Microsoft news – Page 206

Posted on April 2, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Visual Studio 2019 now available: Download today to code faster, work smarter and create the future

John

April 2nd, 2019

Visual Studio 2019 is generally available today and available for download. With Visual Studio 2019, you and your teams will become more productive in building current and future projects as you benefit from the innovation in the IDE that makes every keystroke count.

As we’ve shared earlier, Visual Studio 2019 improves on Visual Studio 2017 in a few areas. It helps you get into your code more quickly by making it simpler to clone a Git repo or to open an existing project or folder. It also introduces improvements to the template selection screen to make it easier to start a new project. While you’re coding, you’ll notice that Visual Studio 2019 improves code navigation and adds many refactorings, as well as a document health indicator and one-click code clean-up to apply multiple refactoring rules. There are also improvements to the debugging experience, including data breakpoints for .NET Core apps that help you break only on value changes you’re looking for. It also includes get AI-assisted code completion with Visual Studio IntelliCode.

These capabilities work with both your existing project and new projects – from cross-platform C++ applications, to .NET mobile apps for Android and iOS written using Xamarin, to cloud-native applications using Azure services. The goal with Visual Studio 2019 is to support these projects from development, through testing, debugging, and even deployment, all while minimizing the need for you to switch between different applications, portals, and websites.

Check out the launch event

Be sure to tune in to the Visual Studio 2019 Launch Event today at launch.visualstudio.com, or watch it on-demand later, where we’ll go into a lot more depth on these features and many others. During the launch event, we’ll discuss and demo Visual Studio 2019. We’ll also share content on Visual Studio 2019 for Mac and Visual Studio Live Share, both of which are also releasing today. There are also almost 70 local launch events around the world you can join today and over 200 between now and end of June. Thank you for your enthusiasm about our best release yet.

To help kick-start your experience with Visual Studio 2019, we’ve partnered with Pluralsight and LinkedIn Learning to bring you new training content. Pluralsight has a new, free, Visual Studio 2019 course (available until April 22, 2019). A path and skill assessment are also available, so you can dive right in. On LinkedIn Learning you’ll find a new course (free until May 2^nd) covering the highlights in Visual Studio 2019. Of course, you can always head over to VisualStudio.com and our docs to find out what’s new, or dig into the release notes for all the details.

Thank you for your ongoing feedback

We could not have made this happen without you. Ever since we released Preview 1 of Visual Studio 2019 in December, we’ve received an incredible amount of feedback from you, both on what you like and what you want to see improved. As always, you can continue to use the Report a Problem tool in Visual Studio or head over to the Visual Studio Developer Community to track your issue or suggest a feature. We’ve made many tweaks and improvements along the way to address your feedback, rest assured that we will continue doing so in minor releases going forward.

We want to sincerely thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback that we use to shape Visual Studio 2019 into the best developer environment for you. We can’t wait to see what you’ll create with Visual Studio 2019.

Download Visual Studio 2019

Posted on April 2, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Sharing our learnings on World Autism Awareness Day

By Neil Barnett, Director of Inclusive Hiring and Accessibility at Microsoft

Autism @ Work Playbook, a guide for HR professionals and organizations to create employment opportunities for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Being inclusive is not something we simply do, but rather it stands for who we are. The value proposition for diversity and inclusion within Microsoft is increasingly clear — a diverse and inclusive workforce will yield better products and solutions for our customers, and better experiences for our employees. We all need to do our part to encourage new and different perspectives, solutions, and innovative ideas to surface from all our employees.

Four years ago, on World Autism Awareness Day, we announced Microsoft’s Autism Hiring Program. Given that 80% of individuals on the autism spectrum are unemployed or underemployed, we knew there was an untapped pool of talented people who have the skills aligned to the work we are doing every day at Microsoft. Over the years, we have learned a lot about inclusive hiring and actively share our learnings with other employers interested in evolving their hiring programs.

As an outcome of working with organizations across industries, we are proud to be a founding member of the Autism @ Work Employer Roundtable. About 18 months ago, Disability:IN brought together a group of employers to create the Roundtable, where the main goal is to expand employment opportunities for individuals on the autism spectrum. Today, the Roundtable consists of 16 organizations who all have robust autism hiring programs. As part of the Roundtable, we regularly receive questions about how to get started. In response, we came together and collaborated with the University Washington Information School to publish the “Autism @ Work Playbook,” a resource for employers who are interested in beginning or expanding their inclusive hiring journey. The playbook covers topics from building your business case, recruiting and sourcing talent, going through the interview process, to training, on-boarding, and career development. This is a great resource for every organization, so please take a moment to read and share the playbook.

