Microsoft news – Page 179

Posted on July 18, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Printing in the cloud—Lexmark digitalizes its future with a modern workplace and Microsoft 365

Today’s post was written by Brad Clay, Senior Vice President, Chief Information and Compliance Officer at Lexmark International.

This is a fascinating time to be talking about the printer industry. It’s no surprise that the digitization of business contributed to a decline in traditional printing. However, most people don’t know that in the last 10 years, Lexmark reinvented itself as a tech-enabled company to achieve what we call our “digital thread strategy.” Even back then, we saw the printer less as a standalone device and more of an Internet of Things (IoT)–enabled component of business. Today, our average printer is equipped with more than 120 sensors dedicated to collecting data that we use to feed our R&D function and to enhance customer service. All this is stored in a single globally managed print services platform that services millions of printing devices across 170 countries/regions.

But as customers’ expectations for capability and service at the individual printer level—what I call “mass customization”—accelerates, Lexmark must be ready with innovative new services that take advantage of the scale and AI of cloud computing. Part of my role as CIO is to make sure that Lexmark remains ahead of industry trends. To that end, we’re transforming our work environment so that employees can achieve the level of productivity needed to deliver the innovative services our customers require. Microsoft offers a complete interoperable suite of cloud services that now forms the foundation for our digital transformation story. We had come a long way toward IoT-enabling our business, but the ability to leverage the Microsoft cloud platform means we can deploy industry-leading offers that take the IoT capabilities of our managed service platform to the next level. We’re using everything from Microsoft Azure to Microsoft 365 to Microsoft Dynamics 365.

As we expand our existing IoT expertise and drive the printer industry into the digital age, we’re innovating and using the Microsoft cloud platform to solve our customers’ problems in amazing new ways. Our Connected Field Service takes data from our Lexmark IoT Hub, augmented by Azure Machine Learning, and feeds information into Dynamics 365, so we can make predictive diagnostics for individual machines and alert service technicians to be ready. We just launched Lexmark Cloud Print Infrastructure as a Service, which also works off the Microsoft cloud platform. This provides access to a modern, secure cloud-based print environment via a subscription service. Customers pay only for print capacity, rather than owning and managing their printers.

A year ago, we had no relationship with Microsoft. We used other providers for email, teleconferencing, collaboration, security, digital workplace, customer relationship management, and business intelligence. We were looking at the future of connected print service when our architecture team laid out the value of the Microsoft cloud ecosystem. It was easy to see the rationale of moving away from a best-in-class approach to technology.

A key component of our transformation plays out in the workplace, where we use Microsoft 365 to enable highly secure global collaboration at an unprecedented level. Across the business, we use Microsoft Teams for morning checkpoints, video calls, documentation authoring, file sharing, and persistent chat. Ubiquitous and contextual collaboration drives organizational agility and accelerates the business. It was a major driver behind adopting Teams and the move to Microsoft.

Empowering employees fosters innovation, and here, the digital transformation at Lexmark delivers another benefit. Tools like Teams contribute to a culture of empowerment, where employees don’t have to rely on IT to start the next great project or to work together on the next innovation for Lexmark customers. With these products and services being designed to take advantage of Azure and Dynamics 365 for Sales, it’s easy to see the value of an end-to-end Microsoft cloud computing platform.

Under our Global Optimization 365 (GO365) program, we completely retooled the business in less than a year, retiring 13 legacy solutions. Thanks to cloud computing, we’ve reduced our IT spend year over year by 25 percent, and our partnership with Microsoft heavily enabled that. As we take advantage of the integrated security tools that are built into the Microsoft cloud platform, we’re seeing alerts and events communicated behind the scenes, in a consistent way, providing insights into the threat landscape and helping meet our security requirements—with less effort from IT. Moving to the Microsoft cloud platform, we doubled our security operations capacity and performance in just one year based on the number and quality of the feeds coming into our security information and event management solution and the ability of our security operations team to clear incidents. And all the while, we continue to refine our competitive advantage: that idea of mass customization, where we can deliver IoT-enabled printing services to customers at a price point that we don’t think anybody else can touch.

As we build on the promise of the cloud in the world of printers, we’re looking forward to working with Microsoft all the way.

—Brad Clay

Read the full case study to learn more about Lexmark’s move to a modern workplace.

Posted on July 18, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New cyberthreats require new ways to protect democracy

Man and woman look at Microsoft ElectionGuard demos — Microsoft ElectionGuard demos on July 17, 2019 at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado.

