Microsoft Shopping Assistant, first released in 2016 through The Garage, is a browser add-on that helps you get the best deals at more than 50,000 online stores, from top retailers like Amazon and Walmart to your favorite boutique shop on Etsy.
Track prices for products on thousands of stores
Never miss a deal again with the Microsoft Shopping Assistant. When you’re on a product web page, click the heart shaped button in the assistant widget and add it to your Favorites. The assistant will automatically notify you when the price changes, and you can see all price changes from the notifications screen in the assistant.
Compare prices across retailers
Shop smarter with instant price comparisons from other retailers. When you’re shopping online, the assistant will notify you when products you’re looking at are cheaper elsewhere. See how much you can save or if you’re already getting the best deal. You can also find recommendations for similar products.
Stay on top of your shopping everywhere you shop
Forget about keeping multiple tabs open or emailing yourself links of your favorite products. The assistant automatically remembers products you’ve browsed so you don’t have to. You can also organize your shopping with custom boards.
You are always in control
Microsoft Shopping Assistant is built with your security and privacy in mind. You are always in control of your shopping data – you can remove products from the assistant’s history at any time.
Take the assistant shopping with you this holiday season. Add it to your browser and simplify your shopping!
Editor’s note: The name of the add-on was updated following initial publication.
Whether you’re interested in using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to drive better health outcomes, reduce your operational costs, or improve fraud detection, one way you can better unlock these capabilities is through leveraging blockchain.
In my last blog, “Improving Patient Care through AI and Blockchain – Part 1,” I discussed several opportunities for blockchain to help advance AI in healthcare, from sourcing more training data from across a consortium, to tracking provenance of data, improving the quality of AI with auditing, and protecting the integrity of AI using blockchain. In this second blog, take a look at four more reasons to consider blockchain for advancing AI in healthcare.
Shared models In cases where constraints exist that preclude the sharing of raw training data from across a consortium of healthcare organizations, for legal or other reasons, it may be possible to incrementally train shared models, enabled by the blockchain. In this approach the AI / ML models themselves can be shared across the network of healthcare organizations in the consortium, rather than the raw training data, and these shared models can be incrementally trained by each organization using its training data, and within its firewall. Blockchain can then be used to share the models as well as metadata about training data, results, validations, audit trails, and so forth.
Incentivizing collaboration using cryptocurrencies and tokens Cryptocurrencies and tokens on blockchain can be used to incent and catalyze collaboration to advance AI / ML in healthcare. From sharing of training data, to collaboration on shared models, results, validations, and so forth, healthcare organizations can be rewarded with cryptocurrencies or tokens proportional to their participation and contribution. Depending on how the blockchain is setup these cryptocurrencies or tokens could be redeemed by participating healthcare organizations for meaningful rewards, or monetized. This can be useful in any AI / ML blockchain initiative both as an accelerant, and could also be critical to overcome potential impediments and reservations to collaboration that can arise where the size / value of contributions from organizations across the consortium are asymmetrical.
Validating inference results and building trust fasterBefore AI / ML models can be used for patient care they must be validated to ensure safety and efficacy. A single organization validating a model alone will take more time to achieve an acceptable level of trust than would be the case for a consortium of healthcare organizations concurrently collaborating to validate a shared model. Blockchain can be used to coordinate and collaborate around such validation to increase synergy, minimize redundant efforts, accelerate validation, and establish trust in a new model faster.
Automation through smart contracts and DAOsExecutable code for processing transactions associated with AI / ML, whether procurement of training data or otherwise, can be implemented on blockchains in the form of smart contracts. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) such as non-profits can also be built using smart contracts to automate whole enterprises that can facilitate advancing AI / ML in healthcare at scale.
Keep the conversation going
If you’re interested in using AI, ML, or blockchain for healthcare, you know that new opportunities are constantly surfacing and with it come a whole host of new questions. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter to get updates on these topics as well as cloud computing, security, privacy, and compliance. If you would like to explore a partnership as you work to implement AI and/or blockchain for your healthcare organization, we’d love to hear from you.
