Posts

Windows Server users on the Insider are now moving to build 18945, which brings a new feature. The server OS now has the ability to authenticate hybrid environments through FIDO2 security keys. As for app developers leveraging the Windows 10 SDK, preview build 18945 adds the ability to sing apps with Device Guard Signing. This feature can be downloaded through the Microsoft Store for Windows Education and Businesses users. Elsewhere on the SDK, Microsoft has revealed some API changes....

In a paper to detail the DeepSinger, Microsoft says it trains the AI with data from music-focused websites. Using a uniquely designed component, the research team could train the AI to separate the timbre of a singer’s voice even in noisy data. According to Microsoft Research, training AI to understand singing voices is more complicated than regular spoken language. That’s because rhythms and patterns are different. To overcome this, the AI needs to focus on the duration and pitch of the words....

1 The Race is On2 E3 Stadia will be available on PCs, laptops, phones, tablets, and TVs regardless of hardware. As expected, the service will support 1080p at 60fps per second, but there are plans to scale to 4K 60fps HDR in the future. Google claims that Stadia’s users will be able to go from watching a YouTube video of a game to playing it in just five seconds. “Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big,” says Spencer....

Starting with the latter, Microsoft has simplified the sign-in experience, allowing users to set a security key from the Settings app. Over the last few weeks, we have reported on Microsoft’s decision to update its icons across services. The first signs of Windows 10’s new icons are included in Preview Build 18298 in the form of a new icon for the File Explorer. Speaking of File Explorer, Microsoft has also changed the Downloads folder to sort the most recent downloaded file at the top by default… finally!...

Speaking to Business Insider, Nucleus Research analyst Daniel Elman says the company could be ideal for Microsoft. “Bloomberg is the preeminent financial information source with a colossal user base,” Elman says “Microsoft would get that user base and all of those customers.” However, attractive does not mean perfect but before getting to the pros and cons of Microsoft acquiring Bloomberg, let’s first look at why the company may soon be for sale....

1 Eligibility2 Payments For individuals and companies alike, identity data has become a hugely important aspect of online life. Customers and service users need a digital identity to access products and tools across the internet. Organizations use identity data across multiple domains and machines within a network. The company says the Identity Bounty Program extends its commitment to protecting user data online. Microsoft wants security researchers to privately disclose vulnerabilities they find in its various Identity services....

For those who don’t work from home and are on an hourly contract, coronavirus can pose a significant threat. Microsoft gives the example of workers who work in the cafe, do on-site tech support, or shuttle employees around. As employees shift to working from home, their presence will naturally be less requested. “We’ve decided that Microsoft will continue to pay all our vendor hourly service providers their regular pay during this period of reduced service needs,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith in a blog post....

However, it’s worth noting that the bot has managed to get itself in trouble with the Chinese government in the past. It was previously removed by Tencent for saying “My China dream is to go to America”, and dodging questions about patriotism. The bot was similarly removed from QQ for privacy concerns in 2014, so it’s clearly a difficult situation to navigate. Generally, China has very strict free-speech laws, especially when it comes to the communist party....

ONNX creates a standard open platform for AI models that will work across frameworks. Its main features include: “Framework interoperability: Developers can more easily move between frameworks and use the best tool for the task at hand. Each framework is optimized for specific characteristics such as fast training, supporting flexible network architectures, inferencing on mobile devices, etc. Many times, the characteristic most important during research and development is different than the one most important for shipping to production....

First reports of the problem started on Monday and stretched into this morning (March 16). Microsoft has now updated its Azure Status Twitter to confirm the issue has been mitigated. “Engineers have confirmed the issue impacting Azure Active Directory has been mitigated.” When complaints first came in, Microsoft issued the following statement regarding Azure Active Directory: “CURRENT STATUS: Engineering teams have identified a potential underlying cause and are exploring mitigation options....