Starting today at the Aspen Security Forum we’re demonstrating the first voting system running Microsoft ElectionGuard as an example of how ElectionGuard can enable a new era of secure, verifiable voting. The demo shows how it’s also possible to make voting more accessible for people with disabilities and more affordable for local governments while increasing security. Finding new ways to ensure that voters can trust the election process has never been more important. The world’s democracies remain under attack as new data we are sharing today makes clear. ElectionGuard and the range of offerings from Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program, as well as tools from others in the technology industry and academia are needed more than ever to help defend democracy.

Let’s start with a quick look at the newest data available to us. In the past year, Microsoft has notified nearly 10,000 customers they’ve been targeted or compromised by nation-state attacks. About 84% of these attacks targeted our enterprise customers, and about 16% targeted consumer personal email accounts. While many of these attacks are unrelated to the democratic process, this data demonstrates the significant extent to which nation-states continue to rely on cyberattacks as a tool to gain intelligence, influence geopolitics or achieve other objectives.

The majority of nation-state activity in this period originated from actors in three countries – Iran, North Korea and Russia. We have seen extensive activity from the actors we call Holmium and Mercury operating from Iran, Thallium operating from North Korea, and two actors operating from Russia we call Yttrium and Strontium. This data has been compiled by the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center which works every day to track these global threats. We build this intelligence into our security products to protect customers and use it in support of our efforts to disrupt threat actor activities through direct legal action or in collaboration with law enforcement. But let’s be clear – cyberattacks continue to be a significant tool and weapon wielded in cyberspace. In some instances, those attacks appear to be related to ongoing efforts to attack the democratic process.

Since the launch of Microsoft AccountGuard last August, we have uncovered attacks specifically targeting organizations that are fundamental to democracy. We have steadily expanded AccountGuard, our threat notification service for political campaigns, parties, and democracy-focused nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to include 26 countries across four continents. While this service is relatively new, we’ve already made 781 notifications of nation-state attacks targeting organizations participating in AccountGuard. This data shows that democracy-focused organizations in the United States should be particularly concerned as 95% of these attacks have targeted U.S.-based organizations. By nature, these organizations are critical to society but have fewer resources to protect against cyberattacks than large enterprises.

Many of the democracy-focused attacks we’ve seen recently target NGOs and think tanks, and reflect a pattern that we also observed in the early stages of some previous elections. In this pattern, a spike in attacks on NGOs and think tanks that work closely with candidates and political parties, or work on issues central to their campaigns, serve as a precursor to direct attacks on campaigns and election systems themselves. We saw such attacks in the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and in the last French presidential election. In 2018 we announced attacks targeting, among others, leading U.S. senatorial candidates and think tanks associated with key issues at the time. Earlier this year we saw attacks targeting democracy-focused NGOs in Europe close to European elections. As we head into the 2020 elections, given both the broad reliance on cyberattacks by nation-states and the use of cyberattacks to specifically target democratic processes, we anticipate that we will see attacks targeting U.S. election systems, political campaigns or NGOs that work closely with campaigns.

So the problem is real and unabated. It is time to find solutions. Governments and civil society have important roles to play, but the tech industry also has a responsibility to help defend democracy. As part of our contribution at Microsoft, we believe ElectionGuard will be an important tool to protect the voting process and to ensure that all voters can trust the outcome of free democratic elections. We are excited that attendees of the Aspen Security Forum will be able to try our ElectionGuard demo. While ElectionGuard can run on a range of new or existing voting systems using hardware from a variety of manufacturers, the demo we’re showing this week was built using a Microsoft Surface tablet in kiosk mode, an Xbox Adaptive Controller as an optional accessible input device, and a standard printer.

Our ElectionGuard demo will showcase three core features.

First, people will be able to vote directly on the screen of the Microsoft Surface or using the Xbox Adaptive Controller, which Microsoft originally built in close partnership with organizations like the Cerebral Palsy Foundation to meet the needs of gamers with limited mobility. We hope this will help show the community how accessibility hardware can be built securely and inexpensively into primary voting systems and no longer requires separate voting machines to meet the needs of those with disabilities – ultimately making it easier for more people to vote.

Second, people using the demo will be provided with a tracking code that, when voting is complete, they will be able to enter into a website to confirm their vote was counted and not altered; the website will not display their actual votes. In the ElectionGuard software development kit (SDK) this verification feature will be enabled by homomorphic encryption, which allows mathematical procedures – like counting votes – to be done while keeping the data of people’s actual votes fully encrypted. The use of homomorphic encryption in election systems was pioneered by Microsoft Research under the leadership of Senior Cryptographer Josh Benaloh. This tracking code is a key feature of the ElectionGuard technology. For the first time voters will be able to independently verify with certainty that their vote was counted and not altered. Importantly, in its final form the ElectionGuard SDK will also enable voting officials, the media, or any third party to use a “verifier” application to similarly confirm that the encrypted vote was properly counted and not altered.

