....

Announced by Major Nelson on his official blog, Bleeding Edge is an Xbox Game Studios exclusive. Like other titles under the umbrella, the studio services as the publisher of the game. In terms of Bleeding Edge, the game is developed by Ninja Theory. You may recognize the name as the company behind Devil May Cry and Hellblade II. This marks the first time the developer has released a game under Xbox Game Studios....

Furthermore, Security Policy Advisor will provide information about the existing security infrastructure of an organization. IT admins will have several tools within the Security Policy Advisor toolkit, including the ability to tailor recommendations. The service can also provide in-depth insights based on data gathered within Office 365 ProPlus. The full capabilities of the solution include: “Tailored recommendations for specific security policies that can provide a high value in helping to raise the overall security posture of an enterprise and helping to protect against contemporary attacks....

SDT for Business is available for users running the Surface Pro 3 or any Surface hardware released after that device. Microsoft points out the tool is specifically for IT admins in organizations and is not a consumer-fronted feature. As mentioned, the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit for Business covers several factors. Microsoft detailed what the features of the SDT are: If SDT finds hardware issues, it generates a report, pinpointing potential causes and recommended troubleshooting steps....