For more resources and tips on blockchain for healthcare, take a look at part 1 of this series here.
I’m so excited to share today’s news! We just turned on the ability to securely sign in with your Microsoft account using a standards-based FIDO2 compatible device—no username or password required! FIDO2 enables users to leverage standards-based devices to easily authenticate to online services—in both mobile and desktop environments.
This combination of ease of use, security, and broad industry support is going to be transformational both at home and in the modern workplace. Every month, more than 800 million people use a Microsoft account to create, connect, and share from anywhere to Outlook, Office, OneDrive, Bing, Skype, and Xbox Live for work and play. And now they can all benefit from this simple user experience and greatly improved security.
Starting today, you can use a FIDO2 device or Windows Hello to sign in to your Microsoft account using the Microsoft Edge browser.
Watch this quick video showing how it works:
Microsoft has been on a mission to eliminate passwords and help people protect their data and accounts from threats. As a member of the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), we’ve been working with others to develop open standards for the next generation of authentication. I’m happy to share that Microsoft is the first Fortune 500 company to support password-less authentication using the the WebAuthn and FIDO2 specifications, and Microsoft Edge supports the widest array of authenticators compared to other major browsers.
If you want to know more details on how it works and how to get started, keep reading on.
Get started
To sign in with your Microsoft Account using a FIDO2 security key:
If you haven’t already, make sure you update to Windows 10 October 2018.
Select Security > More security options and under Windows Hello and security keys, you’ll see instructions for setting up a security key. (You can purchase a security key from one of our partners, including Yubico and Feitian Technologies that support the FIDO2 standard.*)
Next time you sign in, you can either click More Options > Use a security key or type in your username. At that point, you’ll be asked to use a security key to sign in.
And as a reminder, here’s how to sign in with your Microsoft account using Windows Hello:
Make sure you’ve updated to Windows 10 October 2018.
If you haven’t already, you’ll need to set up Windows Hello. If you have Windows Hello set up, you’re good to go!
Next time you sign in on Microsoft Edge, you can either click More Options > Use Windows Hello or a security key or type in your username. At that point, you’ll be asked to use Windows Hello or a security to sign in.
*There are a couple of optional features in the FIDO2 spec that we believe are fundamental to security, so only keys that have implemented those features will work. Read What is a Microsoft-compatible security key? to learn more.
How does it work?
Under the covers, we implemented the WebAuthn and FIDO2 CTAP2 specifications into our services to make this a reality.
Unlike passwords, FIDO2 protects user credentials using public/private key encryption. When you create and register a FIDO2 credential, the device (your PC or the FIDO2 device) generates a private and public key on the device. The private key is stored securely on the device and can only be used after it has been unlocked using a local gesture like biometric or PIN. Note that your biometric or PIN never leaves the device. At the same time that the private key is stored, the public key is sent to the Microsoft account system in the cloud and registered with your user account.
When you later sign in, the Microsoft account system provides a nonce to your PC or FIDO2 device. Your PC or device then uses the private key to sign the nonce. The signed nonce and metadata is sent back to the Microsoft account system, where it is verified using the public key. The signed metadata as specified by the WebAuthn and FIDO2 specs provides information, such as whether the user was present, and verifies the authentication through the local gesture. It’s these properties that make authentication with Windows Hello and FIDO2 devices not “phishable” or easily stolen by malware.
How do Windows Hello and FIDO2 devices implement this? Based on the capabilities of your Windows 10 device, you will either have a built-in secure enclave, known as a hardware trusted platform module (TPM) or a software TPM. The TPM stores the private key, which requires either your face, fingerprint, or PIN to unlock it. Similarly, a FIDO2 device, like a security key, is a small external device with its own built-in secure enclave that stores the private key and requires the biometric or PIN to unlock it. Both options offer two-factor authentication in one step, requiring both a registered device and a biometric or PIN to successfully sign in.
