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This new Microsoft division first fell on the radar earlier this month. According to Windows Latest, the Android Microsoft Platform and Experiences is starting to take shape. As we heard before, Microsoft AMPX will improve the way Android integrates with Windows 11. Moreover, the division will focus on the ongoing development of a link between Windows 11 and Android. This will include products related to this link, including Phone Link, the Surface Duo smartphone OS, Microsoft Launcher, SwiftKey, and more....

In return for the tax, the group wants overhauls of existing regulations surrounding climate change. Specifically, the goal of the CLC is “protecting companies from federal and state tort liability for historic emissions”. Microsoft has recently called for more action to solve climate change, but ironically has become the first tech company to join the CLC. On the surface, joining a group including fuel giants like BP, Total, ExxonMobil, and Shell hardly screams the company is dedicated to environmental changes....

“Through a combination of market-approved journeys, reference architectures, select service partners, and the power of the Microsoft Azure cloud, customers will be able to accelerate their digital transformation,” explained Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president, one commercial partner. “Embrace will help customers better manage refactoring and ongoing support costs, access the latest innovations, and improve the performance of SAP applications by leveraging Microsoft and SAP’s unified blueprint running S/4HANA on Microsoft Azure”....

If you are unfamiliar with a security baseline, it is a collection of configuration settings that Microsoft recommends. Industry-standard configurations can help organizations roll out tested security infrastructure at reduced cost. In terms of Microsoft’s security baselines, the company keeps them updated and uses customer feedback to improve configurations. In terms of baselines for Intune, Microsoft says they allow greater manageability of Windows 10 through Mobile Device Management (MDM). All baseline configurations will be updated and managed on the cloud via Microsoft 365....

However, one of the most drastic improvements is performance. Users should note that Sticky Notes 3.0 starts faster and responds more quickly. This makes it much more useful if you need to write something down in a pinch, and comes with added stability. In terms of design, the difference isn’t huge, but Fluent Design elements have begun to creep their way in. This is particularly noticeable in the app’s new home, which lets you choose which notes to display and which to hide....

That has happened as Microsoft is now ranked 4th again, but the company has crossed a market cap of over $800 billion for the first time. The milestone market capitalization figure was reached this week. Back in May, Microsoft was valued at $753 billion so has continued growth in recent months. However, Google’s growth appears to have been sharper as the company has regained third spot. Race to the Top It is also clear that all these companies are thriving despite what their rivals do....

If you are unfamiliar with Azure SQL Data Sync, it is a tool that lets users synchronize data between Azure SQL Database and other SQL endpoints. This can be achieved eithers bidirectionally or unidirectionally. Other capabilities of the service include enabling hybrid SQL deployment and local data from Azure and on-premises apps. “It also allows you to deploy your data applications globally with a local copy of data in each region, and keep data synchronized across all the regions,” Microsoft explains....

Office 365 will get its new app launcher over the next couple of months. The key change in the launcher is a fresh design. However, Microsoft points out apps will still be available on the launcher. What apps appear will depend on which license a subscriber has. One of the biggest changes in the Office 365 launcher is that it now focuses on personalized applications of individual users. This means users can see the apps that are most relevant to them....

By using ONNX Runtime with BERT, users can lower latency for language representation on the Bing search platform. Microsoft has previously said BERT brings “the largest improvement in search experience” for Bing. With ONNX Runtime support, developers can use BERT to scale to as low as 1.7 milliseconds latency (alongside a Nvidia V100 GPU). Microsoft told VentureBeat that this capability has previously only been available to major tech companies. “Since the BERT model is mainly composed of stacked transformer cells, we optimize each cell by fusing key sub-graphs of multiple elementary operators into single kernels for both CPU and GPU, including Self-Attention, LayerNormalization and Gelu layers....

So, why are receipts from ride-sharing giant Uber causing Outlook to misbehave? Well, Microsoft says crashes happen because Uber uses “complex tables” in emails, and Microsoft Word and Outlook struggle to render them. The problem was first spotted in the Current Channel Version of Outlook. This is a stable version of the client that is available to Microsoft 365 customers on Windows. In a support note, Microsoft says a fix is in the pipeline: “The Word Team has implemented a fix that will be released to the Beta channel shortly for fix verification,” says Microsoft....