Third, the demo will show how ElectionGuard can enable end-to-end verifiable elections for the first time while retaining the familiarity and certainty of paper ballots. The demo will provide voters with a printed record of their votes, which they can check and place into a physical ballot box, with verification through the web portal serving as a supplemental layer of security and verifiability.

ElectionGuard is free and open-source and will be available through GitHub as an SDK later this summer. This week’s demo is simply one sample of the many ways ElectionGuard can be used to improve voting, and the final SDK will also enable features like Risk Limiting Audits to compare ballots with ballot counts and other post-election audits.

We will not distribute commercial voting systems like the one we’re demoing this week but instead are partnering with the community of election technology suppliers that already serve state and local governments. We previously announced that we have partnerships with suppliers that build and sell more than half of the voting systems used in the United States today. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re also now partnering with Smartmatic and Clear Ballot, two of the leading voting technology vendors, and Dominion Voting Systems is actively exploring the inclusion of ElectionGuard in their offerings.

In the coming months, we will also announce new details about our partnership with Columbia University’s Columbia World Projects. Columbia professors in statistics, political science, computer science, and international and public affairs will be joining forces with Microsoft to bring ElectionGuard to life by piloting the technology in the 2020 elections.

No one solution alone can address cyberattacks from nation-states. As we’ve seen, attackers will take any avenue to gain intelligence and disrupt the democratic process. That’s why Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program has also offered Microsoft 365 for Campaigns and AccountGuard to protect political campaigns, parties and democracy-focused NGOs, and it’s why we’ve partnered with NewsGuard to defend against disinformation.

At the same time, no single company can tackle these issues, and the need to protect democracy is more important than corporate competition. We applaud similar contributions from companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google; it’s also why Microsoft’s Defending Democracy program is supporting efforts from those like the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center, Columbia World Projects at Columbia University, research underway by Princeton University, and the Oxford Internet Institute’s Computational Propaganda Project.

At the Aspen Security Forum and in the months to come we need to have an honest conversation about threats, but more importantly a conversation about all the emerging tools available to stop them. Microsoft and our Defending Democracy program are committed to our responsibility to the United States and other world democracies to provide tools and technology to combat these threats. As you read this post and participate in the Aspen Security Forum discussions in person or over social media, I hope you’ll give equal thought both to the problems and to the solutions.

Posted on July 17, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

MediaValet bets big on AI to deliver more customer value

Transform recently sat down with several Microsoft customers at an event highlighting emerging trends in data and artificial intelligence (AI). We spoke with Jean Lozano, chief technology officer at MediaValet, a cloud-based digital asset management (DAM) system, which helps customers of all sizes manage their growing digital media libraries.

TRANSFORM: What is a DAM and what business problem does it solve?

JEAN LOZANO: A DAM is like a video or photo library, but it can handle way more than that. It’s typically used by enterprise marketing teams to provide a single source of truth for all brand and marketing content.

The big challenge with digital media is that it’s unstructured by nature, so discoverability can be a problem. A lot of companies invest tens of thousands of dollars in creating digital media and infographics, but its lack of searchable data makes them hard to find.

A DAM implementation contains anywhere from 10,000 to several-million digital media [items] that are put into a central repository and tagged to make them discoverable. Having just one person as the curator of the digital library is way too much, and that’s where AI comes in.

TRANSFORM: How does AI help you serve your customers?

LOZANO: We’re betting big on Azure AI to make MediaValet the most intelligent DAM out there. We’ve seen it in various deal cycles that we would not have otherwise won. It’s just a matter of demonstrating capabilities.

So, for example, one of the hottest technologies that we can demo is our capability for video indexing, which other DAMs cannot offer right now. Video is the fastest growing media out there, so when our customers can actually see their videos getting analyzed and made discoverable, they can see the value it adds.

As an example, we have a huge video production house as a customer. Every time they do a shoot, it’s a 500-gigabyte upload to MediaValet. But, they also have to generate video transcriptions. With video indexing, we [provide] the transcriptions as soon as they load it on our system, so they don’t have to send the files [elsewhere] for manual transcription. Does that improve their workflow? Definitely.

TRANSFORM: Have your customers fully embraced the changes and the new technologies?

LOZANO: Many of our customers are digital asset curators, and some of them probably fear that AI is going to replace them. But the guiding principle for AI is assistance, not replacement. AI is going to make their lives easier. It will enrich the data that they’re producing, but it doesn’t replace them.

