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Microsoft news, features, events, and press materials

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How Microsoft enabled company-wide emergency calling in the U.S. with Microsoft Teams Phone

Intuitive and reliable emergency calling is fundamental to the health and safety of any organization. For Microsoft, meeting e911 calling requirements for 172 buildings spread across the United States posed technical and geographic challenges. But thoughtful planning and inclusive participation was critical to enabling this functionality, on time and under budget.

As communications have expanded beyond fixed lines to modern calling solutions such as Microsoft Teams Phone that include VoIP, shared devices, and mobile capabilities, companies are required to support direct dialing of emergency services. It is also a company’s responsibility for ensuring “dispatchable location” information is conveyed with 911 calls. RAY BAUM’s Act and Kari’s Law represent legislation designed to ensure people have the ability to connect with emergency services through multi-line telephone systems that support many users across a single campus, building, or facility.

The obvious statements are worth saying. Microsoft has many employees. In many locations. All across the United States (not to mention, globally). Enabling compliance with these important safety policies required the planning and effort of many, but it was made possible through a thoughtful well-implemented plan.

Success starts with a good plan

In alignment with regulatory requirements, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience began by defining it’s per-building compliance approach. The approach was implemented by a team leveraging the current Teams emergency calling technical capabilities. The plan which faciliatated this effort was focused on ensuring e911 compliance across Microsoft’s footprint of 172 United States buildings. The goal included mapping roughly 140,000 network jack/wireless access points with physical locations so that a 911 call from Teams would be dynamically routed to the most appropriate emergency response center. Success would mean that any e911 call details include the civic address of the building as well as an accurate location of the user requiring emergency assistance.

Best practices of identifying stakeholders, defining roles and responsibilities, establishing milestones and metrics, and assigning budgets were also key to making sure everyone worked in sync. Microsoft’s approach included the following efforts:

  • Defined per-building compliance approach using a combination of wireless BSSID, ethernet switch, ethernet switch/port, subnet.
  • Secured budget and identified vendors to conduct wired/wireless civic address location mapping of the 172 in-scope buildings.
  • Created a milestone framework to provide consistent visibility to stakeholders for the multi-semester initiative.
  • Developed change management plans covering technical and organizational resources and ensuring the integrity of the e911 location database while incorporating future changes.
  • Conducted twice-monthly cross-org steering meetings to ensure all necessary e911 requirements were on track.
  • Completed proofs-of-concept related to building audits, location configurations and testing of dynamic e911 feature capabilities in Teams and call routing to hosted Emergency Routing Service (ERS).
  • Communication and training were foundational for the ongoing success of this program and service. Awareness of emergency services capabilities via Teams Phone were posted internally and regularly communicated to internal groups.

 

Technical implementation

Teams provides the framework to implement emergency calling. However, there are many actions each customer must complete to make e911 fully functional. The customer-driven technical configurations are the pieces that define specifics about your environment and users. Here’s how Microsoft addressed a few of the most critical components:

  • Configured e911 call routing with an emergency call routing service partner to ensure appropriate routing on the calls based on address information within the call ‘SiIP header’.
  • Established the trusted IP addresses which are the external IP addresses of the enterprise network. Once implemented, these determine whether the user’s endpoint is inside or outside of the corporate network before checking for a specific emergency address and network identifier.
  • Assigned emergency addresses for all Microsoft buildings within the United States, this assignment includes the civic address as well as the associated geo codes. 
  • Associated network identifiers (wireless BSSID, ethernet switch, ethernet switch/port, subnet) with these emergency address locations.
  • Created and assigned the emergency call routing policy to our in-scope users. This policy configures the emergency ‘mask’ numbers (911), and the PSTN route per number.
  • Created and assigned the emergency calling policy to in-scope users. This policy configures the security desk notification experience when an emergency call is made. In addition, this is where we set the external lookup functionality, allowing end users to configure their emergency address when they are working from a network location outside the corporate network. Finally, we used this policy to set the emergency service disclaimer to show a banner to remind end users to confirm their emergency location.

Future-proofing emergency calling

Few things are constant. That especially applies to employees, office locations, technology, and legislation. With this in mind, project leads developed a change readiness framework that included a cadence of ongoing compliance audits and built-in flexibility to accommodate future needs.