We have tons of great things coming out as part of our efforts to reduce and even eliminate the use of passwords. We are currently building the same sign-in experience from a browser with security keys for work and school accounts in Azure Active Directory. Enterprise customers will be able to preview this early next year, where they will be able to allow their employees to set up their own security keys for their account to sign in to Windows 10 and the cloud.
Furthermore, as more browsers and platforms start supporting the WebAuthn and FIDO2 standards, the password-less experience—available on Microsoft Edge and Windows today—will be hopefully available everywhere!
Stay tuned for more details early next year!
Best Regards, Alex Simons (@Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons) CVP of Program Management Microsoft Identity Division
During Computer Science Education Week, millions of students around the world will participate in Hour of Code. They’ll learn the fundamentals of coding and how much fun it is to create. What they might not learn is how they can apply that learning to their current passions and interests, or their future careers. That’s where Skype in the Classroom comes in!
On December 3rd until December 7th, Skype in the Classroom is partnering with Code.org to host a five-day series of free, 30-minute Skype broadcasts called Meet Code Creators! We’ve invited computer science professionals who are also artists and have taken their passions for dance, movies, storytelling, games and the environment, and used their coding skills to bring those passions to life in new ways. They’ll help make what students are learning through Hour of Code relevant to what kind of jobs they might want to do in the future.
On Monday, you’ll hear from two artists using code to create wearable technology.
On Tuesday, we’ll go behind the scenes with Minecraft.
On Wednesday, we’ll see how computer science brought the magical illustrations of a Harry Potter book to life.
On Thursday, we’ll explore how technology is used to animate movies like Coco and The Incredibles 2.
On Friday, we’ll learn how Artificial Intelligence is helping address some of the world’s biggest problems.
You’ll have a chance to hear about the Code Creators’ career journeys and ask them questions via our live global chat for an hour after each broadcast.
To connect your classroom with one or all five of the artists in the Meet Code Creators Series, register here.
Each episode of the series will broadcast twice at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST on December 3rd – 7th with the live Q&A directly following.
And if you haven’t already signed up, have your students do Hour of Code with Minecraft by playing the free Minecraft coding tutorial,Voyage Aquatic. No computer science experience is needed!
To connect with more global live learning experiences, visit Skype in the Classroom to see how you can bring thousands of virtual lessons into your classroom. You’ll also find dozens of Activity Plans to help provide learning activities around your Virtual Field Trips, Guest Speaker Sessions and connections with other classrooms to play games like Mystery Skype.
For a full look at what’s to come for Computer Science Education Week, check out the latest episode of What’s New in EDU:
The next time you’re shopping at a duty-free store, whether for an expensive whiskey or high-end cosmetics, chances are high that you’d pick up a bottle that was born in one of Piramal Glass’s manufacturing facilities with the help of an army of IoT sensors and advanced data analytics in the cloud.
With four manufacturing facilities spread across India, Sri Lanka, and the US, Piramal Glass is one of the world’s largest designers and producers of glass packaging for the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and perfumery, and speciality food and beverage industries. The company counts 17 of the world’s top 20 cosmetics, perfumery, and skin care brands like LVMH, Coty, Sisley and Yves Rocher, as its customers. In fact, one in every three nail polish bottles in the world is manufactured by them.
But for one man being at the pinnacle of the industry wasn’t enough.
“Glass manufacturing is a complex industry with fixed costs and capacities that are therefore very sensitive to variations in demand. It was imperative to optimize the operations to drive profitable growth and it was evident that Industry 4.0 was one of the key levers to achieve this,” says Vijay Shah, Director, Piramal Glass & Executive Director, Piramal Enterprises Ltd.
Going digital
According to the ‘Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific’ study conducted by Microsoft in partnership with IDC Asia Pacific, while 90% of organizations in India are in the midst of their digital transformation journey, only 7% in the entire region can be classified as Leaders. These are organizations that have full or progressing digital transformation strategies, with at least a third of their revenue derived from digital products and services. Leaders of digital transformation experience double the benefits of Followers, and these improvements will be more pronounced by 2020.