TRANSFORM: How does AI make life easier for a digital asset curator?

LOZANO: We have a couple of customers that are sports franchises that are creating millions of images. These teams have been there for decades and decades. One hockey team had about 50 petabytes of video clips. So, how do you work through millions of images and hundreds of thousands of hours of video?

Machine learning is actually helping with that now. For example, you can detect a jersey number and see who is the player that wears that number. We can actually make those images easy to use for marketers, or the communications team when they look for brand approved images.

Posted on July 17, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Looking back, looking ahead: Customers are driving capabilities for their business and people

This week in Las Vegas, at Microsoft Inspire, our annual partner event, I had several conversations about the year we’ve had and what is next for the industry, including opportunities to bring the latest innovations to our mutual customers. Together we are building incredible momentum, truly transforming industries and redefining the art of what is possible. As we move into this new fiscal year, I am particularly energized by the traction I see with open cloud engagements – and the collaborative nature of our partnerships with companies across the world.

This morning’s news of our extensive and multi-year strategic collaboration with AT&T is another example of partnering to deliver unique solutions for our mutual customers, leveraging the strength of AT&T’s network and our cloud expertise. We expect our customers to benefit across a range of scenarios where 5G can enable critical near-instantaneous communications across industries. For example, imagine a first responder using AI-powered live voice translation to quickly communicate with someone in need who speaks a different language. Microsoft will be AT&T’s preferred cloud provider for non-network applications on Microsoft Azure and support AT&T as it consolidates its data center infrastructure and operations. In addition, AT&T will provide most of its workforce with robust cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools with Microsoft 365.

Unilever, a company whose products touch 2.5 billion consumers every day, also made a big impression this week at Microsoft Inspire. Dave Penrith, chief engineer at Unilever, joined me onstage to showcase how digital is empowering the company’s nearly 155,000 employees globally to do their best work with Microsoft 365 (including Teams and Yammer). Unilever is also building custom apps that harness real-time insights from data with PowerApps and Power BI and using Azure IoT’s digital twin technology to represent the physical production lines in its Valinhos Dove factory to digitize its supply chain network.

Of course, Microsoft Inspire is just one moment in time. Over the past 12 months, we’ve made headway across a diverse set of customers and industries.

Earlier this year, in the health care industry, we announced a seven-year, strategic cloud partnership with Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). WBA will harness the power of Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform, Microsoft 365, health industry investments and new retail solutions with WBA’s customer reach, convenient locations, outpatient health care services and industry expertise to make health care delivery more personal, affordable and accessible for people around the world. Most recently, UCLA Health shared how they are moving to our cloud to help speed research and improve patient care, and our new multi-year strategic alliance with Providence St. Joseph Health will harness the power of Azure and AI to deploy next-generation solutions in health care and power their employees with Microsoft 365 and Teams.

These are just some of the recent examples that highlight Microsoft’s customer-first approach. In fact, the world’s leading companies choose Azure for their mission-critical workloads, including more than 95 percent of the Fortune 500. In addition, this year we shared stories with retail industry leaders like Walmart, Kroger, Gap, Inc., Albertsons Companies, Starbucks, Neiman Marcus and Coles, and in the automotive industry with Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen and Renault Nissan Mitsubishi. With manufacturing, Airbus demonstrated how HoloLens and mixed reality are helping double its life-to-date aircraft production while improving quality, safety and security.

We continue to invest in technology partnerships to ensure Microsoft’s cloud is the best platform for our customers not only to access all their data, but to understand, process and act on that data to innovate. Microsoft’s open cloud approach has been demonstrated time and again. We continue to advance our Open Data Initiative with SAP and Adobe, including progress announced earlier this year empowers customers like Coke, Unilever, Walmart and HP to build data models that meet their enterprise needs. In the past quarter, we announced a strategic partnership with Dell Technologies to provide customers with a fully native, supported and certified VMware experience on Microsoft Azure and the ability to extend Microsoft 365 and Windows Virtual Desktop. We announced a cloud interoperability partnership with Oracle using Azure services like Analytics and AI, and are continuing our work with Red Hat to make its extensive portfolio of technologies available on Azure. Plus, we announced last week that Service Now, running on Microsoft Azure, will enable enterprise customers in certain highly regulated industries, such as government, to accelerate their digital transformation and drive new levels of insights and innovation.

It is humbling to see all the ways our customers and partners are embracing technology. Whether large or small, companies are driving new experiences and solutions across every industry, redefining innovation and creating impactful change for the future of their businesses and employees. Their journeys are powerful, and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to be their trusted partners along the way.