  • Developed an e911 change management solution used for making ongoing database updates when network infra changes occur.
  • Refined change management processes in partnership with the legal team, support tiers, venture integration team, network team, and real estate team in support of long-term e911 data integrity across wired and wireless networks.
  • Deploy, test, validate, repeat the e911 mapping exercises with existing and new real estate spaces. Alignment of network data with civic address location was quality tested with the initial effort and will be repeated annually to ensure quality of datasets.

Configuring Teams Phone e911 capabilities in your organization

Enabling Teams Phone e911 capabilities in your organization can play a critical role in ensuring the safety of your staff and patrons. Regardless of whether you use Microsoft Calling Plans, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing, be sure to reference the guidance for managing emergency calling policies in Microsoft Teams.

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Using our voice to advance carbon and electricity policy

We believe that Microsoft and the broader private sector have an important role to play in advocating for effective and innovative sustainability policy. When we announced our commitment in 2020 to become carbon negative by 2030, we pledged to use our voice on public policy issues to help to advance global decarbonization efforts.

Today, we are publishing briefs on carbon and electricity policy to share the priorities and principles that guide Microsoft’s policy advocacy work around the world. The principles we set forth are grounded in our focus on achieving tangible results, enabling a flexible rather than one-size-fits-all approach, and recognizing the important role that digital technologies will play as we expand market opportunities for all. We are releasing these two policy briefs together to underscore the integral and complementary role that electricity policy plays in addressing climate change. We also recognize that there are critical energy issues that go beyond climate change such as the availability of electricity for all, affordability and environmental justice. Similarly, there are carbon issues that go beyond energy. As we tackle these issues in parallel, we are mindful that our policy work will need to expand in the future and consider these policy briefs as foundations for future work on issues like water and waste.

We understand that public policies will play a critical role, both in creating signals to spur the economic and social transition required to address climate change and in building the foundations of markets to develop and deliver innovative goods, services and skills to achieve that transition. However, there is a growing gap between the pace of desired policy outcomes and economic and scientific indicators that show accelerating climate impacts. To help close this gap and support communities and companies in their efforts to achieve their climate pledges, governments around the world need to accelerate policy action.

Over the past two years, we have advocated for climate and energy investments as part of the recent U.S. infrastructure and climate laws, a robust and consistent framework for climate disclosure requirements by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and a comprehensive European Union (EU) decarbonization plan, to name just a few. As we expand our advocacy efforts, we will use the following priorities and principles to guide our engagement on carbon and electricity policy worldwide

Carbon policy

Over the past decade, an average of at least 170 new climate-related laws have come into effect around the world each year. Multiple overlapping factors are driving both the pace and direction of climate-related policies. Chief among them is pressure on policymakers from the public, NGOs and corporations, as well as increasingly visible indications of a changing climate (including wildfires, droughts, heat waves, and severe storms and flooding), driving an elevated sense of urgency for near-term action. Furthermore, there is growing interest from investors and customers in companies delivering more climate-friendly goods and services.

Policies to mitigate climate change by addressing greenhouse gas (GHG; often referred to in shorthand as carbon) emissions can be organized into three core areas: carbon reporting, carbon reduction and carbon removal.

sustainability graphic

Carbon reporting: While many different steps are required to reach global net-zero emissions, they all rely on a common foundation that ensures carbon emissions are measured in an accurate, consistent, interoperable and reliable manner globally. If governments, NGOs and corporations around the world don’t measure carbon emissions in the same way, they’re likely to talk past each other, create confusion and ultimately set unrealistic expectations about the pace of progress.

We support new corporate carbon disclosure and procurement reporting policies that: (1) drive consistent, robust and interoperable GHG reporting metrics; (2) promote comprehensive yet flexible corporate GHG disclosures; and (3) take advantage of new technologies to calculate and track emissions and climate impacts.

Carbon reduction: To achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century, governments need to put in place additional policies to reduce carbon emissions. These policies will vary across geographies. Some approaches will focus on economy-wide solutions such as an emissions trading scheme (ETS) – or “cap and trade” – in which the government issues or auctions licenses to emit a fixed amount of GHG emissions for specific industries, and recipients with spare capacity can trade licenses to those expecting to exceed their allowance. Other policies will target specific sectors like power generation, building, transportation, aviation and agriculture, with governments using different policy levers to lower each sector’s footprint. The path to net-zero emissions is heavily influenced by a country’s stage of economic development and natural resource mix. Innovations in financing mechanisms, technology design and deployment approaches, and participation models can help countries in the Global South, which may be at the beginning stages of climate mitigation and adaptation journeys, to advance immediately beyond traditional carbon-intensive infrastructure.

