Microsoft news – Page 165

Posted on September 13, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform Presence at IAA, the Frankfurt Auto Show

This post was co-authored by the extended Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform (MCVP) team.

A connected vehicle solution must enable a fleet of potentially millions of vehicles, distributed around the world, to deliver intuitive experiences including infotainment, entertainment, productivity, driver safety, driver assistance. In addition to these services in the vehicle, a connected vehicle solution is critical for fleet solutions like ride and car sharing as well as phone apps that incorporate the context of the user and the journey.

Imagine you are driving to your vacation destination and you start your conference call from home while you are packing. When you transition to the shared vehicle, the route planning takes into account the best route for connectivity and easy driving and adjusts the microphone sensitivity during the call in the back seat. These experiences today are constrained to either the center-stack screen, known as the in-vehicle infotainment device (IVI), or other specific hardware and software that is determined when the car is being built. Instead, these experiences should evolve over the lifetime of ridership. The opportunity is for new, modern experiences in vehicles that span the entire interior and systems of a vehicle, plus experiences outside the vehicle, to create deeper and longer-lasting relationships between car makers and their customers throughout the transportation journey.

To realize this opportunity, car manufacturers and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) providers need a connected vehicle platform to complete the digital feedback loop by incorporating the seamless deployment of new functionality that is composed from multiple independently updatable services that reflect new understanding, at scale, and with dependable and consistent management of data and these services from Azure to and from three different edges: the vehicle, the phone, and the many enterprise applications that support the journey.

The Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform (MCVP) is the digital chassis upon which automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can deliver value-add services to their customers. These services areas include:

In-vehicle experiences
Autonomous driving
Advanced navigation
Customer engagement and insights
Telematics and prediction services
Connectivity and over the air updates (OTA)

MCVP is a platform composed from about 40 different Azure services and tailored for automotive scenarios. To ensure continuous over-the-air (OTA) updates of new functionality, MCVP also includes different Azure edge technologies such as Automotive IoT Edge that runs in the vehicle, and Azure Maps for intelligent location services.

With MCVP, and an ecosystem of partners across the industry, Microsoft offers a consistent platform across all digital services. This includes vehicle provisioning, two-way network connectivity, continuous over-the-air updates of containerized functionality, support for command-and-control, hot, warm, or cold path for telematics, and extension hooks for customer or third-party differentiation. Being built on Azure, MCVP includes the hyperscale, global availability, and regulatory compliance that comes as part of the Azure cloud. OEMs and fleet operators leverage MCVP as a way to “move up the stack” and focus on their customers rather than spend resources on non-differentiating infrastructure.

Automotive OEMs already taking advantage of MCVP, along with many of our ecosystem partners, including the Volkswagen Group, the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, and Iconiq.

In this blog post, we are delighted to recap many of the MCVP ecosystem partners that accelerate our common customers’ ability to develop and deploy completed connected vehicle solutions.

Focus areas and supporting partnerships

Microsoft’s ecosystem of partners include independent software vendors (ISVs), automotive suppliers, and systems integrators (SIs) to complete the overall value proposition of MCVP. We have pursued partnerships in these areas:

In-vehicle experiences

Cheaply available screens, increasingly autonomous vehicles, the emergence of pervasive voice assistants, and users’ increased expectation of the connectedness of their things have all combined to create an opportunity for OEMs to differentiate through the digital experiences they offer to the occupants, both the driver and the passengers, of their vehicles.

LG Electronics’ webOS Autoplatform offers an in-vehicle, container-capable OS that brings the third party application ecosystem created for premium TVs to In-vehicle experiences. webOSAuto supports the container-based runtime environment of MCVP and can be an important part of modern experiences in the vehicle.

Faurecia leverages MCVP to create disruptive, connected, and personalized services inside the Cockpit of the Future to reinvent the on-board experience for all occupants.

Autonomous driving

The continuous development of autonomous driving systems requires input from both test fleets and production vehicles that are integrated by a common connected vehicle platform. This is because the underlying machine learning (ML) models that either drive the car or provide assistance to the driver will be updated over time as they are improved based on feedback across those fleets, and those updates will be deployed over the air in incremental rings of deployment by way of their connection to the cloud.

Teraki creates and deploys containerized functionality to vehicles to efficiently extract and manage selected sensor data such as telemetry, video, and 3D information. Teraki’s product continuously trains and updates the sensor data to extract relevant, condensed information that enables customers’ models to achieve highest accuracy rates, both in the vehicle (edge) as well in Azure (cloud.)

TomTom is integrating their navigation intelligence services such as HD Maps and Traffic as containerized services for use in MCVP so that other services in the vehicles, including autonomous driving, can take advantage of the additional location context.

Advanced navigation

TomTom’s navigation application has been integrated with the MCVP in-vehicle compute architecture to enable navigation usage and diagnostics data to be sent from vehicles to the Azure cloud where the data can be used by automakers to generate data-driven insights to deliver tailored services, and to make better informed design and engineering decisions. The benefit of this integration includes the immediate insights created from comparing the intended route with the actual route with road metadata. If you are attending IAA, be sure to check out the demo at the Microsoft booth.

Telenav is a leading provider of connected car and location-based services and is working with Microsoft to integrate its intelligent connected-car solution suite, including infotainment, in-car commerce, and navigation, with MCVP.

Customer engagement and insights

Otonomo securely ingests automotive data from OEMs, fleet operators, etc., then reshapes and enriches the data so application and service providers can use it to develop a host of new and innovative offerings that deliver value to drivers. The data services platform has built it privacy by design solutions for both personal and aggregate use cases. Through the collaboration with Microsoft, car manufacturers adopting the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform can easily plug their connected car data into Otonomo’s existing ecosystem to quickly roll out new connected car services to drivers.

Telematics and prediction services

DSA is a leading software and solutions provider for quality assurance, diagnostics, and maintenance of the entire vehicle electrics and electronics in the automotive industry. Together, DSA and Microsoft target to close the digital feedback loops between automotive production facilities and field cars by providing an advanced Vehicle Lifecycle Management, based on the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform.

WirelessCar is a leading managed service provider within the connected vehicle eco-system and empowers car makers to provide mobility services with Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform that supports and accelerates their customers’ high market ambitions in a world of rapid changing business models.

Connectivity and OTA

Cubic Telecom is a leading connectivity management software provider to the automotive and IoT industries globally. They are one of the first partners to bring seamless connectivity as a core service offering to MCVP for a global market. The deep integration with MCVP allows for a single data lake and an integrated services monitoring path. In addition, Cubic Telecom provides connected car capabilities that let drivers use infotainment apps in real-time, connect their devices to the Wi-Fi hotspot, and top-up on data plans to access high-speed LTE connectivity, optionally on a separate APN.