Posted on July 17, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

AT&T and Microsoft announce a strategic alliance to deliver innovation with cloud, AI and 5G

Multiyear collaboration will accelerate AT&T’s “public cloud first” internal transformation and deliver new customer offerings built on AT&T’s network and Microsoft’s cloud

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and John Donovan of AT&T — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan.

DALLAS and REDMOND, Wash. — July 17, 2019 — AT&T Communications and Microsoft Corp. are embarking on an extensive, multiyear alliance where the two companies will apply technologies, including cloud, AI, and 5G, to improve how people live and work today and in the future. Microsoft will be the preferred cloud provider for non-network applications, as part of AT&T’s broader public cloud first strategy, and will support AT&T as it consolidates its data center infrastructure and operations.

AT&T is becoming a “public cloud first” company by migrating most non-network workloads to the public cloud by 2024. That initiative will allow AT&T to focus on core network capabilities, accelerate innovation for its customers, and empower its workforce while optimizing costs.

As part of the agreement, AT&T will provide much of its workforce with robust cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools available with Microsoft 365, and plans to migrate non-network infrastructure applications to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

AT&T and Microsoft will together help enable a future of ubiquitous computing through edge technologies and 5G. AT&T was the first to introduce mobile 5G in the United States and expects to have nationwide 5G by the first half of 2020. Microsoft will tap into the innovation AT&T is offering on its 5G network, including to design, test, and build edge-computing capabilities. With edge computing and a lower-latency 5G connection enabled through AT&T’s geographically dispersed network infrastructure, devices can process data closer to where decisions are made. Recently, Microsoft and AT&T worked together to test an edge computing-based tracking and detection system for drones. With more connected devices and the growing demand for streaming content from movies to games, businesses and consumers require ever-increasing network capabilities.

The global scale of Microsoft’s Azure cloud and AT&T’s domestic 5G capabilities will enable unique solutions for the companies’ mutual customers. The companies will bring to market integrated industry solutions including in the areas of voice, collaboration and conferencing, intelligent edge and networking, IoT, public safety, and cyber security. The companies already have joint enterprise solutions for networking, IoT, and blockchain in market, and expect to announce additional services later in 2019. The two companies envision scenarios with 5G enabling near-instantaneous communications for a first responder who is using AI-powered live voice translation to quickly communicate with someone in need who speaks a different language.

“AT&T and Microsoft are among the most committed companies to fostering technology that serves people,” said John Donovan, CEO, AT&T Communications. “By working together on common efforts around 5G, the cloud, and AI, we will accelerate the speed of innovation and impact for our customers and our communities.”

“AT&T is at the forefront of defining how advances in technology, including 5G and edge computing, will transform every aspect of work and life,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “The world’s leading companies run on our cloud, and we are delighted that AT&T chose Microsoft to accelerate its innovation. Together, we will apply the power of Azure and Microsoft 365 to transform the way AT&T’s workforce collaborates and to shape the future of media and communications for people everywhere.”

In addition to their technology collaboration, AT&T and Microsoft will work together on technology-enabled approaches and solutions aimed at social good. Both companies have been focused on addressing sustainability, accessibility, and community challenges such as homelessness and see an opportunity to support each other’s work to address urgent social needs, including Microsoft’s affordable housing initiative and the AT&T Believes campaign.

About AT&T Communications

We help family, friends and neighbors connect in meaningful ways every day. From the first phone call 140+ years ago to mobile video streaming, we innovate to improve lives. We have the nation’s fastest wireless network.* And according to America’s biggest test, we have the nation’s best wireless network.** We’re building FirstNet just for first responders and creating next-generation mobile 5G. With DIRECTV, DIRECTV NOW and WatchTV, we deliver entertainment people love to talk about. Our smart, highly secure solutions serve nearly 3 million global businesses – nearly all of the Fortune 1000. And worldwide, our spirit of service drives employees to give back to their communities.

AT&T Communications is part of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T). Learn more at att.com/CommunicationsNews.

AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. Additional information about AT&T products and services is available at about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at facebook.com/att and on YouTube at youtube.com/att.

© 2019 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the Globe logo and other marks are trademarks and service marks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains financial estimates and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in AT&T’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any obligation to update and revise statements contained in this news release based on new information or otherwise.

This news release may contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between the non-GAAP financial measures and the GAAP financial measures are available on the company’s website at https://investors.att.com.

*Based on analysis by Ookla® of Speedtest Intelligence® data average download speeds for Q2 2019.
**GWS OneScore, September 2018.