We support new carbon reduction policies that: (1) support a broad, outcome-based, multisector toolkit; (2) double down on grid decarbonization while incentivizing reduction in hard-to-abate sectors; and (3) design for empowered advancement.

Carbon removal:  We are seeing growing urgency in scaling the carbon removal market. An August 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls for the world to remove in the region of 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent) annually in the second half of this century – and to make rapid progress immediately. Crucially, this must be in tandem with, and not as a replacement for, unprecedented carbon emissions reductions. Government policy can play an important role in building markets for high-quality and durable carbon removal.

We support new carbon removal policies that focus on: (1) driving clear accounting and high-quality standards; (2) prioritizing highly durable solutions: and (3) engaging local and impacted communities.

Electricity policy

Electricity is an enabler of economic development, social welfare, improved health and other positive societal outcomes. In an increasingly interconnected, technology-driven global economy, the demand for reliable electricity will continue to grow.

There are three dimensions of this need for electricity that are important to consider.

First, despite the indispensable role of electricity, we still live in a world where more than 770 million people live without access to electricity (mostly in Africa and Asia). Economic growth in these regions requires the development of a reliable electric grid. Second, the diversification of renewable and carbon free energy sources and the modernization of the electrical goal are critical to meeting the world’s decarbonization goals. Today, fossil fuels produce 61% of electricity in the US, nearly 70% in the Asia Pacific region and significant portions on other grids around the world. Third, access to renewable energy on a global basis has become important to Microsoft’s own business. The datacenters that power our global cloud services depend on having a reliable, consistent, flexible and resilient supply of electricity in every country where we operate. At the same time, Microsoft has some of the world’s most ambitious climate and clean energy commitments, including our commitment to be carbon negative by 2030 and procure enough renewable energy to cover 100% of our electricity use by 2025.

According to McKinsey & Company, global electricity demand will triple by 2050, an increase driven by both electrification and improvements in living standards. Recent research shows that, in the United States alone, the supply of electricity will need to expand by 60% by 2030 and triple in size by 2050. Disruptions associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have highlighted the importance of affordable energy security and the advantage of electricity generation that does not depend on fuel to ensure the reliability of the European grid. Ice storms, fires and heat waves have put grids around the world under massive stress. These grids are coming under pressure right at the time that they are becoming a necessary foundation of transformation to electrify the economy and increase access to carbon-free energy – underscoring the need for urgent action.

Our public policy advocacy relating to the electrical grid is focused on three pillars. These seek to support an expanded, robust, reliable and carbon-free grid by: (1) accelerating the transition to clean electricity generation; (2) modernizing and improving grid infrastructure; and (3) encouraging an equitable energy future.

sustainability graphic

Accelerating the transition to clean electricity generation: To expand carbon-free supply to power our growing operations and to power local grids around the world, we are supporting policies that promote a diverse zero-carbon energy mix for a reliable, resilient and flexible grid. This includes the use of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and green hydrogen power. We are also supporting policies that will enable the grid to respond flexibly to changes in supply and demand – for example, using storage technology to dispatch zero-carbon electricity on demand on grids with a high level of variable renewable energy. We believe the most suitable policy design – regulatory caps, clean energy standards, tax incentives, subsidies and/or public procurement – may vary greatly between countries.

We support policies that: (1) promote a diverse zero-carbon energy mix for a reliable, resilient and flexible grid; (2) update electricity market design and price signals to expand participation; and (3) advance R&D investments to deliver the clean energy technologies of the future.

Modernizing and improving grid infrastructure: In addition to adding clean energy capacity, grid management must become more dynamic as larger volumes of renewable energy and distributed resources are deployed and carbon-emitting energy sources are retired. As zero-carbon resources are added to the grid at an accelerated pace, the network of wires that will deliver that electricity to homes and businesses must also significantly expand.

We support policies that: (1) prioritize and resource transmission planning and siting to expand energy delivery; (2) simplify the permitting process to expedite clean energy grid interconnections; and (3) advance the use of digital technology, including AI, to manage, optimize, stabilize and protect the grid.

Encouraging an equitable energy future: Finally, the clean energy transition needs a new strategy for community and stakeholder engagement that ensures participation for those that have been historically impacted by carbon-intensive energy development and those that stand to benefit the most from the expansion of the electrical grid. There is an opportunity to apply new zero-carbon energy best practices in countries that are building out their grids for the first time.