Throughout the year, Roundtable members along with 250 other employers, academics, service providers, and government agencies, get together at events across the U.S. to share best practices and talk about how we can work together to make an impact on changing the unemployment rate for individuals on the autism spectrum. This year we are happy to announce there will be two upcoming summits sponsored by the Autism @ Work Employer Roundtable to bring this group together. The Autism at Work Summit in May will be hosted by Microsoft at our Redmond campus followed by another summit hosted by SAP in the Fall.

Over the years, we have continued to learn, evolve, and grow our own Autism Hiring Program. We changed our approach from a traditional interview to a cohort model where candidates come to our campus for a week-long experience to demonstrate their skills, gain feedback, and meet with hiring managers. Based on interest in the program from across the company, we have also seen an expansion of the types of roles where candidates are being hired. For example, we have grown from hiring mainly technical roles, like software engineers or data scientists, to more non-technical roles like customer support. In addition, we have recently expanded the program outside of Redmond, WA, with new pilot programs at our campuses in Fargo, ND and Vancouver, BC. These are important regions for Microsoft – we have a large campus in Fargo and it’s one of our TechSpark regions, and an ongoing vision for greater cross-border collaboration throughout the Cascadia Innovation Corridor in Vancouver. We look forward to seeing the program grow in these regions and continue to expand.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrvBAMHbzmk?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

Our approach to inclusive hiring is not limited to just one event, program, or initiative. We host various career fairs throughout the year, and on April 23, we will host our next Virtual Career Fair in partnership with 14 other leading companies including, Fidelity, Deloitte, Travelers, Ford and more. If you know someone that is looking for a new opportunity, please make sure to share the event, which provides opportunities to connect with recruiters, learn about open positions and submit resumes. We also fund an annual scholarship for high school students interested in technology and offer broad inclusive hiring efforts and events. If we bring organizations together to focus on inclusive hiring, we can accelerate progress towards breaking down barriers and changing the unemployment rate for individuals on the autism spectrum.

We look forward to continuing to partner with others in the near future to truly make a difference in the employment landscape, educational, and working opportunities for all individuals on the spectrum. If you or someone you know is interested in a career at Microsoft, please send resumes to msautism@microsoft.com and learn more about our inclusive hiring efforts at www.microsoft.com/inclusivehiring. We look forward to hearing from you!

Autism at Work Virtual Career Fair featuring companies, Cintas, Deloitte, EY, Fidelity, Ford, IBM, JP Morgan Chase &Co., Merck, Microsoft, PwC, SAP, Travelers, Ultra Testing, and Willis Towers Watson.

Posted on April 2, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft Graph Security Hackathon winners announced

Bringing together information from multiple disconnected security systems to solve today’s security challenges is complex. We recently asked Microsoft Graph Security Hackathon participants to come up with innovative solutions using the Microsoft Graph Security API, and they did not disappoint.

We were excited to get a diverse set of submissions that covered real world security use cases, including security operations, user risk management, alerts enrichment, incident response, and analytics. It was truly inspiring to see the effort and creativity that teams and individuals put into their applications.

With that, please join us in congratulating the winners of the Microsoft Graph Security Hackathon.

First place: Microsoft User Security Evaluation Reporter

The Microsoft User Security Evaluation Reporter (MS-USER), from Darren Robinson, helps service desks and cybersecurity leads get instant visibility into their organization’s user security posture. Leveraging the Graph Security API and Microsoft Secure Score, the MS-USER app pulls together user and event information and includes recommended actions for remediating risks. The application also checks against the Have I Been Pwned database to give administrators and service desk personnel additional context on a user’s password security. This solution makes it easy to reach out to users and give them simple, actionable advice to improve their security, and as a result, the security of the rest of the organization. Darren will be joining us at our session at the Microsoft Build conference in Seattle, Washington, May 6-8, 2019. Definitely take a moment to check out his app today at devpost.com/software/microsoft-user-security-evaluation-reporter.

Runner up: Microsoft Graph Security—Security Alerts Enrichment

The Security Alerts Enrichments solution, submitted by Josh Rickard, is based on the Swimlane platform and ties together alerts with threat indicators and actions. The team created two applications that use Graph Security alerts to automate the creation of a threat intelligence feed, which can then be used to automate remediation of threats in the customer’s on-premises firewall appliance, which in this case is the Palo Alto Panorama Firewall. The second application ties in five different threat intelligence sources for enrichment. This is a great example of the power of a Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) solution. We encourage you to check it out at devpost.com/software/microsoft-graph-security-security-alerts-enrichment.

Popular choice: OneGraph

The OneGraph application, from Abhishek Joshi, enables organizations to quickly investigate, analyze, and respond to security threats. The application allows users can get a quick view of all their alerts and statuses, and easily drill down into things like specific threats, users affected, and alerts from specific providers. We really liked the tie-in with Microsoft Planner that allows for alerts to get assigned to specific people or groups. The integration with Microsoft Teams was a great use case that enables quick response. We hope you take a moment to look at this app at devpost.com/software/onegraph.