About Microsoft

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

AT&T, Jeff Kobs, (214) 236-0113 jeffrey.kobs@att.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 July 17, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Find out what Xbox will be up to at gamescom 2019

Following this year’s incredible E3 and the breathtaking reaction we’ve had from our fans, we’re excited to let you know that Xbox will be coming to gamescom 2019 in Cologne, Germany. We’ll be bringing a great line up of games to the event from developers around the world with almost 200 gameplay stations in our booth, including the first public hands-on of both Minecraft Dungeons, Horde Mode in Gears 5 and fans in Germany can also try Project xCloud for the first time.

Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll be getting up to at the show this year:

Inside Xbox live from Cologne
To kick off the week, we’ll be hosting a special episode of Inside Xbox live from the Gloria Theatre in Cologne. Tune in Monday, August 19 at 5:00 p.m. CEST (8:00 a.m. PDT) for the latest news, games, accessories, and features that we can’t wait to tell you more about!

You can catch the show on xbox.com, Mixer, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Xbox Open Doors
Held at the Gloria Theatre on Wednesday, August 21 to Friday, August 23, Xbox Open Doors offers fans a multiday experience during the week of gamescom. Entry to Xbox Open Doors is free and fans will be able to participate in community events, game tournaments, panel sessions and other exciting experiences. Stay tuned for more information and announcements about Xbox Open Doors.

Xbox Booth
The Xbox booth will feature nearly 200 gaming stations with a fantastic line up of titles across a variety of genres and platforms, with many of these experiences coming to Xbox Game Pass for Console and Xbox Game Pass for PC at launch. If you’re coming to the show, make sure you pay us a visit – we’re in Hall 8 of the Koelnmesse (access via North entrance).

gamescom will be the first time that fans in Europe will have the chance to jump in and try out many of our newest gameplay experiences from Xbox Game Studios including Age of Empires II Definitive Edition, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Gears 5, Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC, Minecraft Dungeons and more. In addition, we’ll have several highly anticipated third-party games available to play at the booth, including Borderlands 3, Doom Eternal, NBA 2K20, and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Fans at gamescom will also be amongst the first in Europe to get hands-on with Project xCloud and experience the true power of cloud gaming on mobile.

Lastly, at Xbox, we believe that gaming should be safe, inclusive, and accessible for all, and in that spirit we’re excited to announce that our booth is even more accessible to fans at the show this year. This includes Xbox Adaptive Controllers available for nearly every game on the booth, wheelchair access at every point of the booth and sign language interpreting support for all on-booth programming in both English and German.

Windows Gaming Powered by Xbox Game Pass
Featuring Xbox Game Pass for PC titles such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and more at our Xbox booth, you can also check out the latest PC gaming hardware at our booth dedicated to gaming on Windows PC. We’ll also have custom-built PCs from BoostBoxx by CSL, the latest gaming laptops and desktops from Acer and other partners showcasing high-quality components that deliver powerful PC gaming experiences. Fans can even try the goliath of gaming chairs, the Predator Thronos!

Visit the Xbox Official Gear Shop
Returning to gamescom in partnership with Game Legends, come and visit the Xbox Official Gear Shop in the gamescom fanshop arena. Fly your gaming colors and show off your fandom for Xbox and award-winning franchises like Gears of War, Halo, and Sea of Thieves with all new apparel and collectibles including the gamescom exclusive Xbox Green Tech Sphere pin!

Show opening times are as follows:

Tuesday, August 20 – 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. CEST (press/trade only day)
Wednesday, August 21 – 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CEST
Thursday, August 22 – 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. CEST
Friday, August 23 – 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. CEST
Saturday, August 24 – 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. CEST

Remember to keep your eyes on Xbox social channels for the latest news and updates surrounding Xbox at gamescom 2019 – Mixer, Facebook, Twitter – we’ll keep you updated with all the great activity happening from the show. Can’t wait to see you there!

Posted on July 16, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Digital distribution centers — The future is here

The pace of change has never been as fast as it is now. Globally, the population is becoming more urban and income levels are rising. By 2050, nearly 70 percent of the global population will live in cities or urban areas—that’s six billion people. Consumer behavior has also materially changed over the last decade, and omnichannel retail, personalization, and demand for same day deliveries are growing. To cater to the changing landscape, urban distribution centers that stage products closer to users within large cities are on the rise to enable faster delivery and greater customization.

