Fresh off of Windows 10′s major April update, Microsoft is gearing up for its annual two-day Build conference in Seattle on Monday. Engadget article What to expect at Microsoft’s Build 2018 conference tells what to expect from this celebration of the company’s developer community. Wired has also published What to Expect from Microsoft Build 2018 article.
Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, mixed reality—it’s all happening at Microsoft.
Microsoft hasn’t been shy about throwing the term “AI” around over the past few years so expect some releases on that field.
With Timeline in Windows 10, Microsoft not only created a way to track your work across multiple PCs, but also on your iPhone or Android device.
A slew of headsets from PC makers like HP, Acer and Samsung, Microsoft has been surprisingly quiet about the state of its VR and AR platform, so some news on those are expected,
Microsoft cloud business is booming, so expect a lot of Azure talks.
You can watch along on Microsoft’s site.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Excel gets custom JavaScript Functions and Power BI visualizations
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-excel-gets-custom-javascript-functions-and-power-bi-visualizations/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Microsoft is launching a couple of features to Excel today that make the ubiquitous spreadsheet software a bit more powerful. Among the new features is support for Azure Machine Learning and custom JavaScript functions to Excel to extend its capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft announces Your Phone app for Windows 10 and Timeline coming to iPhone
https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-announces-your-phone-app-for-windows-10-and-timeline-coming-to-iphone/
Having given up on Windows 10 Mobile and Windows Phone, Microsoft has turned its attention to how best to embrace Android and iOS. At its Build 2018 developers conference today, we got an update on the company’s strategy: A new Your Phone app is hitting preview for Windows 10, Windows Timeline is coming to iPhone via Edge, and Microsoft Launcher for Android is getting Timeline support.
These updates are part of Microsoft’s Continue on PC functionality, which, as its name suggests, lets you send a task from your Android or iOS device to your Windows 10 PC. The feature first arrived with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update in October, and Microsoft has been slowly broadening it ever since.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft brings its Custom Vision service to Azure IoT Edge, unveils new Speech Devices SDK for IoT, and partners with DJI and Qualcomm for IoT dev kits — Microsoft is shifting its main focus at Build 2018 from Windows to the intelligent edge, and is looking to attract developers with new kits, tools and more.
Microsoft delivers new edge-computing tools that use its speech, camera, AI technologies
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-delivers-new-edge-computing-tools-that-use-its-speech-camera-ai-technologies/
Microsoft is shifting its main focus at Build 2018 from Windows to the intelligent edge, and is looking to attract developers with new kits, tools and more.
Microsoft is out to show that it can still be a player in the computing realm, even as it moves further away from its heritage as “the Windows company.”
On the opening day of its annual Build developer conference — the first since its reorg last month via which Windows was split up and integrated into other units at the company — Microsoft is showing off the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge-computing tools and technologies it has to offer both hardware and software developers.
Last year at Build, Microsoft officials talked up the edge-computing piece of the company’s evolving “intelligent cloud/intelligent edge” strategy. Microsoft defines the “edge” broadly as where users interact with the cloud. Edge devices can be anything from virtual-reality/mixed-reality headsets, to drones, to on-premises PCs and servers.
On May 7 at Build 2018, Microsoft officials are making a number of new edge announcements. The company is open sourcing the Azure IoT Edge Runtime to allow customers to modify and debug more easily.
Microsoft is enabling its Custom Vision cognitive service to run on Azure IoT Edge so that devices like drones and industrial equipment can perform vision-related activities even when not connected to the cloud.
Drone vendor DJI is working with Microsoft to build a software development kit for Windows 10 PCs. The kit, according to Microsoft will allow users to have full flight control and real-time data transfer to Windows 10 devices.
Microsoft also announced at Build a partnership with Qualcomm Technologies to create a vision AI developer kit that runs Azure IoT Edge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft unveils updated Teams APIs, new Adaptive Cards integrations, .NET Core 3.0, guidelines for app-compatibility with upcoming Sets feature, more — In addition to the all the Azure news and Continue on PC updates, Microsoft naturally announced a slew of developer tools at Build 2018.