Excelfore is an innovator in automotive over-the-air (OTA) updating and data aggregation technologies. They provide a full implementation of the eSync bi-directional data pipeline, which has been ported to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and integrated as the first solution for MCVP OTA updating.

Tata Communications is a leading global digital infrastructure provider. We are working with them to help speed the development of new innovative connected car applications. By combining the IoT connectivity capabilities of Tata Communications MOVE™ with MCVP, the two companies will enable automotive manufacturers to offer consumers worldwide more seamless and secure driving experiences.

Microsoft is incredibly excited to be a part of the connected vehicle space. With the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, our ecosystem partners, and our partnerships with leading automotive players – both vehicle OEMs and automotive technology suppliers – we believe we have a uniquely capable offering enabling at global scale the next wave of innovation in the automotive industry as well as related verticals such as smart cities, smart infrastructure, insurance, transportation, and beyond.

Explore the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform today and visit us at IAA.

Posted on September 13, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft’s connected car platform delivers a mobile datacenter to your driveway

written by

Mark Mobley

Microsoft’s connected car platform delivers a mobile datacenter to your driveway

The connected car revolution isn’t coming — it’s here. Going to a meeting, and have a conference call on the way? Your ride’s digital assistant will help you plan a route blessedly free of tunnels and drops in connectivity that could interfere. And while you drive, the car will help you stay in your lane.

Dr. Herbert Diess, Volkswagen AG chairman, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Tara Prakriya, and Christian Senger, Volkswagen board member & head of digital car & services, at the Volkswagen AG Digital Lab in Berlin.

Leading this effort on the engineering front at Microsoft is Tara Prakriya, General Manager for Azure IoT Mobility and Connected Vehicles. This team of dozens is working with the two largest industry players, Volkswagen Group and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, to create cars featuring unprecedented levels of interactivity.

“What our connected vehicle platform gives our clients is truly a digital chassis to achieve scale and efficiency in developing and delivering value to their customers,” Prakriya said. “Our customers are navigating a digital transformation of the industry and this digital chassis helps them absorb and fully take advantage of the new opportunities available in the market in a global way, including China.”

“What our customers look for in the partnership from Microsoft is not just a technology vendor, but a strategic partnership to help the full digital transformation, cultural transformation and market transformation that need to work in lock step. It’s a tall order, which is why we work with our customers to figure out what this is going to look like.”

Our connected vehicle platform gives our clients a digital chassis to achieve scale and efficiency in developing and delivering value to their customers.

“Pretty much everybody that’s on the team is really excited about this space,” said Larry Sullivan, co-head of the team with Prakriya and a veteran Microsoft engineer. “I think Tara brings a lot of that energy and the team gives that energy back as well. We’re not a huge team, but we’re really motivated, and we’re really fired up about helping our customers do business in a really positive way.”

Microsoft’s automotive initiatives engage such corporate partners as TomTom, Cubic Telecom, Moovit, DSA and Faurecia. They also leverage Microsoft’s work on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the company’s Azure cloud computing service. Prakriya believes it’s helpful to think of IoT as the information of things.

Tara Prakriya and Larry Sullivan consider themselves “two in a box” as collaborators on Microsoft’s connected car platform.

“The digital feedback loop is the term that we use at Microsoft,” Prakriya said. “IoT in many ways represents the digital feedback loop of physical things, physical spaces, physical environment and what products actually do in the marketplace. There are lots of decisions that our business customers need to make that IoT information can make a significant contribution to.

“And, once those decisions are made, there is new information, and that needs to be communicated as a feedback loop back to those physical environments, physical products, physical consumers and physical employees. The opportunity in connected vehicles, and mobility as a whole, is to be on the edge of getting the data so that we can do amazing things and then deliver it back to the edge again. What then connects the stationary things, like smart buildings, with smart transportation and mobility is Azure Maps.”

A car, Prakriya said, has plenty in common with other consumer electronics products: “You want experiences to become easy. You want the cars and the system to anticipate what your needs are. There is a lot of ease of use and delight that can be had for the consumers — both the drivers and the passengers. The cool challenge with delivering a connected vehicle platform is simplifying the complexities of what is really a mobile datacenter on wheels so that these experiences are easier to create, deploy and refine. Having a single connected vehicle and maps platform that underpins consumer experiences in the vehicle and on their phones, providing driving assistance and mobility as a service, goes a long way towards this goal.”

Microsoft’s work in the automotive space is about helping each customer create a differentiated set of integrated services while taking advantage of a consistent, robust, flexible, global and secure digital chassis for scale. “They have different brand promises to their consumers,” Prakriya said, “and so as a result, the features that they are really thinking about and the digital value that they are trying to deliver to their customers are different. We are taking care of the boring stuff so that they can really think about what their brand promise is and deliver it.”

She points out that automakers are making these promises and creating these systems in the face of not one, not two, but four simultaneous upheavals in the industry. The first is basic digital connectivity, followed closely by the use of artificial intelligence — for example, in fighting driver distraction, among other applications. Then there are shared-vehicle services, and the gradual electrification of cars and trucks as manufacturers move away from fossil fuels, which will have impacts across the supply chain and all through the vehicle life cycle.

“It is an enormous amount of change that we know our customers are thinking about constantly,” Prakriya said, “so this is a lot of the reason why we created the set of platforms for IoT Mobility. We are very engaged with our customers because it’s so exciting to watch them navigate this. And if we can play any part in that navigation, it’s pretty wonderful.”

The challenge with delivering a connected vehicle platform is simplifying the complexities of what is really a mobile datacenter on wheels so that these experiences are easier to create, deploy and refine.

To further complicate matters, all of the team’s major customers are also working on driverless vehicles. “Azure’s storage and compute teams, along with the AI teams, and the devops teams, together have an excellent story for building your own autonomous driving models,” she said. “Azure has a pretty great end-to-end template and methodology that helps customers, from getting their big data onto Azure all the way through to working with ecosystem partners to be on Azure for things like simulation as well as collecting data from production vehicles to assist in validation.

“We work with a number of large customers on building their own autonomous driving models on Azure. Fully autonomous vehicles are, of course, more than just a technical problem. There are legal and regulatory considerations. In the meantime, assisted driving models are rapidly improving, and we are excited to work with our customers to deploy these models to vehicles using our connected vehicle platform and create a digital feedback loop.”

Larry Sullivan is an engineering manager who works on Microsoft’s connected car platform.