Within the four walls of the distribution center, picking and packing tasks account for more than 50 percent of the total labor cost of warehousing operations. Access to labor has become increasingly challenging, particularly in urban centers, and staffing levels shoot up five to ten-times normal levels during the holiday season. Space constraints and difficulty in staffing are pushing companies to look at adopting distribution center technologies that cut labor costs, optimizes the flow of products, and improves productivity and utilization of these centers.

Since announcing Microsoft’s $5B commitment to developing an industry leading internet of things (IoT) platform last year, we’ve continued to work with our ecosystem partners to build solutions to address such problems. In “Our IoT Vision and Roadmap” session at Microsoft Build, we announced a partnership with Lenovo and NVIDIA, to bring advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to Azure IoT Edge. The demonstrated solution showed Lenovo hardware, a single SE350 Edge Server, running the Azure IoT Edge runtime with NVIDIA DeepStream to process multiple channels of 1080P/30FPS H265 video streams in real-time, transforming cameras into smart sensors that understand their physical environments and use vision algorithms to find missing products on a shelf or detect damaged goods. Such applications of Azure IoT Edge technology enable customers to quickly and cost effectively deploy retail solutions that optimize their logistics operations.

Today, we are excited to announce the next milestone on this journey, the preview of Lenovo’s Digital Distribution Center (DDC) solution. Lenovo’s DDC is an IoT solution developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and Microsoft. Through real-time scalable package detection, tracking, and validation, DDC delivers for better optimization and increased utilization of distribution centers for retail, manufacturing, and logistics operations. The solution uses multi-video stream analytics with artificial intelligence and machine learning inferencing to self-learn, optimize, and scale. Additional releases will include geofencing alerts, palletization, depalletization, and last-mile sorting.

DDC is built with Azure IoT Central, Microsoft’s fully managed IoT app platform that makes it easy to connect, monitor, and manage your IoT devices and products. Azure IoT Central simplifies the initial setup of your IoT solution and reduces the management burden, operational costs, and overhead of a typical IoT project. This allows solution builders to apply their energy and unique domain expertise to solving customer needs and creating business value, rather than needing to tackle the operating, managing, securing, and scaling of a global IoT solution. Partners like Lenovo and NVIDIA add unique value through schemas that are relevant to industry solutions like DDC, including common industry hierarchies that organize people, places, and environments.

Join us for a demo of our solution at the Microsoft partner booth during Microsoft Inspire—July 14-18, 2019, in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you are interested in joining our preview program about the solution, please contact IoTSolutions@lenovo.com

Posted on July 16, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Upcoming on Xbox Game Pass: ‘Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,’ ‘Resident Evil 4’ and more

Are you ever at a Summer BBQ and your friend asks you what kind of food you want off the grill? It can be seriously overwhelming. You’ve got hot dogs, burgers, meat skewers, maybe some corn on the cob with extra salt, lime, and cotija cheese to give it that extra flavor zing…it’s never an easy choice. Well friend, not to put you in a tough position or anything, but we’ve been working the grill for quite a while and we’ve cooked up a lot of games for you this Summer. Our favorite flavor? Hot new games for our Xbox Game Pass friends. Sure, you can play them all, but the hardest part is choosing what to pick first. Grab a plate, we’ve got a lot to go over.

ICYMI, Gears 5 Tech Test is playable beginning Friday, July 19 so cancel your plans and meet up online instead to help test multiplayer! All Xbox Game Pass members get access to play the Tech Test beginning July 19 and July 26, but you can queue up the download starting Wednesday, July 17.

Are you or your friends not already signed up for Xbox Game Pass? New members get their first 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (that’s Xbox Game Pass for Console and for PC and Xbox Live Gold all in one) for just $1!

Games Coming Soon to Xbox Game Pass

July 17

Night Call (Xbox Game Pass PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
A corrupt detective plans to pin a series of murders on you unless you can aid the investigation. As a cab driver working the Paris night shift, pick up passengers, listen to their emotion-fueled stories, and gather clues to solve the mystery in three unique cases.

July 18

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
A first-rate gaming experience as players are offered tactical freedom to carry out open-world missions as the iconic Snake (a.k.a. Big Boss) in the latest entry of the long-running Metal Gear series.

The Banner Saga 3 (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
The final dramatic chapter in this critically acclaimed Viking RPG series. As the world continues to crumble around you, how will you protect your allies and what choices will you make as the Darkness draws near?

July 25

For the King (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
None before you have returned from their journey; can you put an end to the Chaos? A strategic RPG that blends tabletop and roguelike elements in a challenging adventure in either single-player or online and local co-op.

Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
Play the legendary fighting game with stunning 60fps visuals, over-the-top action, a wild cast of combatants, rocking reactive music, and c-c-c-combo breakers! Includes all 26 characters from Seasons 1-3.