The management at Piramal Glass knew they had to become Leaders of digital transformation and set new benchmarks in the glass manufacturing business if they had to stay ahead of the curve. The writing was on the cloud.
“Digital can mean different things to different people. For us, it is to drive operational efficiency, enhance customer experience, and generate new revenue models by leveraging emerging technologies,” says Poorav Sheth, who joined Piramal Glass in November 2016 as its first Chief Digital Officer.
Poorav Sheth, Chief Digital Officer, Piramal Glass
To kickstart the digital transformation of a legacy manufacturing business, Sheth conducted roadshows and workshops across the company’s offices and manufacturing facilities with demonstrations of latest technologies like IoT, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence (AI).
“We wanted to educate everyone–from those involved in production to operations to marketing—what was possible with digital transformation. We conducted envisioning sessions, which lead to people coming up with different concepts that they thought would enhance their functions,” he recalls.
One of the asks that came up frequently was could the manufacturing process get smarter to improve production efficiency and reduce defects? Glass products are produced in a continuous manufacturing process, where the raw materials go into a furnace to create molten glass, which is then formed into a bottle that goes through various treatments and checks before it is packed. It is a tricky process because you can’t pause it in case something goes wrong. In the earlier scenario, if a production batch was witnessing higher rejections at quality control, they could only hope to fix the problem in the next batch.
What made it more difficult was that data points from every batch were captured manually in paper logbooks which were painstaking to analyze. Often, the actions taken were based on the skills and experience of the expert and not so much with data. Could going digital change this?
It was game on for Sheth and his team of seven experts.
Getting real-time manufacturing insights
In July 2017, Sheth’s team started with a proof of concept to implement Real Time Manufacturing Insights (RTMI) in three production lines in one of the facilities based in Kosamba near Surat, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The idea was to put a bunch of sensors on the production lines and see the data they could get and what they could do with the data. For this they decided to work with Microsoft and Precimetrix, a Microsoft partner.
“We were impressed with the platform approach Microsoft has taken with Azure IoT and the industrial automation experience Precimetrix brought to the table. We worked as a team and they also guided us on the kind of sensors and gateway devices we should use,” Sheth explains.
A furnace alone has nearly 100 sensors and other data acquisition devices.
Like most things, the task at hand was easier said than done. There were nearly 100 sensors and data acquisition devices that already existed in the furnace alone! Add to it equipment sensors throughout the production line to monitor every aspect of their functioning to specialized camera-based sensors in inspection machines. The team also had the task of installing as many as 4,000 sensors that had to be connected and analyzed through RTMI.
“We are excited to partner with Piramal Glass as they create a strong foundation for driving transformational change. It is significant that our technology enabled the plant operations to continue as usual during the rollout of the Azure IoT solution, ensuring no disruption to the core manufacturing and deep integration with critical business processes,” says Sashi Sreedharan, Managing Director, Microsoft India.
Once the tricky part of installing the sensors and hooking them all to the cloud with Azure IoT Hub, the digital team started collecting every data point they could get from the production line. The sensors sent data every second, offering a microscopic peek into every machine and every process from the time raw material was fed into the furnace to the time the bottles came off the conveyor belts to be packed and shipped.
“We involved everyone from the production teams who were manning the lines, to quality control teams, to figure out the kind of data that’d be most useful to them. They came up with new suggestions frequently, which showed they were invested in the process,” he says.
Within three months the entire data collection process in those three lines was made paperless with dashboards that were accessible on smartphones, laptops and even large displays on the factory floors. A custom solution was developed on top of this platform to provide stage-wise losses, production reports, quality control workflows as well as role-specific KPIs. Actionable alerts were sent through SMS, email, and push notifications, whenever an anomaly was detected, or the production efficiency dropped. The benefits of RTMI were immediate.
