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Specifically, a new assistive AI for PowerApps will help convert natural language into workable code. It works exclusively with the Power Fx app in PowerApps and gives users the ability to implement AI tools without have a knowledge of high-level code. As reported by The Verge, this is the first example of Microsoft using the OpenAI GPT-3 language it licensed last year. Microsoft furthered its relationship with OpenAI by exclusively licensing the artificial intelligence company’s GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3)....

The prediction comes after a very healthy stock close for Microsoft on Friday, with shares trading at up to $87. This gave it a market value of $680 billion, and that number has since increased to $722 billion. Comparatively, Apple sits at $876 billion, so Microsoft still has a way to go. However, Morgan Stanley believes that the companies presence in the growing cloud market will grant it a large advantage....

If you are unfamiliar with MileIQ, it is a mileage tracking and logging apps for logistics, shipping, and other haulage organizations. It organizes tracked miles that can be used in tax filings for deductions for the IRS. Microsoft acquired the startup for an undisclosed amount back in 2015. It has since become part of the Office 365/Microsoft 365 suite of applications. In terms of syncing up to the new Android version, MileIQ will prompt users to allow Location Data....

The idea was always to give users a feel of the location and the activities that are available. That concept should translate well to mixed reality, enabling a sort of virtual tourism where users can view cityscapes and landscapes. Currently, though, the app is looking very basic. Microsoft Store screenshots leave a lot to be desired, with a dated interface and low-resolution assets. It’s clear this is in the earlier stages of development, but there’s a lot of potential for those with a compatible headset....

Microsoft has now moved into de facto third most valuable company in the world. At the close of trading on Tuesday, Redmond’s market value was capped at $753 billion. As for Alphabet, the Google owner secured a market value of $739 billion at the end of regular trading. Microsoft Growth It is worth noting that since Google restructured under parent company Alphabet, it has had a lead over Microsoft. Redmond’s growth shows CEO Satya Nadella’s push to make Microsoft a cloud-first company....

Exactly what the company’s offer vary. Some are providing billions of dollars towards bolstering infrastructure while others are helping with education and supply-chain resources. “The reality is, most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone,” Biden said at Wednesday’s meeting. Microsoft led the way by pledging $20 billion over a five-year period to promote advancements in cybersecurity....

Meta – the parent of Facebook – probably has the most realized concept of what its metaverse plans are. Other companies are less defined, including Epic Games which pulled in a $2 billion investment for its metaverse goals but has to say what those goals are. For Microsoft, Brad Smith was talking to CNBC’s TechCheck where he was asked if Microsoft is going to directly rival Meta. Specifically, Meta is going full steam ahead with monetizing its metaverse content, hardly a surprise....

According to the SQL Server engineering team, packs are now available for SQL Server 2016, 2014, 2008-2012, and Server Dashboards. They come with some important fixes, including problems with Always On data source and monitoring scripts. On the server dashboard side, DW early data aggregation so longer crashes on SCOM 2016. SQL Server 2016 New Features However, the individual releases also come with new features. They’re largely the same across versions, so Server 2016 acts as a good example: You can find more information about the individual additions, as well as download links, on the Microsoft blog....

The build combines with an announcement from Microsoft about its Bug Bash event. The Windows team will join users in a week long quest to find and squash any remaining issues. You can join from today until July 23rd and earn badges and more. Windows 10 Build 16241 Of course, the real excitement is in new features and improvements, and thankfully there are plenty in this build. Here’s a summary of the main ones:...

Among them, Microsoft has changed the processor requirements for Windows 10 version 1903. This is the Windows 10 May 2019 Update that rolled out earlier this year. Microsoft has decided to retroactively change the requirements despite version 1903 already being in the wild. The reason for the change is Microsoft’s new Windows Update plan. From now on, Windows 10 will not receive two major feature upgrades each year. Instead, the first half of the year will see the feature upgrade and the second half will bring an update that focuses on improving the first release....