Again, congratulations to the winners and a huge thank you to all participants in the hackathon. We also wanted to take a moment to thank our all-star panel of judges for taking time out of their busy schedules to review and provide feedback on all the submissions. Many thanks for the support to Ann Johnson, Rich Howard, Scott Hanselman, Mark Russinovich, Troy Hunt, and Olli Vanhoja.

Finally, if any of this has inspired to you develop your own security app or solution, here are some resources to get you started:

Posted on April 2, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

The future of manufacturing is open

With the expansion of IoT across all industries data is becoming the currency of innovation. Organizations have both an opportunity and a business imperative to adopt technologies quickly, build digital competencies, and offer new value-added services that will serve their broader ecosystem.

Manufacturing is an industry where IoT is having a transformational impact, yet which also requires many companies to come together for IoT to be effective. We see several challenges that slow down innovation in manufacturing, such as proprietary data structures from legacy industrial assets and closed industrial solutions. These closed structures foster data silos and limit productivity, hindering production and profitability. It takes more than new software to drive transformation—it takes a new approach to open standards, an ecosystem mindset, the ability to break out of the “walled garden” for data as well as new technology.

This is why Microsoft has invested heavily in making Azure work seamlessly with OPC UA. In fact, we are the leading contributor of open source software to the OPC Foundation. To further this open platform approach, we have collaborated with world-leading manufacturers to accelerate innovation in industrial IoT to shorten time to value. But we feel we need to do more, not just directly between Microsoft and our partners but across the industry and between the partners themselves. It’s not about what any one company can deliver within their operations – it’s about what they can share with others across the sector to help everyone achieve at new levels. It’s clearly a much bigger task than any one organization can take on, and today, I’m pleased to share more about the investments we are making to advance innovation in the manufacturing space by enabling open platforms.

Announcing the Open Manufacturing Platform

Today at Hannover Messe 2019, we are launching the Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) together with the BMW Group, our partner on this initiative. Built on the Microsoft Azure Industrial IoT cloud platform, the OMP will provide a reference architecture and open data model framework for community members who will both contribute to and learn from others around industrial IoT projects. We’ve set up an initial approach and are actively working to bring new community members on board. BMW has an initial use case focused on their IoT platform, built on Microsoft Azure, in the second generation of autonomous transport systems in one of their sites, greatly simplifying their logistics processes and creating greater efficiency. More information about this and the partnership can be found here.

The OMP provides a single open platform architecture that liberates data from legacy industrial assets, standardizes data models for more efficient data correlation, and most importantly, enables manufacturers to share their data with ecosystem partners in a controlled and secure way, allowing others to benefit from their insights. With pre-built industrial use cases and reference designs, community members will work together to address common industrial challenges while maintaining ownership over their own data. Our news release, shared jointly with the BMW Group this morning, can be found here.

A rising tide that lifts all boats

The recognition of the need for an open approach is taking hold across the industry, as evidenced by SAP’s announcement today of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. This alliance – focused on factories, plants and warehouses – between SAP and a number of European manufacturing leaders will help create an open ecosystem for the operation of highly automated factories.

OMP and the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance are complementary visions. Both recognize the need for an open platform for the cloud and intelligent edge on the ground in the factory. Both highlight an open data model and standards-based data exchange mechanisms that allow for cross-company collaboration.

We’ve been working closely with SAP on efforts like the Open Data Initiative and across the industry on a wide range of initiatives including the Industrial Internet Consortium, the Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the OPC Foundation. We look forward to continuing this fruitful partnership and working to align OMP and the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. Collaboration is the lifeblood of future manufacturing and the more we work together, the more we can accomplish.

Meet the 2019 Imagine Cup Americas regional finalists

Our last group of finalists competing in 2019 Imagine Cup Regional events have been announced! 12 student developer teams from countries across the Americas have been selected to travel to Seattle this May and pitch their projects at the Americas Regional Final. They will compete for USD15,000 and the chance to win the last spot in the World Championship at Microsoft Build.

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup empowers student developers with the tools and resources to turn their technology ideas into reality. We believe that the next great thing could come from anyone, at any time. Now in its 17^th year with nearly 2 million competitors across the globe, Imagine Cup combines the chance to develop key business and technology skills through hands-on competition, plus the opportunity to win mentoring, travel, cash, and more.

Students this year were challenged to develop an original idea built on Azure in teams of up to three and submit a project proposal and video pitch for the chance to advance in the competition. Hundreds of students submitted projects to the Americas Online Semifinal, and we are excited to introduce the teams who will be moving forward to the Americas Regional Finals in Seattle this May! Follow along with their competition journey on Twitter and Instagram.

Meet our Americas Finalists!

Easy2Pet

Brazil

Easy 2 Pet – Share Love, Sow Life: Easy 2 Pet is an IoT project which, through the partnership of socially responsible companies, aims to feed street animals using a system of Convolutional Neural Network and Azure Storage Services.