Plant managers could now monitor the key performance metrics of the plant without having to wait for the notebook logs at the end of every shift, enabling them to take faster decisions. It also created a real-time feedback loop between the quality control and production teams, where operators managing the shop floor could spot the exact place where defects were emanating from and fix it to reduce rejections.
Employees at the plant can now get real-time insights on big displays on the factory floor, which enables them to take decisions faster.
The project was such a success that the management decided to roll it out across all the 60 manufacturing lines Piramal Glass currently runs in four manufacturing plants spread in three countries. Starting in March this year, Sheth and his team has already implemented it on 46 lines in just six months and hope to complete the remaining before the end of the year. With this, Piramal Glass has created the first of its kind Smart Manufacturing platform with customized dashboards and workflows.
RTMI, which is a customized, first of its kind home grown solution in the glass manufacturing industry, not only offers more insights in real-time than the existing Manufacturing Execution System but also reduces the cost of ownership by 70%. RTMI has led to 40% reduction in manual data gathering, which has resulted in 25% improvement in employee productivity. The real-time feedback loop has led to 5% reduction in defects, which translates into better quality and enhanced predictability of delivery timelines for Piramal Glass’s customers.
“RTMI has democratized information availability and provided actionable insights to our skilled workforce. It has resulted in 1% improvement in production efficiency with a payback period of less than a year,” says Shah.
Bringing AI to glass manufacturing
Hot molten glass is being molded into a bottle.
There are more than 150 variables in the glass manufacturing process and a slight change in any of the variables could impact the product. With the implementation of IoT sensors and RTMI, Piramal Glass is now able to monitor most of these variables in real-time. So far, the company has analyzed more than 200 million data points from the 4,000 sensors.
From adopting disruptive technologies like IoT and AI, to creating a culture of agility and competition, to measuring digital transformation successes with new key performance indicators, Piramal Glass is a Leader in digital transformation in every sense. But this is just the beginning.
“Implementing IoT sensors is not the endgame. They only provide data, it is what you do with that data is the key. We’re now developing a Digital Twin for our production lines where we have implemented AI and Machine Learning models using the Microsoft Cognitive Services platform. This will enable us to predict production efficiency, defect causality and product quality, for every batch, based on input parameters derived from RTMI,” Sheth says.
“Microsoft is committed towards the technological advancement of the manufacturing sector in India and has made considerable investments to help drive digital transformation across optimized operations, innovative products and services, engaged customers and empowered employees,” adds Sreedharan.
With the latest Project Malmo competition, we’re calling on researchers and engineers to test the limits of their thinking as it pertains to artificial intelligence, particularly multi-task, multi-agent reinforcement learning. Last week, a group of attendees at the 14th Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE’18) participated in a one-day workshop featuring the competition, exchanging ideas on the unique challenges of the research area with some of the field’s leading minds.
Learning to Play: The Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in MalmÖ (MARLÖ) Competition requires participants to design learning agents capable of collaborating with or competing against other agents to complete tasks of varying difficulty across 3D games. It is the second competition affiliated with Project Malmo, which is an open-ended platform designed for the experimentation of artificial intelligence. Last year’s Malmo Collaborative AI Challenge yielded a diversity and creativity in approach that exceeded expectations, and we look forward to the same this time around.
The competition, co-hosted by Microsoft, Queen Mary University of London, and CrowdAI, is open to participants worldwide through December 31 (submit your entries here).
Sam Devlin, a game AI researcher from the Machine Intelligence and Perception group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, organized the MARLÖ AIIDE 2018 Workshop in collaboration with our academic partners Diego Perez-Liebana of Queen Mary and Sharada Mohanty of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
The workshop included a short tutorial of MARLÖ that allowed attendees to experiment with competition agents and keynote addresses from two distinguished speakers. There were also a series of short contributed talks and a panel session to encourage attendees to share ideas around the application of reinforcement learning in modern commercial video games.