Microsoft Teams Premium is a new version of the platform that Microsoft says will provide AI-driven performance that acts like a virtual assistant during a meeting. This is known as Intelligent Recap and it will generate tasks, create new meeting chapters, and take personalized highlights from recordings. Users can also access live translations for captions for over 40 languages. Furthermore, Teams Premium adds the following meetings tools: “New meeting guides that automatically set up the right meeting options....

The main addition here is Whiteboard, which is now integrated with Microsoft Teams on Android. The feature comes a week after Microsoft brought Whiteboard to its Teams application on Apple’s iOS. Whiteboard was launched on Windows 10 last year. A collaborative application, Whiteboard integrates with inking capabilities of Microsoft Office to bring content to a screen that can be used by multiple users across devices. Users can work together either locally or online with touch support....

That tool allows natural language processing. Users can type conversational tasks and Microsoft To-Do will automatically convert it into tasks with related dates and times. Microsoft is clearly happy with this feature and has published a video to accompany the ability. That’s rare for an update so this is clearly a tool Microsoft thinks will add value to the To-Do experience. Elsewhere in Microsoft To-Do Version 2.5, the app has received improvements to the dark mode....

The event will be a part of the company’s annual Future Decoded event. Microsoft will be hosting that event between Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 in the ExCel in London. If the new report is correct, the company will open the event with a Surface focused keynote. The only real question is what devices we can expect to see at the event. Well, when discussing Microsoft products, the Surface Pro often takes center stage....

The update will be coming to Windows Insiders on the Skip Ahead ring, which means general users can expect it in early 2019. Microsoft is currently finishing up its last update of 2018, codenamed Redstone 5 and won’t be adding any new features. Either way, it’s exciting news for Sticky Notes’ passionate user base and there’s plenty Microsoft can improve. We’d love to see integration with Microsoft To-Do, and cross-PC syncing, but Jooyandeh is yet to reveal any details....

22 of those flaws are critical ones, with 4 remote code executions and 18 affecting browsers and scripting engines. One of the most high profile is CVE-2019-0863, and escalation of privilege in Windows Error Reporting that attackers have been exploiting in the wild. Microsoft is also fixing issues on Android with Skype, where a flaw let attackers stealthily listen in on a conversation. By calling a device with Skype installed and paired with a Bluetooth device, they could piggyback on the call....

That experience has now been improved further, offering more granular control and management capabilities to admins. This should let them bring automation capabilities to more users and therefore increase productivity. They’ll also be able to see which Flows are most used and how via the admin center. In addition, Microsoft has been working on better integrations Flow in its apps. Users can now trigger a flow from within Microsoft Teams chat....

The investment today brings the funding total to $55m. Synack previously gained support from GGV Capital, GV (previously Google Ventures), and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. It’s an impressive total from some of the world’s biggest tech firms. According to CEO Jay Kaplan, much of Synack’s success comes from its offensive approach. “The best defense is a good offense. Businesses can only stay one step ahead of the adversary by beating them at their own game,” he said....

If you are unfamiliar with VI, it automatically creates metadata through user media. It achieves this by transcribing the video in any of 10 languages supported in Microsoft Translator. This allows the indexer to add subtitles to the file. VI also leverages facial recognition technology to detect all people in the video. If the person/s are well known enough, the app will assign a name tag. Alternatively, users can add the name themselves....

Hafnium is known as a state-sponsored hacking group. Microsoft says it has found the defense evasion malware Tarrask within Windows. According to the Microsoft Detection and Response Team (DART), the OS remains vulnerable to attack. “As Microsoft continues to track the high-priority state-sponsored threat actor HAFNIUM, new activity has been uncovered that leverages un-patched zero-day vulnerabilities as initial vectors. Further investigation reveals forensic artifacts of the usage of Impacket tooling for lateral movement and execution and the discovery of a defense evasion malware called Tarrask that creates ‘hidden’ scheduled tasks, and subsequent actions to remove the task attributes, to conceal the scheduled tasks from traditional means of identification....