“Today, this data informs cutting-edge driver-assisted features like automatic braking, advanced cruise control and lane assist. Tomorrow, the information will be the backbone of autonomy. The leader in that space, bar none, is Microsoft,” wrote analyst Jon Markman in a recent Forbes article.

There is also an increasing focus on Azure Maps to keep up with the demands of multi-modal routing, HD Maps and fresh updates that connect ride share partners with map making partners. In addition, Azure Maps is an important pillar in geo-spatial analytics to help create new value for customers.

Prakriya “really understands the tech and the business and how those things come together,” co-head of the team, Sullivan said. “She is fantastic as a counterpart.”

Both Prakriya and Sullivan say they consider themselves “two in a box” as managers — even though he’s Texan and she’s not, he’s kind of a car guy and she drives a non-connected minivan that’s the same age as her 14-year-old son. They’re both fast talkers who laugh easily.

“We have a great time,” Sullivan said. “We have a lot of fun. This is an exciting industry. It’s really going through a bunch of changes and we feel well positioned to help, but like anything, it’s got a degree of insanity, and we have a lot of fun with just, ‘All right, what’s the craziness of the day?'”

Yet Prakriya’s scientific approach — she holds nine patents — persists even after she leaves the office. It extends to life with her son and husband, who works in the Microsoft Business and Applications Group.

“I am a crock pot maven,” she said. “There is almost nothing I cannot cook in a crock pot. It is the only way our family survives. A lot of Indian cooking works really well in the crock pot, baking as well — it is amazingly easy to bake in a crock pot.

Microsoft’s work in the automotive space is about helping each corporate customer create a differentiated set of services.

Prakriya and Sullivan walk along a woodsy trail on Microsoft’s Redmond campus.

Prakriya and Sullivan walk along a woodsy trail on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus.

“I joke that my aim is to bend the space-time continuum of figuring out how we eat as a family, and with the slow cooker, we have the option of stretching out the interval between when I cook and when the meal needs to be ready. I also like the whole end-to-end supply chain of food. It’s also about optimizing the shopping list, strategic use of the freezer, and considering the whole process all the way down to the dishes. It’s kind of fun.”

Both at home and at work, she pursues a hobby: knitting. She’s a contributor to Knit-A-Square, a South African charity that collects knitted squares and assembles them into blankets for vulnerable and orphaned children, many of whom are affected by HIV/AIDS. She said that knitting is the perfect accompaniment to a conference call.

“We do a lot of them because our customers are in Europe,” she said, “and they are kind of all in different places, right? Knitting keeps me away from the keyboard because it’s easy to get distracted. It is a way to keep my fingers active so I can focus.”

And for Prakriya, Sullivan and the team, focus is key — because there’s always another question to answer from another angle.

“Just connecting things does not solve the big challenges,” Prakriya said. “There is definitely a lot of work to do. We are trying to provide the platforms to make that work easier. We have great support from our management chain. We are aligned all the way up and down with our wickedly smart compatriots in business development — shout out to [Executive Vice President of Business Development] Peggy Johnson’s team — as well as marketing, teams in the field, as well as PR. And our close relationship with our partners and customers makes the work exciting and fun.

“What Larry and I and the extended IoT Mobility team are doing is a shining example of everything about the fantastic Microsoft culture at work. It’s about solving the right problems the right way, in an aligned manner, so that the best people who understand the problem from different dimensions can come together and achieve something really great, and help our customers achieve something that is frankly even greater.”

Originally published on 9/12/2019 / Photos by Brian Smale / © Microsoft

Posted on September 13, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Announcing Microsoft for Startups: Autonomous Driving Program

Today, at the Frankfurt Motorshow (IAA) we announced Microsoft for Startups: Autonomous Driving (MfS – AD), an exclusive program which aims to accelerate the growth of startups working on autonomous driving (AD).

Increasingly startups have been playing a crucial role in bringing autonomous driving technology to the world. From building full-stack autonomy solutions for OEMs to opening up new business opportunities in areas like delivery, ride-sharing and long haul transit, startups have been at the forefront of technological advancement in this space. Startups also play a critical role in delivering important AD enablement technologies and solutions like simulation, data management, labeling and more.

Cultivating a state-of-the-art, global partner ecosystem has been a focal point of our autonomous driving strategy and our startup partners have played an important part in helping our customers deliver the promise of autonomous driving at scale. For instance, Cognata is using their simulation technology to help customers like Audi AG speed up their AV development. We announced partnerships with Ascent Robotics, a Tokyo-based startup making innovative use of reinforcement learning and neuroscience to deliver complex L4 driving scenarios and Linker Networks, a startup based in Taiwan taking annotation efficiency and reliability to a whole new level through their AI-based auto-labeling technology helping the industry build smarter, safer vehicles. We are also closely working with startups like Udelv, who are paving the path for autonomous driving to meet the growing demands of the retail delivery space. This week at IAA, Applied Intuition announced the release of their Applied Development Platform optimized on Microsoft Azure.

The MfS-AD program is another example of our continuing commitment to the AD startup community. We want to empower pioneering startups who are defining what is next in autonomous driving by helping them scale up and scale out through business and technical enablement. As part of the program, all selected startups will receive the premium offer from our Microsoft for Startups program including access to up to $120,000 USD of free Azure cloud.

For technical enablement, startups will receive benefits like:

Access to our top engineers and program managers working on autonomous driving infrastructure technology and solutions.
1:1 architectural sessions with Microsoft Cloud Engineers.
Early access to autonomous driving capabilities on Azure.
Potential co-development opportunities.

For business enablement, startups will receive benefits like:

Opportunities to expand your network by becoming a part of Microsoft’s autonomous driving ecosystem. Many of our partners have found their next big customer or partner at one of our automotive networking receptions and other events.
Joint customer opportunities.
Marketing and amplification support.
Preferred showcase opportunities at industry events and conferences.
Visibility to M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures) for potential investment opportunities.

For details on how to apply, nomination requirements, selection criteria and more, visit https://aka.ms/ADstartup

Posted on September 13, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Azure Media Services unveils new AI-powered innovations at IBC 2019

Animated character recognition, multilingual speech transcription and more now available

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. The media industry exemplifies this mission. We live in an age where more content is being created and consumed in more ways and on more devices than ever. At IBC 2019, we’re delighted to share the latest innovations we’ve been working on and how they can help transform your media workflows. Read on to learn more, or join our product teams and partners at Hall 1 Booth C27 at the RAI in Amsterdam from September 13th to 17th.