Jesse Cluff, Principal Engineering Lead, The Coalition
The first keynote speaker was Jesse Cluff, Principal Engineering Lead with The Coalition. Jesse has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, working on many exciting game titles, including Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Bully, and Gears of War 4. During the workshop, he explored two aspects of game AI—the hardware side in discussing how we run programs in real time with limited resources and the emotional side in discussing how we maximize the enjoyment of players while controlling difficulty. He also talked about how AI techniques are actually used in commercial game products and the challenges he’s facing that still need further research.
Martin Schmid, Research Scientist, DeepMind
Martin Schmid, a research scientist with DeepMind, was the second keynote speaker. He is the lead author of DeepStack, the first computer program to outplay human professionals at heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em poker, and he spoke about the program as an example of how successful AI methods used in complex games of perfect information like Go can advance AI application in imperfect-information games like poker. The work has huge practical significance since we regularly have to deal with imperfect information in the real world. These two keynotes were inspiring for faculty, researchers, and graduate students in attendance.
From left: Mobchase, Buildbattle, and Treasurehunt
The workshop also featured the MARLÖ competition’s kickoff tournament. Agents of the participating teams competed in a round robin to achieve the highest scores across three different games—Mobchase, Buildbattle, and Treasurehunt. At the end of the day, we announced the rankings of the enrolled teams. The top three eligible teams will each be presented with the Progress Award, a travel grant worth up to $2,500 for use toward a relevant conference at which they can publish their competition results. The MARLÖ competition is open until December 31, after which the final tournament will be held offline. We hope to see more participants join.
This weekend, DreamHack Atlanta saw the world’s best Halo 5: Guardians players and Halo legends come together for the Halo Championship Series 2018 Finals. The resulting action was a worthy community celebration, sending Halo 5: Guardians esports into the sunset in dramatic fashion.
During the tournament, we were delighted to announce the next chapter of Halo esports: HCS Grassroots. Designed to help the community directly, this new initiative will assist tournament operators and content creators to continue to do what they love while introducing all-new opportunities for growth. Halo wouldn’t be what it is today without a rich history of community contribution, and we’re excited to continue fostering this spirit moving forward.
HCS Grassroots is a partnership program where tournament organizers big and small, along with content creators, can apply for support from 343 Industries for the facilitation and promotion of their esports activities. For example, tournament organizers can receive assistance in the form of prize pool contributions, loaner consoles, social media promotion and sponsor acquisition support, while content creators can receive social media promotion, hosting opportunities on broadcast channels, graphics and content. Our goal is for these offerings to evolve over time alongside the support of our community and partners. Head to Halo.gg/Grassroots to apply, and for a full breakdown of the program check out Halo Waypoint.
Our goal with HCS Grassroots is to give back to the community through the fostering and support of Halo’s diverse competitive community. We want to support all flavors of competitive multiplayer, from whether its Halo 5: Guardians or our first LAN event of the program – The Halo Classic, featuring Halo 3 from Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Whether you are brand new to Halo esports or have been part of the competitive scene since Halo: Combat Evolved, HCS Grassroots is here to grow your community. We’re thrilled to begin the next chapter of competitive Halo, and can’t wait to experience the action alongside you.
For all the latest on the Halo Championship Series, keep it locked to Halo.gg and follow @HCS and @Halo on Twitter. For everything Halo, stay tuned to Halo Waypoint and Xbox Wire.
The way Microsoft 365 enables customers to shift to a modern desktop experience puts it at the heart of workplace transformation. A modern desktop with Windows 10 and Office 365 not only offers the most productive and most secure computing experience, it also saves IT time and money, and allows for a focus on driving business results. For many companies, their specific needs require a modern desktop be virtualized.
To help extend our virtualization capabilities and provide an even richer experience for Microsoft 365 customers, we are excited to announce the acquisition of FSLogix.
FSLogix is a next-generation app-provisioning platform that reduces the resources, time and labor required to support virtualization. From small businesses to very large global enterprises across numerous industries, FSLogix solutions enhance customer experience and productivity, while reducing support requirements for IT departments.
