Today marks the release of some of the Azure Service Fabric SDK under an MIT license. For those unfamiliar, Microsoft announced Service Fabric in 2015, coming out of its efforts in Skype for Business, Cortana, and other cloud services. Essentially, it helps developers build distributed applications that are highly reliable and scalable. It does so by running in clusters of containers across several virtual machine, all running in Azure....
According to Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty, that may be about to change. In an interview, he said Microsoft would be willing to release cross-platform versions of its games if it “makes sense”. It is worth noting Microsoft has played nice in some gaming areas. The company’s Minecraft title is available across form factors and platforms. So much so the game can also be played through the Cross-Play feature where people can share sessions across those platforms (excluding PlayStation)....
“The cloud based solution will support DOI employees by improving work collaboration methods, documentation flows, communication capabilities, streamlined email usage and management and overall increased business performance of DOI’s mission, cost and support objectives,” says the statement of work. “DOI goals include developing an integrated partnership to build a project that transitions accounts, data, technical controls, authentication or access capabilities and applications that make up the current cloud email and collaboration system into a modernized, secure, service enriched, email and collaboration system....
While this is a new variant, Microsoft has decided not to discontinue the dual-core 7th Gen Surface Book 2 it replaces. Instead, that device has now received a price discount to $1,299. As for the new refreshed version running the quad core i5 is available for $1,499. In essence, Microsoft has created a new Surface Book tier. The dual-core 7th Gen laptop stays as the entry level with a price drop and the new core i5 silicon is a new tier sitting just above entry level....
Alongside its other extensions in the Chrome store, Microsoft is now offering Windows 10 Accounts. The solution is automatically pushed to devices via Group Policy and offers Azure AD users a single sign on to integrated services. For example, you sign into your work account with your regular account and will have access to services like Office 365, OneDrive, and more. Here’s the official description: “Use this extension to sign in to supported websites with accounts on Windows 10....
Microsoft explains that Code Builder is an extension “that allows educators and students to explore, create, and play in an immersive Minecraft world – all by writing code.” Players can get their hands on learn-to-code packages such as ScratchX, Tynker, and the new open source platform Microsoft MakeCode. These packages provide players with familiar tools, templates, and tutorials. In addition, the company reveals that later this year Code.org will bring Code Studio to Code Builder....
For Surface Studio, the main focus is security. Updates to the management engine, UEFI firmware, and dTMP firmware fix a ‘potential security vulnerability’. A final update to the intel management engine interface improves recovery for Connected Standby. However, a much bigger set of updates have come to the Surface Book. Here’s Microsoft’s full list: This time, there are some interesting improvements. Notably, users should experience better video performance, better dGPU performance, and more accurate speech recognition....
Designed to remove the barriers of AI integration, Vision AI Developer Kit is now generally available. Created to accelerate AI use on the intelligent edge, the kit sports a camera using Qualcomm’s Vision Intelligence 300 platform. Software is also included that helps developers create intelligent edge solutions through Azure IoT Edge and Azure Machine Learning. Developers can leverage the kit to access an end-to-end tool that brings Azure-powered real-time image processing to local edge devices....
The company has been busy the last week preparing the Xbox One for the Windows 10 Creators Update. As the releases now come more often, the number of features has dried up. This makes sense as Microsoft is now finalizing the Redstone 2 release ahead of its April launch. Indeed, we fully expect these updates to stop entirely after this week. As for the latest release, it brings the Alpha release from Sunday to select users on the Beta and Ring 3 branches....
Microsoft’s interest in GPT-3 reflects a growing use of transformer-based deep learning models. More organizations are using these models because they perform better understanding semantic relationships. One of the problems Microsoft has found when relating transformer-based deep learning is that nuances in relationships are often beyond the models. Microsoft Research has now created a neural network that nearly matches the capabilities of GPT-3. With 135 billion parameters, it is the biggest universal AI model ever built....
In an open letter, Smith says the Microsoft team is currently in New Zealand but did not plan to be visiting under such circumstances. The country has been shocked by a mass shooting that claimed the lives of 50 people in Christchurch. A gunman opened fire in two mosques’ earlier this month in the country’s worst-ever act of terrorism. The perpetrator was able to livestream the event on Facebook without the stream being removed....
This is the Canary branch of the preview. If you are unfamiliar with how Microsoft is previewing Edge, it runs under three branches, Beta, Developer, and Canary. Beta is the most stable channel but has yet to be opened. Canary is the least stable channel where bleeding edge changes are made through daily updates. As Mac users only appear to be getting Canary releases, there are some things to consider....
According to Thurrott, it doesn’t seem these refunds are rolling out to all users, or for all titles, at once. Rather, it’s a slow gradual process and customers will get one email for each book they purchased. This includes free books, which could end in a lot of email spam for heavy users. Why Did the Ebook Store Fail? With the release of Chromium Edge (with no dedicated e-reader) and likely disappointing sales, the shuttering wasn’t surprising....
In a 2017 study, Microsoft found that AI can amplify sexist bias in datasets. It was also forced to improve its facial recognition error rate for people of color, to the tune of 2000%. Similar issues have risen with competitors, with a self-driving Uber car mowing down a pedestrian. “This is the point in the cycle[…]where we need to engineer responsibility into the very fabric of the technology,” said Shum at the event....
Available via Azure, NDv2 can scale up to 800 Nvidia Tensor Core GPUs, which are interconnected with Mellanox InfiniBand. Interested parties can rent an entire supercomputer to meet their needs, with extreme benefits to speed. With a pre-release version of the Cluster, Microsoft and Nvidia managed to train conversational AI model BERT in around three hours. That doesn’t beat Nvidia’s previous record of 53 minutes, but at 8.3 billion parameters, consumers are still getting very good speeds....
Draft has been created to help developers with not prior experience with Kubernetes or Docker. It aids them through process and gets them start with tools early in the workflow. The tool analyses applications code when a dev runs it from the command line. Through the analysis, Draft detects the language being used and automatically creates the source files to prepare if to run on Kubernetes. In the documentation for the open source service, Microsoft says this is a valuable tool....
A big part of making productivity on Samsung devices is deeper integration with Office 365 apps. Of course, any Android users can download Microsoft’s Office apps from the Google Play Store, so what’s different about Samsung devices? ZDNet reports Microsoft is delivering a single “Office Mobile” app for Samsung phones. Part of Microsoft’s expanded collaboration with Samsung was pre-loading Office apps on handsets. However, this did not mean individual apps (such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) like on other Android devices....
According to Microsoft, “continued testing and feedback from users” shows Memory Integrity and Virtual Machine Platform (VMP) can both create slower performance during gameplay. “Gamers who want to prioritize performance have the option to turn off these features while gaming and turn them back on when finished playing,” points out Microsoft in the support document. “However, if turned off, the device may be vulnerable to threats.” Memory Integrity is built into the OS to ensure drivers are secure before they are installed on a system....
The feature is similar to OneDrive Files on Demand. Users are able to store work files on devices and access them on other devices. For example, an enterprise can stop work files and users can access them from their own device. This is known as bring-your-own device (BYOD). Users will also be able to access Windows Work Folders on corporate machines. They can be deployed alongside existing Folder Redirection, Offline Files, and home folders deployments....
The council consists of 15 teens from across the U.S. who were selected for their experiences with online harassment and other risks. The council presented the letter at Microsoft’s Innovation and Policy Center in D.C., where it was seen by leaders of tech companies like Snap Inc. and organizations like UNICEF. “As young people who have encountered some of these problems firsthand, our goal as the Council for Digital Good is to provide strategies, solutions and resources for other young people in these situations,” it reads....