Microsoft gives developers new Visual Studio, GitHub, Sets, Fluent, and Teams tools
https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-gives-developers-new-visual-studio-github-sets-fluent-and-teams-tools/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Interview with Satya Nadella on the guiding principles of ethics in tech, GDPR, Cloud Act, and the future of Microsoft-driven multi-device experiences — “We are the Windows company, after all,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told me. — I was at Microsoft’s campus in Redmond a week …
Nadella’s Microsoft
Exclusive: How Windows is changing to work with everything
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17324920/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-interview-windows-10-build-2018
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft debuts new HoloLens enterprise apps: Remote Assist for hands-free telepresence and Layout for designing 3D spaces in AR, both to be in preview May 22
http://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-shows-off-remote-assist-and-layout-mixed-reality-apps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott.com:
Microsoft announces Project Kinect for Azure, powered by Azure AI and a custom sensor package, to help devs offering features like high-fidelity spatial mapping — Kinect is back. Yes. — After ending production of the original Kinect hardware for Xbox One last year and the Kinect adapter …
http://www.thurrott.com/cloud/158603/microsoft-isnt-done-kinect-yet
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft brings Visual Studio App Center, its lifecycle management tool for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS developers, to the GitHub marketplace
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-brings-its-visual-studio-app-center-lifecycle-management-tool-to-github/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft announces that Project Brainwave, its system for running AI models with FPGA chips, is now available in limited preview on Azure
Microsoft opens its ‘BrainWave’ AI-on-FPGA service to external testers
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-opens-its-brainwave-ai-on-fpga-service-to-external-testers/
Microsoft’s project to run fast AI tasks on FPGAs in Azure is starting to come to fruition, with testers starting to get access to the first pieces now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft says 700M+ devices now run Windows 10, up from 500M this time last year, and says Office 365 now has 135M MAUs, up from 120M last October
Microsoft says nearly 700M devices now run Windows 10
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-says-700m-devices-now-run-windows-10/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Microsoft says it will give app developers an 85%-95% cut for all non-game apps, up from current 70%; new fee structure will go into effect later this year
DevOps
Microsoft wants serious, non-gaming developers to make more money
Planned dev deal tweak lets programmers keep 95 per cent of revenue
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/07/microsoft_wants_serious_nongaming_devs_to_make_more_money/
Build Microsoft says it will take less money from Windows developers selling apps in its store, making its marketplace significantly more appealing than competing app stores in certain cases – assuming revenue share rather than market size is the primary consideration.
In a blog post published on Monday, to be explained on Tuesday in a Build keynote, Microsoft plans to reduce its share of the revenue it collects from third-party Windows apps sold in the Microsoft Store – so long as they’re not games.
Under current terms, Microsoft collects 30 per cent of revenue from apps and in-app purchases sold through its store on a non-subscription basis and 15 per cent of subscription-based non-game apps and in-app purchases.
“Starting later this year, consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95 per cent of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and purchase your application,” Microsoft says.
A new Microsoft Store revenue share is coming
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-microsoft-store-revenue-share-is-coming/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nat Levy / GeekWire:
Microsoft commits $25M over 5 years for new “AI for Accessibility” initiative to help people with disabilities
https://www.geekwire.com/2018/microsoft-commits-25m-5-years-new-ai-accessibility-initiative-help-people-disabilities/
Microsoft is committing $25 million over five years to develop artificial intelligence-powered technologies to help people with disabilities.
The aim of the new program announced at the Microsoft Build developer conference in Seattle this week is to use AI to help people with disabilities deal with challenges in three key areas: employment, human connection and modern life. Microsoft said it will award seed grants of its technology to universities, developers, institutions and others; help scale promising ideas; and work with partners to incorporate more accessibility functions in their products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft launches Project Brainwave, its deep learning acceleration platform
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-launches-project-brainwave-its-deep-learning-acceleration-platform/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Microsoft today announced at its Build conference the preview launch of Project Brainwave, its platform for running deep learning models in its Azure cloud and on the edge in real time.
While some of Microsoft’s competitors, including Google, are betting on custom chips, Microsoft continues to bet on FPGAs to accelerate its models, and Brainwave is no exception. Microsoft argues that FPGAs give it more flexibility than designing custom chips and that the performance it achieves on standard Intel Stratix FPGAs is at least comparable to that of custom chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Real-time AI: Microsoft announces preview of Project Brainwave
https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/build-2018-project-brainwave/
Project Brainwave is a hardware architecture designed to accelerate real-time AI calculations. The Project Brainwave architecture is deployed on a type of computer chip from Intel called a field programmable gate array, or FPGA, to make real-time AI calculations at competitive cost and with the industry’s lowest latency, or lag time. This is based on internal performance measurements and comparisons to other organization’s publicly posted information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing Project Kinect for Azure
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/introducing-project-kinect-azure-alex-kipman/
What Satya described is a key advance in the evolution of the intelligent edge; the ability for devices to perceive the people, places and things around them. One of the things that makes Project Kinect for Azure unique and compelling is the combination of our category-defining depth-sensor with our Azure AI services that, together, will enable developers to make the intelligent edge more perceptive than ever before.