Speex

Brazil

Speex: The team’s project helps the user improve their presentations through mixed reality. The user can empower themselves, while acquiring experience and confidence in speaking to their audience.

SafeTrip

Canada

SafeTrip: SafeTrip is a reactive car-accident app that tracks the eyes of a driver to monitor if they are impaired; alerting first responders of the exact location of the driver if they are deemed inattentive.

Accutrack

Canada

AccuTrack: The team created an IoT device for tracking and improving the ergonomic efficiency of blue-collar workers.

nekoTap

Canada

nekoTap: nekoTap is an easy-to-use solution to help patients better engage their medication therapy. Pharmacists can record counselling sessions and attach them to the prescription bottles through NFC tags. At home, patients can review the recordings.

Smart Eyes

Canada

Smart Eyes: Smart Eyes is a mobile application that uses video processing and object detection to inform the visually impaired or legally blind users of their surroundings using audio feedback.

EasyGlucose

United States

EasyGlucose: EasyGlucose is a low-cost, non-invasive, painless blood glucose level monitor for diabetics using deep learning and smartphone-based ophthalmic imaging.

EcoSort

United States

EcoSort: EcoSort is a smart waste-disposal container. The hardware uses Microsoft cloud tools to predict which item is tossed into the bin. Based on the response, the machine knows how to sort the item.

Packop

United States

Packop: Packop is developed for solving package theft issues. Packop is a service that not only monitors suspicious activities outside the home, but also actively engages in monitored situations by detecting and recognizing people and packages.

Solar fund/strong>

United States

Solar Fund: Built on blockchain and IoT, the team’s project showcases a new and innovative financial model. Built ground up for financing rooftop solar power projects, it not only makes the investment in solar projects more viable, but also more flexible.

SpeakEasy

United States

SpeakEasy: SpeakEasy is an intelligent and personalized public speaking trainer. SpeakEasy takes advantage of speech and gesture recognition to provide detailed feedback on each user’s presentation skills.

Vocapture

United States

Vocapture: The team developed a mobile application that enables users to identify objects around them, quickly and intuitively see the objects’ translations, and practice their foreign language skills with handwriting recognition.

Don’t miss the chance to see who will move forward to the World Championship at Microsoft Build to compete against Team Caeli from India and Team Finderr from the UK. Who will take home the trophy and USD100,000? Sign up for updates to follow the 2019 competition action.

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Health in your hands: how data and AI are empowering patients

The Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden has a very fitting example of extra attention being paid to patients – a friendly robot is being used to significantly reduce the stress of children suffering from cancer.

The robot itself doesn’t add any medical procedures to the existing treatment, but its friendly demeanour and in-built screen with games designed to inform children of their treatment procedure ahead of time, has proven to be a great help in reducing the fear of these young patients. In addition, the robot also helps reduce the stress of parents, and saves healthcare experts both time and money, by reducing the amount of time and people required per treatment session.

Lisa Karin Bergström, practitioner, nursing manager and project lead states that “We can’t always see cancer coming, or stop it, but we can control the stress children feel, and help them feel happier and more in control.”

Healthcare in your hands
Putting patients first should provide them with newer tools to not only make their lives easier, but to also provide a more personalised level of care. Virtual hospitals provide a convenient, easy to use experience which allows patients to track their health and communicate with health professionals remotely, from the comfort of their own homes. This saves patients time, and travel, which is particularly beneficial for the elderly.

In Finland, Helsinki University Hospital’s Virtual Health Village is a prime example of bringing healthcare directly into the hands of its patients. The online cloud service, based on the Microsoft Azure and Dynamics 365, provides information and support including medical care for patients, and tools for healthcare professionals. Patients have access to virtual buildings dedicated to different life situations and symptoms, such as pain management, rehabilitation, mental health, and weight management.

Virpi Rauta, PhD, eMBA, Doctor in nephrology who is involved with the kidney-damage section of the Virtual Health Village states that “We have to get rid of old habits when we adopt these new tools. It’s multidisciplinary work – clinicians, IT workers, nurses and patients all worked together to help create our kidney app.”

Empowering patients and putting their own healthcare within their control, is key. The kidney disease app in the Virtual Health Hospital shares real patient experiences and how they are coping with their treatment, to help other patients feel that their disease is manageable. Patients are more likely to listen to people going through the same experiences, and this genuine relatability helps morale, while increasing the chances of them correctly following their treatment plan.

In Scotland, technology is bringing personalised care to patients suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) – a condition which affects 1.2 million people in the UK, and is the second most common cause of emergency hospital admissions. Without treatment, the symptoms (which include breathlessness, chest infections and a persistent cough) get worse, but a new trial brings an easier way to manage the illness to patients, from the comfort of their own homes.