The paper outlines an approach that works despite background noise in the original recording and can work even if the speaker is emotional. Next to previous techniques, Microsoft’s should be able to produce results that are less flat and more accurate. To do so, the team proposes “an explicit audio representation learning framework that disentangles audio sequences into various factors such as phonetic content, emotional tone, background noise, and others”....

Microsoft is looking to change that with its SeeingVR toolkit, which is designed to help Unity devs build more inclusive apps. The tool lets users implement a total of 14 filters to aid vision, with lenses, magnifiers, depth measurements, edge enhancements, text-to-speech, and brightness/contrast adjustments. The beauty of the tool is its ability to help a wide range of users. Those with severe vision impairments will certainly be a target, but it could simply yet people ditch glasses for a while....

Alongside the new model, Microsoft announced DeepSpeed is now open source. This is a platform that is designed to make it significantly easier to train large models. Looking more closely at Turing NLG, it boasts 17 billion parameters, making it twice as large as Nvidia’s Megatron, which was the previous largest Transformer-based language generation model. Compared to OpenAI’s GPT-2, Microsoft’s creation has 10 times as many parameters. If you’re unfamiliar with language generation models based on Transformer architecture, they are built to predict language....

Just like last year, users on Windows 10 are rejecting the new-look Skype experience. As MSpoweruser reports, Windows 10 Insiders are unhappy with the new application. Many of them are making their feelings known and some a threatening to leave the service completely: “Designers shouldn’t compromise the desktop client look and feel to deal with the limitations of a phone. Desktop people want a desktop experience. Slower unintuitive interfaces with less[sic] features is not the way forward....

Game Pass was announced in February as a subscription-based service. It gives gamers unlimited access to over 100 games for $9.99 per month. The titles include Xbox One games and those available from Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility. One of the most interesting aspects of Game Pass is it offers “continuous full-fidelity gameplay”. This essentially means gamers can play without having to worry about stream strength or quality. Sony’s PlayStation Now cannot offer this....

The tablet market is in a funk, sales seem to be on a terminal decline and even industry leader Apple has seen its iPad sales plummet. However, there is one area of the slate market that is doing well and growing, the hybrid market, which includes devices that are both laptop and tablet. The Surface 3, Surface Book, and Surface Pro 4 occupy this category and according to research carried out by 1010data, Microsoft’s hybrids are doing well....

With Acronyms, Microsoft Search uses intelligent models to pick words and definitions from internal organizational websites. Microsoft points out around 2.3% of all internal searchers within a company are for acronyms. If you’re unfamiliar with Microsoft Search, it leverages the power of Microsoft Graph, the new search experience will work across all core apps, including Bing, Office, Windows 10, and Microsoft Edge, Yammer, and SharePoint. Organizations with acronyms across Microsoft services like Yammer, Teams, and SharePoint can use the new search tool to find information....

Admittedly, it’s not all that much to look at. The chunky design of the chip pretty much matches what we saw last year, aside from the copper body. That has the Series X’s code-name, Project Scarlett, emblazoned in the bottom-right corner. Meanwhile, its left features an 8K symbol, setting in stone Microsoft’s target for the next generation. In the left-center is a QR code, which is unfortunately unscannable, while the top left holds a very faint Xbox logo....

You may remember the company allowed customers to buy their Surface Pro over a two-year period. This was achieved through the so-called Klarna Financing plans. Working as an upgrade program, users would be able to trade in their existing Surface for a new model after 18 months. We have seen other companies take this approach, most notably Apple. Microsoft did not explain why it decided to end Surface Plus, although the obvious explanation would be a lack of consumer interest....

This means once Insider features leave preview, they will come to Skype Preview. The app will become the de facto Skype experience for Android. Skype Preview was launched by Microsoft in November. It was part of the company’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) strategy, which arrived with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update in August. It is worth noting that the Android app is currently in beta. Users wanting to use it need to opt in to be a tester before downloading....