Video Indexer adds support for animation and multilingual content

We made our award winning Azure Media Services Video Indexer generally available at IBC last year, and this year it’s getting even better. Video Indexer automatically extracts insights and metadata such as spoken words, faces, emotions, topics and brands from media files, without you needing to be a machine learning expert. Our latest announcements include previews for two highly requested and differentiated capabilities for animated character recognition and multilingual speech transcription, as well as several additions to existing models available today in Video Indexer.

Animated character recognition

Animated content or cartoons are one of the most popular content types, but standard AI vision models built for human faces do not work well with them, especially if the content has characters without human features. In this new preview solution, Video Indexer joins forces with Microsoft’s Azure Custom Vision service to provide a new set of models that automatically detect and group animated characters and allow customers to then tag and recognize them easily via integrated custom vision models. These models are integrated into a single pipeline, which allows anyone to use the service without any previous machine learning skills. The results are available through the no-code Video Indexer portal or the REST API for easy integration into your own applications.

We built these animated character models in collaboration with select customers who contributed real animated content for training and testing. The value of the new functionality is well articulated by Andy Gutteridge, Senior Director, Studio & Post-Production Technology at Viacom International Media Networks, which was one of the data contributors: “The addition of reliable AI-based animated detection will enable us to discover and catalogue character metadata from our content library quickly and efficiently. Most importantly, it will give our creative teams the power to find the content they want instantly, minimize time spent on media management and allow them to focus on the creative.”

To get started with animated character recognition, please visit our documentation page.

Multilingual identification and transcription

Some media assets like news, current affairs, and interviews contain audio with speakers using different languages. Most existing speech-to-text capabilities require the audio recognition language to be specified in advance, which is an obstacle to transcribing multilingual videos. Our new automatic spoken language identification for multiple content feature leverages machine learning technology to identify the different languages used in a media asset. Once detected, each language segment undergoes an automatic transcription process in the language identified, and all segments are integrated back together into one transcription file consisting of multiple languages.

The resulting transcription is available both as part of Video Indexer JSON output and as closed-caption files. The output transcript is also integrated with Azure Search, allowing you to immediately search across videos for the different language segments. Furthermore, the multi-language transcription is available as part of the Video Indexer portal experience so you can view the transcript and identified language by time, or jump to the specific places in the video for each language and see the multi-language transcription as captions as a video is played. You can also translate the output back-and-forth into 54 different languages via the portal and API.

Read more about the new multilingual option and how to use it in Video Indexer in our documentation.

Additional updated and improved models

We are also adding new and improving existing models within Video Indexer, including:

Extraction of people and locations entities

We’ve extended our current brand detection capabilities to also incorporate well-known names and locations, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Big Ben in London. When these appear in the generated transcript or on-screen via optical character recognition (OCR), a specific insight is created. With this new capability, you can review and search by all people, locations and brands that appeared in the video, along with their timeframes, description, and a link to our Bing search engine for more information.

Editorial shot detection model

This new feature adds a set of “tags” in the metadata attached to an individual shot in the insights JSON to represent its editorial type (such as wide shot, medium shot, close up, extreme close up, two shot, multiple people, outdoor and indoor, etc.). These shot-type characteristics come in handy when editing videos into clips and trailers as well as when searching for a specific style of shots for artistic purposes.

Explore and read more about editorial shot type detection in Video Indexer.

Expanded granularity of IPTC mapping

Our topic inferencing model determines the topic of videos based on transcription, optical character recognition (OCR), and detected celebrities even if the topic is not explicitly stated. We map these inferred topics to four different taxonomies: Wikipedia, Bing, IPTC, and IAB. With this enhancement, we now include level-2 IPTC taxonomy.

Tanking advantage of these enhancements is as easy as re-indexing your current Video Indexer library.

New live streaming functionality

We are also introducing two new live-streaming capabilities in preview to Azure Media Services.

Live transcription supercharges your live events with AI

Using Azure Media Services to stream a live event, you can now get an output stream that includes an automatically generated text track in addition to the video and audio content. This text track is created using AI-based live transcription of the audio of the contribution feed. Custom methods are applied before and after speech-to-text conversion in order to improve the end-user experience. The text track is packaged into IMSC1, TTML, or WebVTT, depending on whether you are delivering in DASH, HLS CMAF, or HLS TS.

Live linear encoding for 24/7 over-the-top (OTT) channels

Using our v3 APIs, you can create, manage, and stream live channels for OTT services and take advantage of all the other features of Azure Media Services like live to video on demand (VOD), packaging, and digital rights management (DRM).

To try these preview features, please visit the Azure Media Services Community page.

New packaging features

Support for audio description tracks

Broadcast content frequently has an audio track that contains verbal explanations of on-screen action in addition to the normal program audio. This makes programming more accessible for vision-impaired viewers, especially if the content is highly visual. The new audio description feature enables a customer to annotate one of the audio tracks to be the audio description (AD) track, which in turn can be used by players to make the AD track discoverable by viewers.

ID3 metadata insertion

In order to signal the insertion of advertisements or custom metadata events on a client player, broadcasters often make use of timed metadata embedded within the video. In addition to SCTE-35 signaling modes, we now also support ID3v2 or other custom schemas defined by an application developer for use by the client application.

Microsoft Azure partners demonstrate end-to-end solutions

Bitmovin is debuting its Bitmovin Video Encoding and Bitmovin Video Player on Microsoft Azure. Customers can now use these encoding and player solutions on Azure and leverage advanced functionality such as 3-pass encoding, AV1/VVC codec support, multi-language closed captions, and pre-integrated video analytics for QoS, ad, and video tracking.

Evergent is showing its User Lifecycle Management Platform on Azure. As a leading provider of revenue and customer lifecycle management solutions, Evergent leverages Azure AI to enable premium entertainment service providers to improve customer acquisition and retention by generating targeted packages and offers at critical points in the customer lifecycle.

Haivision will showcase its intelligent media routing cloud service, SRT Hub, that helps customers transform end-to-end workflows starting with ingest using Azure Data Box Edge and media workflow transformation using Hublets from Avid, Telestream, Wowza and Cinegy, and Make.tv.

SES has developed a suite of broadcast-grade media services on Azure for its satellite connectivity and managed media services customers. SES will show solutions for fully managed playout services, including master playout, localized playout and ad detection and replacement, and 24×7 high-quality multichannel live encoding on Azure.

SyncWords is making its caption automation technology and user-friendly cloud-based tools available on Azure. These offerings will make it easier for media organizations to add automated closed captioning and foreign language subtitling capabilities to their real-time and offline video processing workflows on Azure.

Global design and technology services company Tata Elxsi has integrated TEPlay, its OTT platform SaaS, with Azure Media Services to deliver OTT content from the cloud. Tata Elxsi has also brought FalconEye, its quality of experience (QoE) monitoring solution that focuses on actionable metrics and analytics, to Microsoft Azure.