Patients use wearable devices combined with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to remotely monitor their breathing. AI algorithms, based on machine learning, are then used to monitor results, and automatically detect and predict issues, so that healthcare experts can vary their treatment accordingly, based on their individual needs.

This not only saves patients from making regular trips to the hospital, it also means that if their condition gets worse, their healthcare providers will automatically be alerted, allowing timely treatment, and a better quality of life.

Chris Carlin, a Consultant Respiratory Physician involved in the trial, states that “It’s about delivering treatment earlier by using data. If we can empower patients to self-manage their condition, we can significantly reduce hospital admissions. That self-management might be helping them with their breathing, escalating their existing treatment, recommending new treatment or reaching out to the community respiratory team.”

[embedded content]

In another corner of the world, one of the oldest diseases known to mankind – leprosy – is being treated with AI. The Novartis Foundation and Microsoft are developing an AI-enabled digital health tool and a Leprosy Intelligent Image Atlas to help the early detection of leprosy.

Over 200,000 people are diagnosed with leprosy every year, with Brazil, India, and Indonesia accounting for about 80 percent of new cases. The disease is made more complicated by the fact that it can be difficult to diagnose, and if left untreated, can cause other disabilities and spread to others.

Microsoft and the Novartis Foundation are collaborating with local investigators from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil to develop a machine learning algorithm which examines anonymized images before automatically detecting if a patient has leprosy.

To save patients (who are often in remote rural areas) from travelling long distances to hospitals, they are able to instead visit local businesses and have their photos taken there, before the shots are examined by the AI programme. The imagery and AI code are planned to be made publicly accessible at a later stage to empower leprosy researchers to accelerate research excellence in this field, leading to better outcomes.

Dr. Ann Aerts, Head of Novartis Foundation states that “Bundling expertise from the health and tech sectors to pioneer innovative digital health solutions such as this one, can make it possible to reimagine the way we fight leprosy. Early detection and prompt treatment of patients remains the best way to interrupt leprosy transmission. Together with Microsoft we are pioneering an innovative digital tool to accelerate leprosy detection, to make this ancient disease history once and for all.”

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Join Skype in the Classroom in celebrating Earth Day 2019

Skype in the Classroom will celebrate Earth Day throughout the month of April to build awareness and inspire the next generation of sustainable leaders to take action.

Look no further for exciting lessons to captivate your students’ imaginations, deepen their understanding of the environmental threats our planet faces, and empower them to take action. Use our resources to lead your students through interactive virtual field trips to parks, zoos, aquariums and connect live with experts to learn about climate change, conservation, sustainability, recycling and more.

“Environmental literacy is more important than ever, and with Skype virtual field trips, we have an opportunity to educate kids and raise awareness. After a Skype session, students realize the importance of protecting the forests, the oceans and all the amazing creatures trying to survive on the planet we all live in,” says Manuela Correia, a school teacher from Portugal.

And that’s not all for this month of celebration! Skype in the Classroom partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots program for a broadcast and live chat with Dr. Jane Goodall. There will be two more live broadcasts for classrooms and families to hear from Dr. Jane Goodall on how every individual’s actions can make a big impact on our planet.

The broadcasts will air on April 2^nd at 12:30 ET/17:30 UTC and April 9^th at 9:00 ET/14:00 UTC and each will be followed by a 30-minute live chat with Dr. Jane Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots team.

You can register for free at aka.ms/janegoodall. Be sure to use the classroom preparation materials to get your students ready for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

To add to the Earth Day fun, Skype launched a collection of emoticons that you can use before, during and after your Skype sessions this month to get students excited while celebrating and learning about our planet.

The Skype team also created a Dr. Jane Goodall emoticon in honor of her Skype in the Classroom broadcasts and all the amazing work she has done to make the world a better place!

So, open your Skype, type (janegoodall) and start sharing this emoticon with your friends!

Additionally, Skype in the Classroom has collaborated with the World Wildlife Fund to launch Our Planet Live—a collection of expert speakers and virtual field trips available via Skype. These free classroom activities are designed to build on the themes of Our Planet, the new ground-breaking nature documentary series voiced by Sir David Attenborough streaming on Netflix from April 5th. Our Planet is the story of the one place we all call home, and this collection of live classroom experiences will teach students about the different biomes and species on Earth through Skype lessons with experts from around the world. Request your session here.

We hope that you join us in celebrating Earth Day 2019 by getting involved with one or more of our activities that will bring the curriculum to life and make learning fun for your students!

And as always, share your favorite moments with our global community on Twitter (@SkypeClassroom) with #Skype2Learn #MicrosoftEDU to inspire others to connect and bring the world to their classrooms.

Ok, I am in! Are there any resources to help me get started?

