Microsoft’s efforts to develop underwater datacenters was launched in 2014. In 2017, Project Natick was selected among the 190 finalists of the first World Changing Ideas Awards. By 2018, the project was ready and deployed underwater off the coast of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Power came from the European Marine Energy Centre, a project set up to monitor renewable energy from tidal power. Since 2018, Microsoft’s 40-foot capsule has sat on the sea floor with 864 servers on board and 117 feet of Atlantic Ocean above it....

If you are unfamiliar with xCloud, it is a service that allows users to play Xbox One games anywhere. It works on any device, including smartphones. Because all data and computing power is hosted in the cloud, gamers can get console-grade gaming from Xbox on their handsets. Project xCloud has been in preview since last October and Microsoft is using developer and user feedback to make the platform more efficient....

In the written piece, Andersen cites the Answer ALS initiative as an example of positive data sharing. The project is centered on leveraging AI research to improve treatments for ALS. Companies who a part of the initiative are able to share data openly. Microsoft has previously voiced the need to share data for good causes. In April, the world watched in shock as Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire....

In a blog post, Microsoft says this is the first step towards creating a quantum computer and is part of the company’s ongoing collaboration with QuTech. Leo Kouwenhoven, Scientific Director of Microsoft Quantum Lab Delft, said the project shows how business, science, and governments can work together to advance technology: “With the opening of this Lab, we see what is possible when business, science, and the government unite. Together, we have built a world-class laboratory in Delft which will enable us to expedite development of a revolutionary quantum computer....

1 Intelligent Cloud2 More Personal Computing Specifically, Microsoft posted a 14% jump in revenue year-on-year (YoY), totaling $36.9 billion. In terms of breaking down the revenue across divisions, Microsoft Productivity and Business Processes took $11.8 billion for 17% growth, Intelligent Cloud managed $11.9 billion with 27% growth, and More Personal Computing grew 2% with $13.2 billion. Let’s start with Productivity and Business Process, which includes services around Office and workplace solutions....

Announced in 2019, Project Acoustics is a solution that is similar to static lighting meshes that are integrated, allowing shadows and light sources to be calculated beforehand. Project Acoustics “models wave effects like occlusion, obstruction, portaling and reverberation effects in complex scenes without requiring manual zone markup or CPU intensive raytracing.” With the release of version 2.0, Microsoft is adding new tools for Acoustics’ integrations with the Unity and Unreal game engines....

Windows Defender ATP was launched in 2016 and is aimed at enterprise customers on Windows 10. The service provides an early barrier against cyberattacks, detecting and dealing with incoming threats on enterprise networks. Microsoft has expanded on what we can expect from the iOS and Android versions of Advanced Threat Protection. It is likely the mobile apps will be significantly different on mobile and maybe only focus on specific areas of protection....

While news on the Control Center has been scarce, Microsoft has been working on it behind the scenes. Lucan on Twitter has posted a screenshot of the Control Center running on Windows 10. It is worth noting the feature is currently hidden and to access it users must run Mach2 software. The center gives easier access to numerous settings without having to go into the actual Windows Settings app. If you check out the screenshot above, you can see which settings are available....

1 Windows 10 Cloud2 CloudBook3 Microsoft Office to the Windows Store According to the announcement Microsoft released back in April, the hardware and software event will get underway 9:30 AM ET on May 2nd. This spring event has been rumored to be the place where Microsoft will unveil several new software and hardware, discussing the future in education. What exactly could we expect, from the upcoming event? According to several reports, Microsoft might be ready to unveil the alleged Windows 10 Cloud OS, a highly-anticipated, low-cost version of Windows 10....

The method makes it easier to share content in meetings and immerse groups into presentations. MeetAlive was introduced by Hrvoje Benko, Andreas Rene Fender, Andy Wilson at the ISS 2017 – ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces. Researchers from Microsoft married several depth cameras and screen projectors to achieve an omnidirectional display surface. The tool is room-scale and essentially means participants in a meeting will be surrounded by screens....