Verizon Media is making its streaming platform available in beta on Azure. Verizon Media Platform is an enterprise-grade managed OTT solution including DRM, ad insertion, one-to-one personalized sessions, dynamic content replacement, and video delivery. The integration brings simplified workflows, global support and scale, and access to a range of unique capabilities available on Azure.

Many of our partners will also be presenting in the theater at our booth, so make sure you stop by to catch them!

Short distance, big impact

We are proud to support the 4K 4Charity Fun Run as a gold sponsor. This is a running and walking event held at various media industry events since 2014, and it raises awareness and financial support for non-profits focused on increased diversity and inclusion. Register and come join us on Saturday, September 14th, at 7:30am at the Amstelpark in Amsterdam.

Don’t miss out

There’s a lot more going on at the Microsoft booth this IBC. To learn more, read about how the community of our customers and partners are innovating on Azure in media and entertainment, or better yet come and join us in Hall 1 Booth C27. If you won’t be there, we’re sorry we’ll miss you, but you can try Video Indexer and Azure Media Services for yourself by following the links.

Posted on September 13, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft and The Walt Disney Studios to develop ‘scene-to-screen’ content workflows

Companies collaborate to pilot new ways to transform content workflows in the Microsoft Azure cloud; Microsoft becomes a Disney Studios StudioLAB innovation partner

REDMOND, Wash., and BURBANK, Calif. — Sept. 13, 2019 — Microsoft Corp. and The Walt Disney Studios today announced a five-year innovation partnership to pilot new ways to create, produce and distribute content on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Through The Walt Disney Studios’ StudioLAB, a technology hub designed to create and advance the future of storytelling with cutting-edge tools and methods, the companies will deliver cloud-based solutions to help accelerate innovation at The Walt Disney Studios for production and postproduction processes, or from “scene to screen.”

“The cloud has reached a tipping point for the media industry, and it’s not surprising that The Walt Disney Studios, which has its heritage based on a passion for innovation and technology, is at the forefront of this transformation,” said Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft US. “The combination of Azure’s hyperscale capacity, global distribution, and industry-leading storage and networking capabilities with Disney’s strong history of industry leadership unlocks new opportunity in the media and entertainment space and will power new ways to drive content and creativity at scale. With Azure as the platform cloud for content, we’re excited to work with the team at StudioLAB to continue to drive innovation across Disney’s broad portfolio of studios.”

“By moving many of our production and postproduction workflows to the cloud, we’re optimistic that we can create content more quickly and efficiently around the world,” said Jamie Voris, CTO, The Walt Disney Studios. “Through this innovation partnership with Microsoft, we’re able to streamline many of our processes so our talented filmmakers can focus on what they do best.”

Microsoft and Disney — working closely with leading global media technology provider Avid — are already demonstrating that the kinds of demanding, high-performance workflows the media and entertainment industry requires can be deployed and operated with the security offered by the cloud, while unlocking substantial new benefits and efficiencies and enabling production teams to rethink the way they get their work done.

Building on Microsoft’s strategic cloud alliance with Avid, the companies have already produced several essential media workflows running in the cloud today, including collaborative editing, content archiving, active backup and production continuity. Bringing these complex workflows into production using Avid solutions such as the Avid MediaCentral^® platform, MediaCentral | Cloud UX™, Avid NEXIS^® | Cloud storage and Avid Media Composer^® — all running natively on Azure — will provide the foundation for helping transform content creation and content management to overcome today’s operational pressures, as well as pave the way for ongoing innovation.

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications for Microsoft, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

The Walt Disney Studios Communications, angela.k.shaw@disney.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

Posted on September 12, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Free tools and a chance to shine for student developers

It sneaks up on me every year. One minute, my family is fully ensconced in summer break, the next we’re deep into school supply lists and pre-work to prep for the first day back.

This year, as I’ve helped my own students get ready to go back to school, I’ve been thinking about all the cool (and free!) offerings Microsoft provides to bridge the technology gap for student developers. We’re committed to empowering the next generation of creators with access to technology and training – after all, our future is in their hands! – and we have a little healthy competition thrown in for good measure. Here are a few of the offers that students can take advantage of today and throughout their educations:

One of the newest additions to our lineup, developer hub GitHub offers their Student Developer Pack, which provides access to the best real-world developer tools and training. Students who join the Pack receive GitHub Pro at no charge while in school, plus exclusive offers from GitHub Education partners, including Microsoft.

Microsoft Azure for Students offers a free annual renewal subscription to our top cloud services, plus access to dozens of other Azure and artificial intelligence (AI) tools and training. Students can build skills in trending tech including data science, AI, machine learning and other areas with access to professional developer tools like Visual Studio Code.

Microsoft Education has a plethora of resources available for students and educators, who can get Office 365 free as well, which includes powerful tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and now Microsoft Teams and a lot more. This isn’t a trial – it’s a full-featured product that is free while the student is in school and offered at a big discount after graduation. Educators also have a wealth of resources available to them to help students engage with STEM, from customized training opportunities to unique Minecraft editions to access to special guest speakers.

For college and university students, the annual Imagine Cup competition is now open for entry. I’m continually impressed by the impactful ideas that come out of Imagine Cup – many of which go on to become full-fledged products. But big ideas that make a difference aren’t born in a vacuum, and they can’t be achieved alone. I think that’s one of the things that makes Imagine Cup so special. Students learn how to work together, be resourceful, meet deadlines and a select few receive funding to help take their ideas to the next level.

This year’s Imagine Cup theme is AI for Good. Driven by inspiration and a growing sense of purpose, we’ve seen student competitors create applications tackling some of the world’s biggest social, environmental and health challenges – one user at a time – and that’s what Imagine Cup is all about! So, it only makes sense that there is a stronger focus on AI this year. It’s one of the most promising ways technology can help us be more inclusive, effective and productive. I encourage students with a dream of a better future and an idea to sign up and get to work. I’m excited to see where the competitors take the challenge this year – and where the competition takes them.

Students who want to be a force for good and make a difference in their communities – while learning and sharing Microsoft technologies with their peers – can apply to be a Microsoft Student Partner, a program that lets student leaders gain experiences, access exclusive resources and gather real-world technical and career skills.

Finally, LinkedIn offers a wide variety of networking and educational opportunities to support students when it comes time to look for a job, learn a new skill or connect with classmates. A current and accurate LinkedIn profile is one of the best ways to build and maintain a career network.

Our goal is for all students to have access to the technology and support they need to make their dreams come true. Please share these offerings with the students in your life, and if you are a student, I hope you’ll take advantage of one or more of them to take your ideas to the next level this year.