Once you register for the broadcast event with Dr. Jane Goodall, download our step-by-step activity plan with ideas on how to prepare your class for the event.
If you are joining the event, don’t forget to download the student’s certificate signed by Dr. Jane Goodall herself!
Explore and register for one of our environmental-related Virtual Field Trips at ms/SITCearthday.
Download our Earth Day activity plan—full of ideas and suggestions on how to organize your Skype sessions—to guide your classroom’s celebration all month long.

How can I expand the Skype learning experiences for my students for Earth Month?

Explore the Flipgrid Disco Library topics featuring Dr. Jane Goodall.
Discover FREE hands-on Hacking STEM lessons that you can use during Earth Month to bring more environmental themed activities in your class!

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Alysa Taylor: Transforming manufacturing with intelligent business applications

Manufacturing has been a driving force for industrial and societal transformation for centuries. Next week, at Hannover Messe—the world’s leading trade show for industrial technology—decades of industrial technology innovation at Microsoft is intersecting with Industry 4.0. As Industry 4.0 ushers in new technological advances to improve operations, competition and customer demands are keeping pace. Customers expect exceptional products and services, without exception, driving a need for greater innovation.

We are joined at the event by dozens of global manufacturers representing industries from automotive to consumer electronics and construction equipment, all using Microsoft Business Applications as a competitive differentiator; intelligent technologies that help transform the entire connected manufacturing ecosystem.

Optimize manufacturing operations and deliver new services

At Hannover Messe, we are showcasing how we empower manufacturers to connect Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on key business-critical assets to business transactions in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. It’s a transformative solution to manage production and stock in real-time and proactively resolve issues, optimize manufacturing operations, maximize the value of assets, and take business performance and customer satisfaction to new heights. Read more about the solution here.

Annata, a leading Microsoft Partner for automotive, heavy equipment, and industrial machinery industries, helped Iceland’s largest vehicle importer and distributor, Brimborg, rapidly expand into the commercial fleet rental market in response to the 2008-11 Icelandic financial crisis. Booth visitors will learn how Annata first unified Brimborg’s business of importing, distributing, selling and servicing cars and construction equipment, with a solution that could cover their entire business with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations along with the Annata 365 solution.

When the crises hit, Brimborg deployed the extensive Rental module that enabled them to manage this new part of their business. Brimborg is using IoT data flowing from its rental cars with the service scheduling capabilities of the Annata solution to optimize and ensure timely servicing of the fleet. All rental cars are automatically called in for service and inspections, which is highly important for keeping the fleet healthy. Brimborg is continuing to automate and innovate using IoT, Dynamics 365, and the Annata solution to run its business more efficiently, but also to open new business models and opportunities with customers in other areas of its business. Targeting four-minute car deliveries and 30-second customer returns—and planning new innovative business models based on Microsoft and Annata solutions.

Make the leap to intelligent, connected field service

Attendees at Hannover Messe are getting a glimpse into the future of field service for manufacturers, powered by Microsoft IoT Central, Dynamics 365 for Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality for HoloLens and mobile devices.

Dynamics 365 Connected Field Service transforms field service organizations with solutions to detect and resolve issues remotely before the customer knows of an issue, and drive efficiency and cut costs in the business cost center. The solution leverages connected devices and machine learning capabilities to combine remote monitoring, digital services, and predictive maintenance.

As recently announced, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist for mobile devices brings the HoloLens experience to mobile devices, allowing floor operators and field technicians to collaborate with remote experts and troubleshoot issues in context, without leaving the job site. Dynamics 365 Guides is a new mixed reality tool that allows employees to learn by doing, with interactive, step-by-step guidance presented on heads-up, hands-free displays in real work situations.

Toyota’s North America Production Engineering team uses Dynamics 365 Layout and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist on Microsoft HoloLens in their North America manufacturing centers. Dynamics 365 Layout can improve business processes in valuable ways, such as the layout of digital twins of equipment on the manufacturing floor for safety and process verification, and creating innovative AR training practices through the use of holographic equipment instead of physical equipment in space. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is in the early phases of being used to improve safety and reduce costs through the use of remote experts for equipment verification and incident response.

At Hannover Messe, Microsoft Partner Hitachi Solutions will showcase how they are helping global organizations create outcome-driven, connected field services with IoT and mixed reality to support maintenance work by field workers to increase uptime and service continuity.

Empower Your Changing Workforce

Start a conversation about Industry 4.0, and inevitably the topic lands on the workforce problem.

As a generation of highly-skilled, specialized workers eye retirement, manufacturers are in a bind to recruit young engineers and operators with the right skillset while adjusting to a new workforce, challenging traditional work culture.

Dynamics 365 for Talent helps HR teams at manufacturing organizations to solve the skills gap, offering intelligent tools to find, attract, and onboard skilled candidates. By automating many manual, time-consuming HR processes, Dynamics 365 for Talent lets HR professionals spend less time on the mundane, and more time on strategic initiatives that grow the business.

