Winning the JEDI contract from the Pentagon has been a complicated process. Other companies were removed for the running for simply lacking the cloud infrastructure necessary. Some of those companies, notably Oracle and IBM called for the contract to be split amongst vendors. Political Influence “I think when you have a sitting president who’s willing to publicly show his disdain for a company and the leader of a company, it’s very difficult for government agencies including the DoD to make an objective decision without fear of reprisal....

Tech careers have become more and more sought by candidates dreaming of a rewarding profession, and software development is one of the favorites in this case. Every tech enthusiast’s goal is to have a go at popular, big-name companies like Microsoft, but this career path might be unclear for most. So, what does it take to become a renowned Microsoft developer? A lot of work, of course, but you should also possess some valuable skills we will discuss in the following....

According to Nikkei Asia, Foxconn and Luxshare Precision Industry are testing production runs of the Apple Watch in Vietnam. It is worth noting that this diversification is specific to the Apple Watch and potentially MacBooks. Apple already has a manufacturing presence in Vietnam, with the iPad and AirPod devices made in the country. However, the manufacturing of Apple Watch hardware requires more precision and skilled workers. Foxconn is testing Vietnam to see if it can supply those skilled employees....

1 Azure Data Explorer2 Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flow (Preview) Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 provides more compatibility, especially the Apache system. Microsoft has built ADLS on top of Blob Storage through Gen2. This allows the service to function on Apache, including integration with Apache Spark and Hadoop. Microsoft has reduced compute operations while boosting overall performance by developing a hierarchical namespace (HNS). The HNS supports atomic and folder file operations in Azure Data Lake....

The petition was made at the U.S Bankruptcy Court in the southern district of New York and revealed some financial information. The LLC listed assets between $100,001 and $500,000, and liabilities between $1 and $10 million. The submission was signed on behalf of the firm’s board by Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer, daughters of businessman Robert Mercer. Robert allegedly offered Cambridge Analytica’s services to Nigel Farage’s UKIP in order to secure a successful Brexit vote....

When thinking of Chinese companies, it is still easy to dismiss with a “Chinese Knockoff” jab. A cursory glance on eBay suggests that perception is warranted. However, in the tech sector, China has made its presence felt at all ends of the market. In the smartphone market, Chinese manufacturers sold 48% of all handsets during Q3. Xiaomi, Huawei (the 2nd largest smartphone seller), and Oppo (4th) have enjoyed success with good devices....

The offerings tie into the company’s plan to refocus the assistant from a standalone helper to an aide of sorts. Last year, it announced the ability for enterprises to build custom virtual assistants, and it seems that the theme will continue in 2019. Build will have demos of Microsoft’s Virtual Assistant technology, which uses ties in the company’s Conversational AI cognitive services and Bot Framework for a robust enterprise solution....

1 Neural Network Breakthrough2 From Google to Linguee to DeepL DeepL seeks to change that, combining a supercomputer with “a breakthrough in neural machine translation,” to achieve results translators prefer by a factor of 3:1. Its AI can allegedly capture slight nuances in language unreachable by any other service. It also wins out in some automated tests, with a record BLEU score of 31.1 in English-German and 44.7 in English-French. Google’s previous 2014 score for German was 28....

However, the DoD is asking for an additional 30 days to reach a decision. If allowed, the Pentagon would receive a new September 16 deadline. Specifically, there are concerns “resulting in multiple solicitation amendments, rounds of proposal revisions, and exchanges with the offerors’ that have led it to need more time.” Legal Battle The JEDI war cloud contract is worth $10 billion to a winner. It will upgrade aging DoD systems onto new cloud services....

Facebook has decided to embrace Visual Studio Code to drive its own development. Microsoft’s solution is a good choice considering its widespread support in the open source community. Indeed, VS is mature platform that is perfect of a major development environment. In a blog post, the social network explains why it chose Microsoft’s tool to drive internal development: “Visual Studio Code is a very popular development tool, with great investment and support from Microsoft and the open-source community....

More specifically, though, it won’t let Huawei pre-install Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp on its devices. Things should remain much the same for current users, who will still receive updates and will keep the apps. Arguably, then, this is a short-term positive for new consumers. They won’t have to put up with unwanted apps on their device and can instead install what they need. However, the future of Huawei’s phones is currently quite uncertain....

Facebook is introducing a new feature that shows more details about content on the platforms. Users will see a prompt when they decide to share content. This prompt pushes users to open a link and read the content before sharing in on a news feed. It also warns users that there is a risk that articles are missing key facts. It’s worth noting Facebook will only send the prompt when it detects users have not read an article....

Reuters reports that Facebook (Meta) will pay $725 million to settle the case. The 73-page document highlights how difficult the case has been and that it has had a positive impact on the tech industry. As for the result, this is the largest settlement in Meta/Facebook’s history. Furthermore, it is the highest payment ever in a class-action related to data privacy. However, as part of the settlement Meta is admitting no wrongdoing....

However, his next project is a little more unexpected, and perhaps much needed. USAFacts plans to present government spending data in a way that the layman can understand. According to The New York Times, Ballmer has spent over three years and shelled out $10 million on the project. He’s joined by a team of Seattle-based researchers and some from the University of Pennsylvania, to which he gave a grant....

With that in mind, Forza has been among the best racing titles. Each iteration comes with a dizzying array of vehicle choice, and it seems Forza Horizon 4 will be no different. While the game is not set to launch for another four months, some crafty fans have uncovered a partial list of cars. The leak was harvested from game files from fans who pre-ordered Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition from the Windows Store....

France will lead the initiative and will prepare a proposal for “simpler rules” that will create “real taxation” and stop companies that “minimize taxes and grab market share”. The drafted rules will be considered in September during a European Union meeting. France finance minister Bruno Le Maire believes with German input, Europe-wide rules can be implemented more rapidly. While Germany is not working with France, it is believed to be working on its own similar laws....

Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, unveiled the FTC investigation in a letter last week. It was later picked up by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and reported this week. “The commission has a strong interest in protecting consumer confidence in the online marketplace, including the robust online market for hotel and travel,” Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairwoman of the FTC, wrote to Baldwin. “When consumers are unable to post honest reviews about a business, it can harm other consumers whose abilities to make well-informed purchase decisions are hindered and harm businesses that work hard to earn positive reviews....

UBS’ accolade of the world’s biggest wealth manager comes with some challenges, and the company is looking to Microsoft to solve them. Using Azure, the company is powering its risk management platform, which runs millions of calculations each day. According to Microsoft, Azure results in a 100% increase in circulation time, as well as 40% savings on infrastructure costs. In turn, this lets employees make faster, more informed decisions. “Increasing the agility and scalability of our technology infrastructure is crucial to the bank’s strategy,” said Paul McEwen, UBS Group Head of Technology Services....

Security firm Kaspersky Lab reports Chrome extension developers are now using ads. Again, most users may be willing to accept ads for a free service, but Kaspersky says many developers are aggressively placing ads and creating extensions loaded with adware. If you are unfamiliar with the term adware, it basically means when an app or website bombards the user with ads. This could be in the form of unwanted pop-ups that arrive at the worst moments, pop-ups that open to other sites when trying to close them, or ads that won’t close....

1 iPhone X meeting high demand2 Apple preparing for Xmas-sales of iPhone X iPhone X meeting high demand The first batch of the smartphone, which has been available since the beginning of November, was sold out quickly, and since then the iPhone X has been relatively difficult to obtain. However, certain model variants are always available in individual stores of the company. The online store lists devices that can then be picked up on specific sites....