We support policies that: (1) support and amplify the voice of impacted communities; (2) design energy for an equitable start in the Global South; and (3) implement measures to keep electricity costs affordable and equitable.

Conclusion

Public policy will play a critical role in the global net-zero transition. Microsoft has a longstanding history of environmental sustainability action and advocacy, and we view it as both our responsibility and an opportunity to use our voice to support the policies that we believe will have the greatest impact.

To read the policy briefs, please visit:

aka.ms/carbonpolicybrief

aka.ms/electricitypolicybrief

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Microsoft, Planet and The Nature Conservancy launch the Global Renewables Watch

Using AI and satellite imagery, the Global Renewables Watch maps renewable energy installations from space

NEW YORK — Sept. 22, 2022 — Microsoft Corp., Planet Labs PBC and The Nature Conservancy on Thursday announced its plans to launch the Global Renewables Watch (GRW), a first-of-its-kind living atlas intended to map and measure all utility-scale solar and wind installations on Earth using artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery, allowing users to evaluate clean energy transition progress and track trends over time.

With initial mapping of solar and wind energy installations in Germany and India, as well as solar installations in Brazil and Egypt completed, the GRW is being built to serve as a publicly available renewable energy atlas with country-by-country insights into production progress and development trends. With access to satellite data dating back to 2018, and plans to update the atlas twice annually, the GRW aims to show countries’ renewable energy capacity, assist in understanding that capacity, and recognize patterns about the potential impact of the renewable energy siting on the landscape over time rather than as a moment in time.

The first full global inventory is expected to be completed by early 2023, at which point the results will undergo both scientific and technical validation. For this joint program, Microsoft is providing the AI and platform technology, Planet is contributing the underlying satellite imagery, and The Nature Conservancy is overlaying the subject-matter expertise to analyze the output.

The announcement comes as New York City hosts international public- and private-sector leaders for the opening of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly and the 14th annual Climate Week NYC.

“The theme for Climate Week NYC this year is ‘getting it done,’ and to do that, we need to move from pledges to progress,” said The Nature Conservancy’s CEO Jennifer Morris. “Global Renewables Watch, which is a result of collaboration between Microsoft, The Nature Conservancy and Planet, is exactly the kind of action we need to see. This will be a publicly accessible resource to help researchers and policymakers understand current capacities and gaps so that decision-makers can scale much-needed renewable energy resources in a responsible, nature-friendly way.”

Current methods for tracking solar and wind energy projects globally are an immensely complex undertaking, cutting across countless jurisdictions and with much of the data held by private organizations. The GRW aims to provide this data by coupling AI with high-resolution satellite imagery and presenting it in a dynamically updated time series.

“Each of the partners brings unique knowledge and value-add to this initiative,” said Planet’s Co-Founder and CEO Will Marshall. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so by combining Microsoft’s AI and cloud computing capabilities, Planet’s comprehensive and high-resolution satellite imagery, and The Nature Conservancy’s deep subject-matter expertise, we hope to build a powerful platform for surfacing — and democratizing access to — renewable energy data.”

The partners will continue to map additional countries and are aiming to build awareness of the tool among those tasked with managing the world’s clean energy transition in the weeks leading up to and during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, taking place in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, Nov. 6-18, 2022.

“The world needs access to data in order to make responsible environmental decisions, and the Global Renewables Watch will serve as a critical tool for understanding humanity’s progress toward fulfilling the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all,” said Microsoft VP and Chief Data Scientist Juan Lavista Ferres.

The GRW will make its data and findings available at GlobalRenewablesWatch.org for integration into wider analyses.

About Planet

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites, capturing over 30 TB of data per day. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to over 800 customers, comprising the world’s leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation trading on the New York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and follow us on Twitter.

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, [email protected]

Megan Zaroda, Planet Labs PBC, [email protected]

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 https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

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Joining the Copenhagen Pledge: A call to action for technology to empower democracy

Microsoft is proud to support the Copenhagen Pledge on Tech for Democracy, an initiative led by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aligning efforts of governments and organizations around the world in their commitment to defending human rights and democracy in cyberspace. Digital technology has the incredible potential to improve lives across the globe, economically and socially. More than that, when developed and used responsibly, it can support democratic institutions, increase transparency and accountability in governance as well as protect and promote human rights. But it is increasingly clear that this potential is not guaranteed; instead, it is something we must actively advance together. 