New this month, Dynamics 365 Guides allows employees to learn by doing with step-by-step instructions that guide employees to the tools and parts they need and how to use them in real work situations. Guides represents a new way to improve workflow efficiency. Now employees can learn while staying hands-on with their work. With the accompanying PC app, it’s possible for managers and frontline workers to create interactive training content by attaching photos, videos, and 3D models to information cards that stay with them while they work. When employees use Guides, information is collected to help managers understand how they’re doing and where they need help, further allowing people to improve the process.

Check out the video below to learn how PACCAR is exploring Guides and HoloLens to improve productivity and employee onboarding.

Get the full story at Hannover Messe

These solutions and customer stories are just a peek at how Microsoft Business Applications are helping transform manufacturing. If you are attending Hannover Messe, visit our booth to experience Dynamics 365 and Mixed Reality solutions firsthand, as well as chat with customers and partners.

Find more information about our location and sessions in this schedule, and be sure to check out the resources below.

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Leading startups join Microsoft at Hannover Messe 2019

At Microsoft for Startups our goal is to connect innovative co-sell ready startups with our top enterprise and industrial customers and our broader partner ecosystem. As part of our engagement with the manufacturing sector, we are bringing nine highly innovative startups to Hannover Messe – the world’s leading manufacturing event attended by over 200,000 visitors from 75+ countries.

The startups will take part in a Startup Showcase at the event where they can present their highly innovative and disruptive solutions to leading industrial partners and join networking events to meet executives from some of the world’s largest companies.

Hannover Messe brings together a broad cross section of industrial and manufacturing companies that represent “all key technologies and core areas of industry – from research and development, industrial automation, IT, industrial supply, production technologies and services to energy and mobility technologies.”

You can find out more about the participating startups below:

AirMap

AirMap is the world’s leading airspace management platform for drones, supporting more than 100,000 drone flights per day. AirMap connects airspace authorities with the drone ecosystem to unlock safe, efficient, and scalable drone operations.

Current customers include: 3DR, DJI, DroneDeploy, Intel, Matternet, and senseFly.

Crate.io

Crate.io is the developer of CrateDB, an Industrial IOT database technology for enterprise manufacturing and industrial organizations needing to scale the use of machine data to enable advanced real-time analytics and insights. CrateDB is an addition to Microsoft’s IoT suite, delivering a fundamental advantage to companies reliant on industrial time series data to operate and scale production facilities.

Current customers include: Alpla, Tracknamic, RAUCH, Unilever, and BAE Systems.

KrypC

KrypC enables IT leaders to accelerate their company’s Blockchain adoption in short time with rapid and iterative application development capability. KrypC empowers enterprises to adopt blockchain in a seamless manner that integrates their personalized business models with their technological needs.

Current customers include: Maersk, Accenture, and Honeywell.

Markforged

Markforged is an end-to-end 3D printing system that expands the applications for additive manufacturing with purpose-built industrial technologies and a wide range of manufacturing-ready materials. Markforged is transforming manufacturing by addressing 3D printing as a holistic problem.

Current customers include: NASA, ZEISS, Airbus, Bentley, and John Deere.

Prevedere

Prevedere allows companies to enhance the accuracy of their financial, marketing and operations forecasting. Using global data, and the enterprise’s own historical data, Prevedere conducts a robust forecasting analysis with a high degree of accuracy and increases customers’ forecasting accuracy from the low 80%+ to the mid-high 90% range.

Current customers include: ADS, Nationwide, Hershey, RaceTrac, and Timken.

Rescale

Rescale is a cloud simulation platform that helps engineers and scientists build, compute, analyze, and scale simulations with high performance computing (HPC) in the cloud. Rescale’s mission is to provide highly powerful simulation platforms that empower the world’s engineers, scientists, developers, and CIO and IT professionals to design innovative products, develop robust applications, and transform IT into unified, agile environments.

Current customers include: Trek Bicycle, Pinnacle Engines, Boom, MIT, Siemens, and Manor Racing.

Seebo

Seebo develops process-based industrial artificial intelligence, with solutions to predict and prevent disruptions in manufacturing due to process disturbances. Seebo Industrial IoT Platform combines visual, code-free tools for process and data modeling, automated root cause analysis, predictive analytics, and digital twin visualization. These tools enable tailored solutions for clients’ specific needs and easily adaptable solutions after deployment. Seebo was named a Gartner Cool Vendor for IoT in 2017.

Current customers include: Allnex, Hovis, Super Bock, and Nestle.

Syntiant

Syntiant is a new breed of semiconductor company. By combining the best of deep learning and semiconductor design, Syntiant fundamentally advances machine learning capacities in edge devices.

Waterline Data

Waterline Data’s AI Driven Data Catalog solution, combined with the power of Microsoft Azure, helps customer discover, organize, and surface trusted information to Business users for self-service analytics; compliance teams to ensure data is identified and secured; and IT teams so they can rationalize and migrate data.