Posted on September 12, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Meet Tara Prakriya, leader in engineering Microsoft’s connected car platform

written by

Mark Mobley

Microsoft’s connected car platform delivers a mobile datacenter to your driveway

Our connected vehicle platform gives our clients a digital chassis to achieve scale and efficiency in developing and delivering value to their customers.

The challenge with delivering a connected vehicle platform is simplifying the complexities of what is really a mobile datacenter on wheels so that these experiences are easier to create, deploy and refine.

Prakriya “really understands the tech and the business and how those things come together,” co-head of the team, Sullivan said. “She is fantastic as a counterpart.”

Microsoft’s work in the automotive space is about helping each corporate customer create a differentiated set of services.

Prakriya and Sullivan walk along a woodsy trail on Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington campus.

And for Prakriya, Sullivan and the team, focus is key — because there’s always another question to answer from another angle.

Originally published on 9/12/2019 / Photos by Brian Smale / © Microsoft

Posted on September 11, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Teachers: Tune in Sept. 17 for TweetMeet and live event on learning with Minecraft

Announcing the September 17 TweetMeet and a new Live Event

Minecraft: Education Edition has found a place in many classrooms around the world, empowering students and teachers to take charge of their learning, boost their STEM and 21st-century skills to solve problems through inquiry, creativity and collaboration—in the immersive and fun world of Minecraft.

On September 17, in celebration of the new Back to School updates by Minecraft: Education Edition, we’re excited to host two Minecraft-themed events to inspire you for the new school year: a #MSFTEduChat TweetMeet immediately followed by a new Live Event.

Keep reading for detailed information about this new, dual TweetMeet event.

TweetMeet on Teaching and Learning with Minecraft starting at 10 a.m. PDT

Whether you’re a newcomer to MinecraftEdu or have been working with it for years, our TweetMeet has something for you. Hosted by 21 passionate Minecraft Global Mentors, this Twitter conversation invites you to share and learn from the best ideas, tips and resources. Our hosts will provide you with implementation checklists and exciting examples of interactive lessons and activities that keep your learners motivated while they collaborate on solving real-world problems. With all this in mind, we welcome you to a 75-minute TweetMeet on September 17 at 10 a.m. PDT.

Live Event with Meenoo Rami from the MinecraftEdu Team at 11:15 a.m. PDT

Just a few weeks ago, Minecraft: Education Edition released the Back to School update for all users, which include Immersive Reader integration, an improved multiplayer experience with join codes, single sign-on (SSO) support and more.

Video for Teaching and learning with Minecraft—#MSFTEduChat TweetMeet and Live Event on September 17

Earlier this summer, the Minecraft team released an interactive science curriculum on biodiversity developed in partnership with World Wildlife Fund and Naturebytes.

That’s why we’re excited that Meenoo Rami from the Minecraft team will be demonstrating the highlights from these major announcements immediately after the TweetMeet, at 11:15 a.m. PDT.

Mark the Live Event in your calendar, join the Live Event—no registration required—and make sure to check out the MinecraftEdu Blog for many more posts detailing these significant updates.

Welcoming newcomers

Our brand-new “You can join a #MSFTEduChat TweetMeet” video was created especially for newcomers, so please share it with friends and colleagues who might be interested in joining:

Know someone who is totally new to Twitter and could use an introduction? Point them to the Twitter EDU tutorial ebook by David Truss @datruss.

10 Language tracks

We’re offering 10 simultaneous language tracks this month: English, Arabic, Dutch, Finnish (new!), French, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish.

For each language track, we have one or more hosts to post the translated questions and respond to educators.

The #TweetMeetXX hashtags for non-English languages are to be used together with #MSFTEduChat so that everyone can find the conversations back in their own language.

For example: German-speaking people should use both #TweetMeetDE and #MSFTEduChat. English-speaking educators may use #MSFTEduChat on its own.

TweetMeet Fan? Show it off on your Twitter profile!

Show your passion for this month’s Minecraft-themed TweetMeet by uploading this month’s #MSFTEduChat Twitter Header Photo as a banner on your own Twitter profile.

Twitter Header Photos are available in many languages and time zones.

Create your own TweetMeet Friend Card

Another way to share your enthusiasm for MinecraftEdu and the TweetMeets in general is to create a TweetMeet Friend Card. Share your own version of this image anytime, anywhere. It will come in handy when introducing yourself at the start of a TweetMeet. Just follow the steps in the TweetMeet Friend Cards PowerPoint.

Here’s an example:

Looking back on the August TweetMeet on Back to School

We captured highlights from the Back to School TweetMeet in this @MicrosoftEDU Twitter Moment. There’s even a comprehensive collection of 2,180 tweets in this Wakelet Collection.

Why join the #MSFTEduChat TweetMeets?

TweetMeets are monthly recurring Twitter conversations about themes relevant to educators, facilitated by Microsoft Education. The purpose of these events is to help professionals in education learn from each other and inspire their students while they are preparing for their future. The TweetMeets also nurture personal-learning networks among educators from across the globe.

Check out this helpful blog post by former host James Kieft that describes why educators should consider participating in Twitter chats and how to get started.

When and how can I join?

Join us Tuesday, September 17 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. PDT on Twitter using the hashtags #MinecraftEdu, #MSFTEduChat and#MicrosoftEDU (which you can always use to stay in touch with us). Be sure to double-check your own local event time. You can find the event time for 215 countries with this time zone announcer.

Our next recommendation for you is to set up a Twitter dashboard TweetDeck and add columns for the hashtag #MSFTEduChat, #MinecraftEdu and #MicrosoftEDU. If you are new to TweetDeck, then check out this brief TweetDeck tutorial by Marjolein Hoekstra.

When a tweet appears that you want to respond to, press the retweet button and type your comments.

Additional tips are offered in this animated GIF that you’re most welcome to share with newcomers:

Too busy to join at event time? No problem!

From our monthly surveys we know that you may be in class at event time, busy doing other things or may even be asleep—well, no problem! All educators are welcome to join any time after the event. Simply look at the questions below and respond to these at a day and time that suit you best.

You can also schedule your tweets in advance. In such cases, be sure to include the entire question in your tweet and include the hashtag #MSFTEduChat so that everyone knows to which question in which conversation you are responding.