The technical breakthroughs in our time-of-flight (ToF) depth-sensor mean that intelligent edge devices can ascertain greater precision with less power consumption. There are additional benefits to the combination of depth-sensor data and AI. Doing deep learning on depth images can lead to dramatically smaller networks needed for the same quality outcome. This results in much cheaper-to-deploy AI algorithms and a more intelligent edge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s meeting room of the future is wild
Transcription, translation, and identification
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17327596/microsoft-meeting-room-demo-build-2018
Microsoft just demonstrated a meeting room of the future at the company’s Build developer conference. Meeting rooms, conference calls, and meetings in general are usually the stuff of nightmares, but Microsoft is working on prototype hardware that will make meetings a lot easier. Microsoft’s meeting room demonstration is seriously impressive, and provides a glimpse of what’s possible in the future.
It all starts with a 360-degree camera and microphone array that can detect anyone in a meeting room, greet them, and even transcribe exactly what they say in a meeting regardless of language. Microsoft has been working on translation features for Skype for years, and the meeting room of the future includes this technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft brings its Custom Vision service to Azure IoT Edge, unveils new Speech Devices SDK for IoT, and partners with DJI and Qualcomm for IoT dev kits
Microsoft delivers new edge-computing tools that use its speech, camera, AI technologies
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-delivers-new-edge-computing-tools-that-use-its-speech-camera-ai-technologies/
Microsoft is shifting its main focus at Build 2018 from Windows to the intelligent edge, and is looking to attract developers with new kits, tools and more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott.com:
Microsoft announces Project Kinect for Azure, powered by Azure AI and a custom sensor package, to help devs offering features like high-fidelity spatial mapping
https://www.thurrott.com/cloud/158603/microsoft-isnt-done-kinect-yet
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft unveils updated Teams APIs, new Adaptive Cards integrations, .NET Core 3.0, guidelines for app compatibility with upcoming Sets feature, more
Microsoft gives developers new Visual Studio, GitHub, Sets, Fluent, and Teams tools
https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-gives-developers-new-visual-studio-github-sets-fluent-and-teams-tools/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Microsoft debuts new HoloLens enterprise apps: Remote Assist for hands-free telepresence and Layout for designing 3D spaces in AR, both to be in preview May 22
Microsoft shows off Remote Assist and Layout mixed reality apps
https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-shows-off-remote-assist-and-layout-mixed-reality-apps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s new IntelliCode is a smarter IntelliSense
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsofts-new-intellicode-is-a-smarter-intellisense/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Microsoft today announced IntelliCode, a new experimental developer tool for Visual Studio users that brings more of the company’s artificial intelligence smarts to software development.
With IntelliSense, Visual Studio has long featured a smart code completion feature that makes writing code faster and less error-prone.
https://www.visualstudio.com/services/intellicode/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft and DJI team up to bring smarter drones to the enterprise
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-and-dji-team-up-to-bring-smarter-drones-to-the-enterprise/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
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Microsoft and DJI team up to bring smarter drones to the enterprise
Frederic Lardinois
@fredericl / Yesterday
dji drone-5
At the Microsoft Build developer conference today, Microsoft and Chinese drone manufacturer DJI announced a new partnership that aims to bring more of Microsoft’s machine learning smarts to commercial drones. Given Microsoft’s current focus on bringing intelligence to the edge, this is almost a logical partnership, given that drones are essentially semi-autonomous edge computing devices.
DJI also today announced that Azure is now its preferred cloud computing partner and that it will use the platform to analyze video data, for example.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pulse.microsoft.com/fi-fi/business-leadership-fi-fi/na/fa3-nyt-on-tekojen-aika-aly-on-jo-taalla/?utm_campaign=businessleadership&utm_medium=content_social_ad18_fifi&utm_content=none_FY18_Q4_BDM&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-commits-25m-to-its-ai-for-accessibility-program/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-shows-off-alexa-cortana-integration-launches-sign-up-website-for-launch-news/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Windows Notepad to support Unix, Linux, and Mac line endings, available in latest Windows 10 Insider build; behavior can be disabled with registry key change — So happy for you, Microsoft, \r\n — Windows Notepad users, rejoice! Microsoft’s text editing app, which has been shipping …
Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings
So happy for you, Microsoft, \r\n
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/windows_notepad_unix_linux_macos/
Windows Notepad users, rejoice! Microsoft’s text editing app, which has been shipping with Windows since version 1.0 in 1985, has finally been taught how to handle line endings in text files created on Linux, Unix, Mac OS, and macOS devices.