Resident Evil 4 (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
The survival horror masterpiece comes to Xbox One in 1080p HD with an improved frame rate, a thrilling storyline, and that classic third-person action gameplay you’ve come to love from the long-running Resident Evil series.

Wait, Don’t Forget This Part

See anything you like? Good because the grill looks full and we’ve got more hot dogs on the way. And while we don’t post high quality food pics or slow-mo salt seasoning videos, we do have Instagram and Twitter accounts. It’s there that we’ll reveal our best gaming recipes and whatever other goodness we want to share.

If you prefer delivery, there’s also the Game Pass mobile app where you can remote install games right from your phone. Lastly, if you are more of a keyboard and mouse fan, you can dig into our PC games with our Xbox Game Pass for PC app! We’ll be serving some delicious details on our PC Twitter handle, which goes great with our appetite for gaming. Yup, this is gonna be a tasty Summer.

Posted on July 15, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Photographer and digital artist up their game with Z by HP

“I can bust out so much more whenever I’m either working personal or professional projects, so that’s great,” Oostenbroek says. “The last Windows I used was Windows XP, so that’s how long ago I had used Windows. But it was easy to switch. All the software I use works the same on Windows 10. It’s older software, but it works so much faster thanks to the Z4’s capabilities. My workflow is so much faster now. And that’s the best thing.”

HP gives the option to remap the keyboard, so he can continue to use the shortcuts that are most familiar to him.

His Mac could not give him the RAM he needed to open “crazy resolution” files (20,000 x 20,000 pixels). He used to go to a friend’s to open those files but now he can handle everything himself. He also now has the capability to render on a graphics card, which is something he says he’s wanted “for ages.”

“HP brought me to that moment,” he says. “I’m super happy with that.”

He had also stopped doing animation for personal projects because it used to take so much of his free time to render it. But now he’s taking on personal animations thanks to the quick feedback he gets from the Z4, which saves him a lot of time, as he’s able to make corrections more quickly.

A self-taught artist who didn’t discover Photoshop until he was in high school, he avoids online tutorials, preferring to follow his own path. Constant change not only applies to his workstyle, but also his philosophy about learning.

“Improvement is key for my own work. I always want to learn something from every project I take,” he says. “Improving and learning throughout the creative process can be really rewarding because you can pay the bills, but you’ve learned a lot too. So that’s like a total win-win situation. The learning curve is super important for me.”

To find out more about how these devices work for creative professionals, head over to Z by HP.

Photos courtesy of Z by HP.

Posted on July 15, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

‘Gears of War’ announces details for next season’s Gears Esports tournaments

This weekend, The Coalition announced that Gears Esports is partnering with PGL to create a Pro League for the upcoming 2019-2020 Season of Gears 5 Esports.

Kicking off with the launch of Gears 5 worldwide on September 10 for Xbox One, Windows 10, and with Xbox Game Pass, players from all over the world will be able to sign up and compete in regional ladders and online tournaments for weekly cash prizes. The top teams from every region – North America, Central America, Europe, Asia Pacific and, now, South America – will also be awarded with travel coverage to major international events, where they’ll have the opportunity to play for massive prize pools against the top teams in the game.

Throughout the season, top amateur teams will also have the opportunity to break into the Pro League via online qualification, while the lowest ranking Pro League teams from each division will be forced to fight for their spots.

Next season, the top teams from North America, Central America and Europe can also qualify to compete in an online Pro League. The 2019-2020 Season will feature three major events leading into a World Championship, as well as a number of regional events. The top pro and amateur teams from every region – North America, Central America, Europe, Asia Pacific and, now, South America – will be awarded with travel coverage to major international events.

Photo courtesy of ELEAGUE

The announcement took place in Atlanta during the first Gears 5 Esports tournament where eight of the world’s top teams competed in the ELEAGUE Gears Summer Series Invitational for a prize pool totaling $200,000. Tox Gaming continued their dominating run in Gears Esports defeating Ghost Gaming 3-1 in the finals.

Pre-order Gears 5 on the Microsoft Store or from a participating retailer to get access to the Versus Multiplayer Tech Test, also included with you Xbox Game Pass membership. The Gears 5 Versus Multiplayer Tech Test will be available to download starting July 17 with online play being active from July 19 (starting at 10 a.m. PDT) through July 22 at 10 a.m. PDT, and then active again on July 26 (at 10 a.m. PDT) until July 29 at 10 a.m. PDT.

Follow @EsportsGears on Twitter and check gears.gg regularly to say up-to-date!