Current customers include: GSK, Nordea Bank, and CreditSafe.

Posted on March 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New to Microsoft 365 in March: tools to enable teamwork, enhance security in the workplace

This month, we released new features in Microsoft 365 to help you boost teamwork, save time, and streamline your IT management.

Here’s a look at what’s new in March.

Collaborate more easily

New features and services give you more ways to collaborate with colleagues and LinkedIn connections across platforms.

Boost meeting productivity and meet compliance obligations with Microsoft Teams updates—Last week at Enterprise Connect, we announced several new features in Teams including the ability to improve the effectiveness of remote meetings by replacing your background during video chats and increasing inclusivity with live captions & subtitles during Teams meetings. We also announced the generally availability of live and on-demand events in Microsoft 365, which enable you to deliver compelling communications to up to 10,000 employees, customers, and partners. We also announced new compliance capabilities in Teams such as Data Loss Prevention (DLP) in chats and conversations to help you keep information secure and meet your obligations.

Improve whiteboard ideation and collaboration—Two new intelligent inking features in the Microsoft Whiteboard Windows 10 app help improve the collaborative ideation experience. Now, you can easily capture a picture of a physical whiteboard and convert it to digital ink in the Whiteboard app using ink grab. Additionally, the new ink beautification feature can help increase the readability of jotted notes by analyzing handwriting and automatically replacing it with more legible strokes. Together, these intelligent inking features decrease the time spent on managing content, so you can spend more time collaborating on a digital whiteboard. Both are now available in the Whiteboard Windows 10 app.

Work seamlessly with first-degree LinkedIn connections—When you securely connect your LinkedIn account with your Office 365 account, you can now view others’ LinkedIn profiles in Outlook on the web, and in OneDrive and SharePoint in Office 365, and see relevant insights about the people you’re working with, both inside and outside your organization. Now rolling out to Targeted Release customers is the ability to send emails to and coauthor documents with many of their first-degree LinkedIn connections.

To get started, type a connection’s name in the To or Cc field when composing a new message or sharing a document in Outlook on the web, OneDrive, SharePoint, Word Online, PowerPoint Online, and Excel Online.

Create more engaging content and get more done

New Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook on the web features help you create beautiful content and save you time.

Make your presentations stand out with 3D objects on your Mac—Create stunning visuals and engaging content on your Mac with 3D embedded animations in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Improve comprehension and retention, increase engagement, and entertain audiences with content that seemingly comes to life. Select scenes and insert 3D models from a vast library of free content and rotate 3D objects to tell your story from every angle. 3D objects on Mac will start rolling out to Insiders next month.

Prepare for and schedule meetings faster with new intelligent features in Outlook on the web—Powered by Microsoft artificial intelligence (AI), Outlook on the web will now help you prepare for meetings by showing you relevant information you might need. It will also automatically suggest that you create a meeting directly from an email conversation and show you available days and times for people you include in a meeting invite. These features will begin rolling out to Outlook on the web users in the next few weeks.

Enhance security and streamline IT management

New capabilities help you better protect your organization and streamline IT management.

Ensure a healthy security posture with updates to Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)—Last week, we announced that we’re extending our endpoint protection platform to support additional operating systems with Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) for Mac, available now in limited preview. With this expansion, we’re also renaming the Windows Defender ATP platform to Microsoft Defender ATP. We also announced that we’re making Threat and Vulnerability Management (TVM) capabilities available in Microsoft Defender ATP to discover, prioritize, and remediate threats and vulnerabilities—preview coming soon.

Access your security and investigation tools in the new Microsoft 365 security center—The Microsoft 365 security center is a new unified security experience that provides your security professionals with a dedicated workspace to manage and take advantage of the comprehensive security capabilities of Microsoft Threat Protection. The Microsoft 365 security center is now generally available. Get started with features and capabilities such as Secure Score, Advanced Hunting, and security alerts by visiting security.microsoft.com.

Manage your Microsoft 365 services with the new Microsoft 365 admin center—Last week, we announced that the new Microsoft 365 admin center will begin rolling out as the default experience for all Microsoft 365 and Office 365 admins. The Microsoft 365 admin center is designed to serve as a single entry point for managing services across Windows 10, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) in a more powerful, efficient, and personalized way.

Other updates

Now, when opening links to Office 365 documents from the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook desktop apps, you will have the option to open them directly in the desktop apps instead of the web.
Teams users can now add a Yammer tab to a Teams channel that loads a specified group or topic feed from Yammer.
Microsoft Forms Pro, our new enterprise survey solution to professionally distribute surveys, is now available in public preview.
OneNote now supports syncing edits of files embedded in your notebooks, eliminating the need to save copies of embedded files.
The custom policies feature in Azure Active Directory B2C is now generally available and gives you more control over identity experiences to help you deliver personalized user journeys in your customer-facing applications.