To better allow everyone to prepare for the event, from now on we’re providing the question timings in a text table:

PDT	#	September 17–TweetMeet question timings
10:00am	Welcome	Please introduce yourself. Use hashtag #MSFTEduChat.
10:04	1	Why Minecraft in education?
10:18	2	What helps teachers get started with #MinecraftEdu?
10:32	3	How does Minecraft transform education? Share stories.
10:46	4	What practical Minecraft tips, resources and lessons do you recommend?
11:00	5	What’s the next step in your #MinecraftEdu adventure?
11:15	Live Event	Join our Live Event with Meenoo Rami from the MinecraftEdu team.

SuperWakelet: resources curated by this month’s hosts

Wakelet is a useful web service to bookmark, curate and annotate resources, images, tweets and other content. A brand-new addition is the possibility to include a Flipgrid Shorts video in a Wakelet.

Through our new SuperWakelet, each of our hosts uses Flipgrid to introduce and share their personal favorite resources on Minecraft in Education:

Teaching and Learning with Minecraft SuperWakelet, live-embedded:

Hosts

Meet the 21 hosts for this month’s TweetMeet! After going through weeks of preparation for this TweetMeet, they are thrilled to engage with you on their favorite topic: Teaching and Learning with Minecraft.

Check out all the hosts, see what they are tweeting about and consider following them: https://twitter.com/TweetMeet/lists/msfteduchat-2019-09/members

List of hosts and their profiles

Anis Amouri @Anis_amouri (Fine arts teacher, MIE Expert and MIE Master Trainer, Master Skype Teacher, Minecraft Global Mentor, SDG Ambassador, EU Code Week Ambassdor, HundrED Ambassador, CoSpaces Ambassador—Sfax, Tunisia)
Becky Keene @BeckyKeene (Director, Content and Professional Learning, insight2execution; Director of Amazing Things, Phygital Labs; Minecraft Global Mentor, MIE Expert and Master Trainer, Flipgrid Student Voice Ambassador, OneNote Junkie—Seattle WA, USA)
Bryan Sanders @nayrbgo (Doctor of Education, Educational Technology Researcher, Academic Technology Specialist, High School English Teacher, Minecraft Global Mentor—Los Angeles CA, USA)
Carlos Solano @Carlos_Rsolano (Teacher and NTI coordinator, passionate of learning gaming, using Minecraft in daily classes and also to promote social inclusion of both gifted and autistic childs, Minecraft Global Mentor, MIE Expert—Madrid, Spain)
Cheryn Ridge @cherynbaier (MIE Expert and Master Trainer, Minecraft Global Mentor, Teacher, EdTech Teacher Support at Computers 4 Kids—Cape Town, South Africa)
Elena Vladescu @VladescuElena (Physics teacher, Minecraft Global Mentor, MIE Expert, eTwinning and Scientix Ambassador—Slatina, Romania)
Erik Post @ErikPost9 (Geography and Technology teacher, Minecraft Global Mentor, MIE Expert, MIE Master Trainer—Hardenberg, The Netherlands)
Francisco Tupy @FranciscoTupy (Minecraft PhD (literally). Game designer, speaker and consultant on education and innovation projects worldwide—São Paulo, Brazil)
Jeff Gearhart @TechJeff09 (Technology Director at Brinnon School, NCCE Professional Learning Specialist, MIE Trainer, Surface Pro Expert, MIE Expert, Minecraft Global Mentor—Brinnon WA, USA)
Kristoffer Thomsen @kristoffer_th (Solution Specialist on Education at Microsoft, Former Minecraft Global Mentor. Technology and Education excites me—Oslo, Norway)
Mary Elizabeth Pearson @pearsonmep (Educator, NCCE Professional Learning Specialist, Madison International School Technology Consultant and Minecraft in Education academy coordinator, MIE Expert and Master Trainer, Minecraft Global Mentor—Merida, Mexico)
Merry Willis @merrywillis (Instructional Technology Specialist, Cherokee County, GA School District, Minecraft Global Mentor, MIE Expert, MIE Fellow and Master Trainer, Fulbright DAT Alumni—Woodstock GA, USA)
Michael Flashhacker @MiFleischhacker (Secondary teacher at NMS Kinzerplatz, Minecraft Global Mentor, flipping the classroom, passionate about game-based and lifelong learning—Vienna, Austria)
Mike Washburn @misterwashburn (Head of Curriculum and Training at Logics Academy, Host of OnEducation Podcast, Minecraft Global Mentor; MIE Expert—Barrie ON, Canada)
Nelly Hamed @nelly_hamed (MIEE fellow, Minecraft Mentor, MergeCube Ambassador, Cospaces Ambassador, Microsoft Trainer, ScreenBeam Expert, Work in Hayah International Academy, Associate at Immersive Minds UK, Hayah International Academy—Cairo, Egypt)
Noreen Dooley @nodooley (Classroom Technology Designer, NCCE Professional Learning Specialist, MIE Expert and Master Trainer, Minecraft Global Mentor, passionate about preparing students for success in the real world—Katy TX, USA)
Paola Lopez @pacsita (EdTech entrepreneur enthusiast, passionate about neurodiversity and Google Certified Innovator #MEX18 & Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, Flipgrid Ambassador and Minecraft Global Mentor—Monterrey, Mexico)
Pekka Ouli @pekkaouli (eLearning Specialist and Minecraft Global Mentor who loves international Minecraft projects and collaboration—Äänekoski, Finland)
Stéphane Cloâtre @StephaneCloatre (Technology Teacher, Robotics educator, Minecraft Global Mentor, Digital Education Consultant at Immersive Minds, passionate about making learning fun AND meaningful—Fougères, France)
Tina Coffey @elemitrt (Instructional Technology Teacher, Minecraft Global Mentor, passionate about finding ways to engage students, make learning relevant, promote global literacy, and foster 21st Century skills—Roanoke VA, USA)
Trish Cloud @trishcloud (Coordinator, Personalized Digital Learning, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, Minecraft Global Mentor, using Minecraft: EE to integrate CS into elementary and middle schools throughout CMS—Huntersville NC, USA)

Next month’s event: STEM and NASA

The theme of the TweetMeet on October 15 will be STEM and NASA. We’re looking forward to this event and hope you’ll spread the word!

Got questions about the #MSFTEduChat TweetMeets?

Please connect with TweetMeet organizer Marjolein Hoekstra @TweetMeet on Twitter if you have any questions about the TweetMeets or how to become a host at a future event.