Unfortunately, malicious actors, state and non-state alike, can use this same technology for disruption and destruction, and as a tool for targeting and silencing political opposition, human rights activists or to drive influence operations abroad. The unlawful invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine have put this potential for abuse on full display. Here, technology is being employed to malicious ends as part of the first large-scale hybrid war, with kinetic operations taking place alongside cyberattacks against both government and critical civilian infrastructure, accompanied by influence operations targeting the Ukrainian people and their allies around the world.  

These emerging threats require increased and comprehensive investments in cybersecurity. They also require innovation in diplomacy and the development of new forums and spaces of engagement across stakeholder groups, both domestically and at international levels. 

This is why Microsoft has joined more than 110 other organizations in signing on to the Copenhagen Pledge on Tech for Democracy. Through this ambitious initiative, Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is bringing together stakeholders across civil society, industry and government to drive action that defends human rights and democracy online. This is essential work to protect and translate the values and freedoms we have come to expect in the physical world over to the ever-growing digital domain.  

The Copenhagen Pledge acknowledges that we can only do this together as a community. By signing the pledge, supporters are committed to join in advancing this work via the Tech for Democracy Action Coalitions. Microsoft is excited to be engaging in two of these coalitions: one on information integrity in elections; the other on how we can use technology to better support the participation of civil society at the international level.  

Collaborative frameworks like the Copenhagen Pledge are critical as they allow us to compare notes across the different sectoral siloes, create opportunities to learn from each other and provide a forum for action to help us reconcile the dual-use nature of digital technology. As a sector, the tech industry has a responsibility to design technology with human rights and democracy in mind. But we also need strong international governing systems and structures to ensure technology is used responsibly, which requires innovation in diplomacy.  

Microsoft’s commitment to healthy democracy 

One of the essential components of a healthy democratic society is a trustworthy information environment. For the past several years, Microsoft has been investing in transformational new technologies to secure voting and protect democratic processes through our Democracy Forward program. As part of the Copenhagen Pledge Action Coalition on information integrity in elections, we are launching a global media literacy campaign with the intent to encourage readers to be more critical consumers of information online. We are also partnering with the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) on a project to strengthen global investigative journalism, specifically when it relates to elections. 

Furthermore, we are investing heavily in boosting our online threat intelligence capabilities with the newly formed Digital Threat Analysis Center (DTAC). This highly skilled team investigates and researches cyber influence campaigns specifically, which we as a company are committed to reporting on, if and when that research identifies such operations targeting elections. 

Through the Tech for Democracy Action Coalitions, we are also excited to be exploring new ways to leverage technology to create more inclusive dialogues that support the participation of those in civil society and across the digital divide. These actions build on our previous efforts that allow for meaningful inclusion of industry and civil society in conversations on cybersecurity at the United Nations and beyond. 

International efforts working in concert for stronger democracies 

The partnership and vision set out by the Copenhagen Pledge is both timely and urgent. It fills an especially action-oriented role alongside other international initiatives intended to promote security and defend democracy in this age of digital transformation, including: 

  • The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, established in 2018, has laid a strong foundation for what multistakeholder cooperation can look like as well as shaping the discussion around international cybersecurity and stakeholder responsibilities.
  • Last year, the U.S.-led Summit for Democracy has galvanized those who care about protecting democracies in a celebration of democratic values, kickstarting a series of workstreams that will come to fruition in the coming year.  

These initiatives each play a necessary new role in an evolving international system that needs a shared commitment to shared values across the world. Each initiative has the potential to strengthen and reinforce one another: cybersecurity insights and learning emerging from the Paris Call informing the efforts of the Copenhagen Pledge Action Coalitions, and the Summit for Democracy serving as a platform to take stock of progress and evaluate impact related to how technology is impacting democracy around the world. 

Sign the Copenhagen Pledge 

Microsoft is proud to support the Copenhagen Pledge, and we will continue to lend our voice to efforts that promote the responsible use of technology. We encourage others to join us and sign the pledge as we all have a responsibility to develop, use and promote technology that strengthens democracy and human rights online.  

Join us virtually at the United Nations General Assembly Side Event: Tech for Democracy – Problems, Progress and the Copenhagen Pledge on September 22, 12:00-2:30 p.m. EST. 