Patch Tuesday was rolled out earlier this month. The release did not deal with problems with the April 2018 Update that affected Google’s Chrome web browser. Microsoft is now addressing that issue. We wrote about this problem when it first emerged in early May. Users reported that the Chrome browser was freezing after updating to the new Windows 10 version. In fact, the issue causes the whole machine to freeze, with all keystrokes and mouse movements going unanswered....

The student at Silverland Middle School was advised to write a letter to his favorite company, and he chose Microsoft. Luckily for him, the letter made it all the way to Smith’s desk, who traveled out to meet him. In a video documented by Microsoft, Smith, Yi read out his letter, which notes “Of course, I picked Microsoft, since you guys manufacture every spoiled, squeaky little teener child’s favorite thing, the Xbox....

Furthermore, Microsoft said the other planned nations will receive the service next week. Those countries are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. Microsoft has made it clear it has revised its roll out for Project xCloud. Specifically, the company is taken a slow approach to what is previously planned. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, telecommunication networks that deliver xCloud are under increased strain. “We will take a measured approach to help conserve internet access, beginning the preview in each market with a limited number of people and adding more participants over time,” Catherine Gluckstein, GM & Head of Product for Project xCloud....

Yes, once again we are back to the idea that Microsoft has been developing a super phone that will leave all others in its wake. If I come off as flippant, it’s because I simply don’t believe the company has been working on such hardware for four years. That’s right, Surface Phone rumors have been persistent for half a decade. As I have written before, this timeframe means there never was a Surface Phone....

Generally, they follow the Patch Tuesday updates that shipped last week and push the build to 17763.1012. With the end of support for 1809 fast approaching in May, users should really consider an upgrade to 1909 for the sake of security. However, these additions will at least keep the OS more stable in the meantime. You can also grab versions of the updates on versions 1803, 1709, and 1607, provided you’re still in support as an Enterprise or Education user....

Though the on-screen keyboard looks exactly the same as previous builds, there’s a lot going on under the hood. It’s powered by SwifKey’s honed neural net, which learns the words and phrases users use. Windows 10 build 17692 also introduces some improvements to Microsoft Edge. The browser has seen some changes to its WebDriver developer testing tool. The free cloud-based solution is now a Windows Feature on Demand, meaning it updates automatically with the OS....

The Bing team will also present the findings at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR) in Salt Lake City. “Getting enough high-quality training data is often the most challenging piece of building an AI-based service,” the researchers wrote. “Typically, data labeled by humans is of high quality (has relatively few mistakes) but comes at high cost — both in terms of money and time. On the other hand, automatic approaches allow for cheaper data generation in large quantities but result in more labeling errors (‘label noise’)....

Brad Smith says consumer data should now be factored into deciding if a tech company has a monopoly. This suggests companies that hold the most user data would be under the most threat of accusations of antitrust. Of course, this would mean Facebook and Google would be in direct trouble. Both companies are known for collecting vast user data information and using it for advertising. Facebook especially has been the subject of numerous antitrust cases because of how it handles customer data....

By leveraging these features, developers can automatically test and release code more quickly. Debugging is simpler thanks to live logs that show how an app is performing. CI can help developers by automatically testing code one it is placed in a code base. Once the code has been tested, CD will automatically release it. Combined, the two tools give dev’s means to send out new app updates automatically. GitHub is talking these features up as a major step forward....

In a briefing to CNBC, the US Army , CNBC journalist Todd Haselton got a firsthand look had a first look at the IVAS HoloLens 2 hardware and system. At US Army base Fort Pickett, the device has been developed to reduce the number of devices a soldier needs to carry. Leveraging Microsoft’s hardware, the IVAS HoloLens 2 HMDs remove the need for a soldier to carry phones, night vision and thermal goggles, and computers....