“This has been a major annoyance for developers, IT Pros, administrators, and end users throughout the community,” Microsoft acknowledged in a blog post today, without touching on why the issue was allowed to fester for more than three decades.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft brings its Custom Vision service to Azure IoT Edge, unveils new Speech Devices SDK for IoT, and partners with DJI and Qualcomm for IoT dev kits — Microsoft is shifting its main focus at Build 2018 from Windows to the intelligent edge, and is looking to attract developers with new kits, tools and more.
Microsoft delivers new edge-computing tools that use its speech, camera, AI technologies
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-delivers-new-edge-computing-tools-that-use-its-speech-camera-ai-technologies/
Microsoft is shifting its main focus at Build 2018 from Windows to the intelligent edge, and is looking to attract developers with new kits, tools and more.
Microsoft is out to show that it can still be a player in the computing realm, even as it moves further away from its heritage as “the Windows company.”
On the opening day of its annual Build developer conference — the first since its reorg last month via which Windows was split up and integrated into other units at the company — Microsoft is showing off the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge-computing tools and technologies it has to offer both hardware and software developers.
Last year at Build, Microsoft officials talked up the edge-computing piece of the company’s evolving “intelligent cloud/intelligent edge” strategy. Microsoft defines the “edge” broadly as where users interact with the cloud. Edge devices can be anything from virtual-reality/mixed-reality headsets, to drones, to on-premises PCs and servers.
On May 7 at Build 2018, Microsoft officials are making a number of new edge announcements. The company is open sourcing the Azure IoT Edge Runtime to allow customers to modify and debug more easily.
Microsoft is enabling its Custom Vision cognitive service to run on Azure IoT Edge so that devices like drones and industrial equipment can perform vision-related activities even when not connected to the cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Claburn / The Register:
Windows Notepad to support Unix, Linux, and Mac line endings, available in latest Windows 10 Insider build; behavior can be disabled with registry key change — So happy for you, Microsoft, \r\n — Windows Notepad users, rejoice! Microsoft’s text editing app, which has been shipping …
Windows Notepad fixed after 33 years: Now it finally handles Unix, Mac OS line endings
So happy for you, Microsoft, \r\n
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/08/windows_notepad_unix_linux_macos/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s Snip Insights puts A.I. technology into a screenshot-taking tool
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/09/microsofts-snip-insights-puts-a-i-technology-into-a-screenshot-taking-tool/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
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Microsoft’s Snip Insights puts A.I. technology into a screenshot-taking tool
Sarah Perez
@sarahintampa / 10 hours ago
SnipInsights_ScreenShot4
A team of Microsoft interns have thought up a new way to put A.I. technology to work – in a screenshot snipping tool. Microsoft today is launching their project, Snip Insights, a Windows desktop app that lets you retrieve intelligent insights – or even turn a scan of a textbook or report into an editable document – when you take a screenshot on your PC.
The team’s manager challenged the interns to think up a way to integrate A.I. into a widely used tool, used by millions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Adds Support for JavaScript in ExcelWhat Could Possibly Go
Wrong?
https://thehackernews.com/2018/05/javascript-function-excel.html
also:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/poc-developed-for-coinhive-mining-in-excel-using-custom-javascript-functions/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s obsession with Windows is ending, and I couldn’t be happier
Commentary: It’s all about AI and the web now.
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-obsession-with-windows-is-ending-and-i-couldnt-be-happier-build-2018-google-io-f8/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=51659878
It was sort of like Where’s Waldo. Except I was thinking “Where’s Windows?”
Microsoft’s three-and-a-half hour opening keynote on Monday
the word “Windows” was mentioned just a little more than a dozen times.
It was even worse for “PC.” That term came up a whopping seven times
What we do care about is AI and the web. Or we will very soon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rich Woods / Neowin:
Ubuntu will soon be available for ARM64-powered Windows devices, a year after being made available for x64 devices in the Microsoft Store — It was this time last year that Microsoft announced that it was bringing Ubuntu to the Windows Store (now the Microsoft Store), along with other Linux distributions.
Microsoft is bringing Ubuntu Linux to Windows 10 on ARM
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-is-bringing-ubuntu-linux-to-windows-10-on-arm
It was this time last year that Microsoft announced that it was bringing Ubuntu to the Windows Store (now the Microsoft Store), along with other Linux distributions. If you check out the app in the Store now though, you’ll find that it only works on x64 devices, meaning that you can’t run it on any of the new Windows 10 on ARM PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Excel gets custom JavaScript Functions and Power BI visualizations
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/microsoft-excel-gets-custom-javascript-functions-and-power-bi-visualizations/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Among the new features is support for Azure Machine Learning and custom JavaScript functions to Excel to extend its capabilities. Excel now also allows Power BI developers to bring the custom visuals they created for Power BI to Excel.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/excel/custom-functions-overview