In September 2018, we announced Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop – a Microsoft 365 service that empowers customers to run a modern desktop experience on Azure. It is the only cloud-based service that delivers a multi-user Windows 10 experience that is optimized for Office 365 ProPlus and includes free Windows 7 Extended Security Updates. With Windows Virtual Desktop, you can deploy and scale Windows and Office on Azure in minutes, with built-in security and compliance.
With this acquisition, customers will benefit in a number of ways. Through customer engagement, we know that Microsoft Office applications are some of the most highly used and most commonly virtualized applications in any business. Office 365 ProPlus is currently the best Office experience, and, with FSLogix enabling faster load times for user profiles in Outlook and OneDrive, Office 365 ProPlus will become even more performant in multi-user virtual environments (including Windows Virtual Desktop).
We are excited to welcome FSLogix to Microsoft, and we look forward to the impact its technology and its people will have on our customers’ virtualization experience.
At Skype, our mission has always been to bring people together—to make it easier for friends and families to be there for one another—wherever they may be. With that in mind, we’re investing in new ways for you to connect in the most human way possible—by simply using your voice.
Beginning today, Skype calling is available on Amazon Alexa devices—just in time for the holidays. With Skype on your Alexa-enabled device, you can connect hands-free with family and friends around the world just by saying, “Alexa, call Mom on Skype.” In addition to Skype audio and video calling, we’re providing the ability for Alexa customers to call most landlines and mobile numbers internationally using Skype to Phone. To celebrate the availability of Skype calling with Alexa, Skype is offering 200 free minutes of Skype to Phone calling to 34 countries (terms apply).
With Skype and Alexa, you can now connect with your friends and family around the world completely hands-free. Use Alexa-enabled devices like the Echo Dot to make hands-free Skype voice calls wherever Alexa and Skype are available, or place high-fidelity Skype video calls from the Echo Show and Echo Spot directly to Skype on computers and mobile devices.
To get started, simply link Skype with your Alexa account by following the instructions below.
After doing this once, you can start using your voice any time you need to make a call. Detailed instructions can be found on our feature page.
Skype calling on Alexa is available now in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand with support for other countries rolling out soon. And for the best Skype calling and video experience, update to Skype version 8.34 or later.
At Skype, we always appreciate your feedback, visit the Skype.com feature page for more details on compatible devices, how to link your Alexa account, and what new capabilities are supported. Please continue to follow our blog posts for more news and announcements.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane it’s… no wait, it’s the Xbox One X Gold Rush Special Edition Battlefield V Bundle falling from the sky! Xbox, EA and DICE have teamed up for the wildest console release fans have seen yet to celebrate the launch of Battlefield V and the first Xbox One X Special Edition bundle.
Falling from 13,000 feet, American stunt performer and Nitro Circus’ very own Travis Pastrana showcased the brand-new Battlefield V-themed bundle while hitting a peak speed of 140 mph. Filmed in less than 55 seconds, Travis channeled the spirit of the series’ iconic heroes and became the first to jump head-first out of an airplane with an Xbox One X in hand. In the spirit of the #GiveWithXbox’s mission to bring the joy of gaming to everyone, we partnered with Operation Supply Drop to make a special delivery in Paisley, Florida to gift the bundle to retired Navy Corpsman, and longtime Xbox fan, Jeff Bartrom as a thank you for his service.
Enter mankind’s greatest conflict with Battlefield V as the series goes back to its roots in a never-before-seen portrayal of World War II. Take on physical, all-out multiplayer with your squad in experiences like the vast Grand Operations and the cooperative Combined Arms, or witness human drama set against global combat in the single player War Stories. As you fight in epic, unexpected locations across the globe, enjoy the richest and most immersive Battlefield yet. Xbox One X players get an even more heightened experience in 4K Ultra HD and HDR as an Xbox One X Enhanced title.
Access Battlefield V early with the Deluxe Edition today or jump into the action with the Standard Edition on Nov. 20. EA Access members can start playing a 10-hour trial of Battlefield V starting today. Be sure to keep checking back to Xbox Wire for other unique Xbox experiences!