Posted on September 10, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Brendan Burns: Building cloud-native applications with Azure and HashiCorp

With each passing year, more and more developers are building cloud-native applications. As developers build more complex applications they are looking to innovators like Microsoft Azure and HashiCorp to reduce the complexity of building and operating these applications. HashiCorp and Azure have worked together on a myriad of innovations. Examples of this innovation include tools that connect cloud-native applications to legacy infrastructure and tools that secure and automate the continuous deployment of customer applications and infrastructure. Azure is deeply committed to being the best platform for open source software developers like HashiCorp to deliver their tools to their customers in an easy-to use, integrated way. Azure innovation like the managed applications platform that power HashiCorp’s Consul Service on Azure are great examples of this commitment to collaboration and a vibrant open source startup ecosystem. We’re also committed to the development of open standards that help these ecosystems move forward and we’re thrilled to have been able to collaborate with HashiCorp on both the CNAB (Cloud Native Application Bundle) and SMI (Service Mesh Interface) specifications.

Last year at HashiConf 2018, I had the opportunity to share how we had started to integrate Terraform and Packer into the Azure platform. I’m incredibly excited to get the opportunity to return this year to share how these integrations are progressing and to share a new collaboration on cloud native networking. With this new work we now have collaborations that help customers connect and operate their applications on Azure using HashiCorp technology.

Connect — HashiCorp Consul Service on Azure

After containers and Kubernetes, one of the most important innovations in microservices has been the development of the concept of a service mesh. Earlier this year we partnered with HashiCorp and others to announce the release of Service Mesh Interface, a collaborative, implementation agnostic API for the configuration and deployment of service mesh technology. We collaborated with HashiCorp to produce a control rules implementation of the traffic access control (TAC) using Consul Connect. Today we’re excited that Azure customers can take advantage of HashiCorp Consul Services on Azure powered by the Azure Managed Applications platform. HashiCorp Consul provides a solution to simplify and secure service networking and with this new managed offering, our joint customers can focus on the value of Consul while confident that the experts at HashiCorp are taking care of the management of the service. Reducing complexity for customers and enabling them to focus on cloud native innovation.

Provision — HashiCorp Terraform on Azure

HashiCorp Terraform is a great tool for doing declarative deployment to Azure. We’re seeing great momentum with adoption of HashiCorp Terraform on Azure as the number of customers has doubled since the beginning of the year – customers are using Terraform to automate Azure infrastructure deployment and operation in a variety of scenarios.

The momentum is fantastic on the contribution front as well with nearly 180 unique contributors to the Terraform provider for Azure Resource Manager. The involvement from the community with our increased 3-week cadence of releases (currently at version 1.32) ensures more coverage of Azure services by Terraform. Additionally, after customer and community feedback regarding the need for additional Terraform modules for Azure, we’ve been working hard at adding high quality modules and now have doubled the number of Azure modules in the terraform registry, bringing it to over 120 modules.

We believe all these additional integrations enable customers to manage infrastructure as code more easily and simplify managing their cloud environments. Learn more about Terraform on Azure.

Microsoft and HashiCorp are working together to provide integrated support for Terraform on Azure. Customers using Terraform on Microsoft’s Azure cloud are mutual customers, and both companies are united to provide troubleshooting and support services. This joint entitlement process provides collaborative support across companies and platforms while delivering a seamless customer experience. Customers using Terraform Provider for Azure can file support tickets to Microsoft support. Customers using Terraform on Azure support can file support tickets to Microsoft or HashiCorp.

Deploy — Collaborating on Cloud Native Application Bundles specification

One of the critical problems solved by containers is the hermetic packaging of a binary into a package that is easy to share and deploy around the world. But a cloud-native application is more than a binary, and this is what led to the co-development, with HashiCorp and others, of the Coud Native Application Bundle (CNAB) specification. CNABs allow you to package images alongside configuration tools like Terraform and other artifacts to allow a user to seamlessly deploy an application from a single package. I’ve been excited to see the community work together to build the specification to a 1.0 release that shows CNAB is ready for all of the world’s deployment needs. Congratulations to the team on the work and the fantastic partnership.

If you want to learn more about the ways in which Azure and HashiCorp collaborate to make cloud-native development easier, please check out the links below:

Posted on September 10, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Available today: ‘Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age’ by Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne

A day we’ve long anticipated has finally arrived. Today, the new book that Carol Ann Browne and I have written, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, publishes by Penguin Press and Hodder & Stoughton in North America and English languages around the world. We chose the phrase “Tools and Weapons” to capture the paradox of technology. While tech companies like Microsoft create products and services to serve humanity, that same tech is being weaponized to inflict harm. And more indirectly, many of the issues people debate today, like income equality, trade, immigration and globalization, are all enabled and fueled by technology.

These challenges affect us all, no matter where we live, fostering a new age of anxiety. Tools and Weapons starts with the proposition that if your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help the world navigate these changes. We wrote the book to make these issues more accessible to people and to examine ways to address them.

As we worked on the book, Carol Ann and I reflected on several stories drawn from current events, issues faced by Microsoft, and history. Why history? As we delved into the issues, we realized most have parallels from the past. The horse lost its job to the car, trains forced interstate regulation, the public revolted against the radio in the 1940s, and people feared that early cameras and the advent of street lamps would invade their privacy. But what’s different today is the speed of change. In a way, the issues created by today’s technology aren’t unprecedented, things are just moving a lot faster.

Tools and Weapons opens with a tour of what has become the world’s filing cabinet – the cloud. While the cloud is the underpinning of almost every aspect of society, most people don’t understand what it truly is: a massive fortress of concrete and steel. And while there is no cloud without a data center, these complexes are shrouded in mystery. We realized that to understand how the world really works today, you need to visit a data center. That’s why we open the book by taking the reader on the type of tour that typically is available only to a few industry insiders.

I hope that when people read this book, they will gain not only a better understanding of the forces changing our world, but also a sense that there is a promising way forward. It is a path that requires the entire technology sector to change and take on more responsibility. It’s also a path that requires governments to do more, to move faster and change as well. Fundamentally, it’s a path that requires that we work together in very concrete ways to bring together people who create technology, people who use technology, people who govern technology, and people who are impacted by it. As the book illustrates with concrete and colorful stories, we believe that this will provide the best approach to address issues that range from privacy and security to the development of artificial intelligence and the impact of technology on our jobs and international relations between nations, including the U.S. and China.

And there is one other thing that was very near and dear to our hearts. For all of us who like to read, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said, we all buy more books than we start and we all start more books than we finish. We had a clear goal throughout our writing process and that was to write a book that we hope people will enjoy reading. I hope you enjoy it. Please tell us what you think on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Tools and Weapons is available today in the English language at retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and International Booksellers. Editions in additional languages will publish in the coming months. To learn more, visit the Tools and Weapons website and register for public events in your city.

Published By

Our book is available today! Carol Ann Browne and I wrote this book to make today’s tech issues more accessible to more people and broaden the conversation. We are so excited to finally share it with you! #ToolsAndWeapons