As the company points out in a blog post, the new IoT Core Services will be supported for 10 years. However, there will be no feature updates, which will be reserved for the semi-annual Windows 10 IoT Core. Microsoft says locking down IoT Core Service away from updates will allow the company to focus on maintaining stability. There are several benefits that come with the new system. For example, as mentioned the service is supported through Windows Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) for 10 years: “Devices using the LTSC release won’t receive feature updates, enabling them to focus on stability by minimizing changes to the base operating system....

The Microsoft Research team was at ACM CHI 2018 to present SilentVoice. At its core, the technology monitors the 50% of your voice used when breathing in, rather than breathing out. Whispering into the microphone will produce clearer recordings. One upside of this support is the ability to talk quietly even with a lot of surrounding noise. Microsoft explains how SilentVoice uses an “ingressive speech” method to block out noise and maintain clarity: “SilentVoice is a new voice input interface device that penetrates the speech-based natural user interface (NUI) in daily life....

For the unfamiliar, Microsoft’s app helps developers create UWP apps with Visual Studio via a detailed install wizard. It lets users get a basic framework up very quickly, saving time for even the most experience. The latest update brings a ton of new functionality, including a highly-anticipated one: support for the Visual Basic language. Here’s the full list of changes: “New Programming Language Support: Visual Basic New Framework Support: Prism framework Updated Feature: URI Schema launching for Caliburn....

Today, Microsoft was at DJI’s AirWorks conference and announced the public preview of the Windows SDK for drones. The Windows SDK will allow developers to create applications for Windows 10 PCs that control DJI drones. Indeed, the Windows developer community can integrate and control third-party solutions like robotic components and customer actuators. In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft highlights three ways to leverage Azure AI to function in drone cameras:...

The announcement was made recently by Corey Sanders, director of program management for Azure Compute. Sanders was speaking at a webinar presentation titled “Running VMware on Azure”, which is available on demand now. Users don’t have to wait until 2018 to get their hands on the new Azure Migrate. Microsoft has already opened it as a free preview. It is also worth noting that the company first introduced the feature back in September....

1 Upcoming Features2 For Organizations Microsoft says the core focus of the new solution is to integrate into Microsoft 365 and help organizations enhance their search. The feature will bring results to apps from across a business. Indeed, these surfaced search results can be accessed wherever the user is. The upside of Microsoft Search is it gives organizations the ability to access business-wide data easily and more or less in real time....

This individual or group are monetizing clicks that happen through a browser node-webkit or infected browser extension. These components are placed onto a user’s device without them knowing. Microsoft points out that the attack begins when a user unwittingly clicks on YouTube comments links or malicious ads. As always with these types of threats, the attack relies on fooling the user into believing they are interacting with something legitimate. When the victim clicks the comment/ad, an ISO file downloads pretending to offer game cheats....

The product was announced by Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Security, Compliance, Identity, and Management at Microsoft. In a blog post, Jakkal revealed Microsoft Security Experts is a combination of three new service components: Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, and Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise. The first component, Defender Experts for Hunting is designed for businesses with an existing security operations center. It will add assistance from Microsoft on top of the existing infrastructure to improve hunting for security threats....

In a blog post, Microsoft’s security team says the “8220 gang” threat group has been using the malware recently. Specifically, to exploit a vulnerability in the Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Center. The bug at the center of this attack is tracked as CVE-2022-26134. 8220 gang has spent the last year updating its malware payloads and deployment techniques. Microsoft says the latest campaign shows more sophisticated attacks targeting the i686 and x86_64 Linux systems using the RCE exploits for the Atlassian Confluence flaw to access victims....

As reported by ZDNet, the phishing campaign has been happening since December 2019 but later leveraged the COVID-19 pandemic as an attack method. Bad actors would send emails to Office 365 account holders design to look like they came from their employer or co-workers. Microsoft describes the campaign as unique because it used a rare attack method. Usually, phishing attacks will attempt to redirect users to a nefarious website designed to look official....