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Microsoft unveils new research and technology to bridge the disconnect between leaders and employees so companies can thrive amid economic uncertainty

Microsoft expands Microsoft Viva platform to connect employees to company culture, business goals and one another

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 22, 2022 — On Thursday, Microsoft Corp. released a Work Trend Index Pulse report, “Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing It Wrong?” The company also announced new capabilities in Microsoft Viva, its employee experience platform, designed to help empower and energize employees in a time of economic uncertainty.

The data makes clear that hybrid work has created a growing disconnect between employees and leaders. They’re at odds about what constitutes productivity, how to maintain autonomy while ensuring accountability, the benefits of flexibility and the role of the office. To bridge this gap, a new approach is needed that recognizes work is no longer just a place but an experience that needs to transcend time and space so employees can stay engaged and connected no matter where they are working.

“Thriving employees are what will give organizations a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environment,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “Today, we’re announcing new innovations across our employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to help leaders end productivity paranoia, rebuild social capital, and re-recruit and re-energize their employees.”

To help leaders navigate the new realities of work, the Work Trend Index Pulse report[1] points to three urgent pivots every leader should make:

  1. End productivity paranoia: 87% of employees report they are productive at work, but 85% of leaders say the shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence their employees are being productive. Leaders need to create clarity and alignment around company goals, eliminate busywork that doesn’t support those goals and listen to their people — 57% of companies are rarely, if ever, collecting employee feedback.
  2. Embrace that people come in for each other: 73% of employees say they need a better reason to go into the office besides company expectations — but they would be motivated to go in if they could socialize with co-workers (84%) or rebuild team bonds (85%). Digital communication will be crucial to keep people connected inside and out the office — both employees and leaders rank communication as the No. 1 most critical skill needed to be successful in their roles this year.
  3. Re-skill to re-recruit your employees: 55% of employees say the best way to develop their skills is to change companies. However, they also say they would stay longer at their company if it was easier to change jobs internally (68%) or if they could benefit more from learning and development support (76%).

To address these challenges, Microsoft is expanding its employee experience platform Microsoft Viva to help companies deliver an employee experience optimized for the way people now work. Today, Microsoft is announcing several new and enhanced capabilities coming to Viva:

  • Viva Pulse is a new app that will enable managers and team leads to seek regular and confidential feedback on their team’s experience. Viva Pulse uses smart templates and research-backed questions to help managers pinpoint what’s working well and where to focus, and also provides suggested learning and actions to address team needs.
  • Viva Amplify is a new app that will empower leaders and communicators to elevate their message and reach employees where they are with consistency and impact. The app centralizes communications campaigns, offers writing guidance to improve message resonance, enables publishing across multiple channels and distribution groups in Microsoft 365, and provides metrics for improvement.
  • Answers in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to match employee questions to answers and experts across the organization to help put collective knowledge to work for all employees.
  • People in Viva is a new capability that will use AI to create rich profile cards with details on an employee’s interests, knowledge and team goals to help colleagues easily discover connections, experts and insights across the organization. These insights will be available through Microsoft 365 profile cards and as a new app.
  • Microsoft recently launched Viva Engage, which fosters digital community building through conversations and self-expression tools with stories and storylines. Leadership Corner is coming to Viva Engage as a space to invite employees to interact directly with leadership, share ideas and perspectives, participate in organization initiatives, and more.
  • Viva Goals helps organizations align employee work to business outcomes. New integrations in Viva Goals will bring goals into the flow of work including a richer integration with Microsoft Teams to check in on OKRs, an extension in Azure DevOps to complete work items, a connection to Power BI datasets to track KPIs and Key Results, and integrations with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Project for automatic project management updates.
  • Enhanced integrations between Viva Learning and LinkedIn Learning will make it even easier for people to access content from LinkedIn Learning Hub right in the flow of work in Teams. Learners will see all their LinkedIn Learning Hub content synced, including custom content, curated learning paths and the courses they have already completed, all reflected directly within Viva. And administrators will be able to set the integration up directly within their settings on LinkedIn Learning Hub — no APIs needed.
  • Viva Sales, the first role-based experience app in the platform, will be generally available Oct. 3. Viva Sales brings together a seller’s CRM with Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide a more streamlined and AI-powered selling experience — right in the tools they’re using every day to connect with customers and close deals. Microsoft is announcing a partnership with Seismic to personalize and scale customer engagements through AI-generated content recommendations.
  • To streamline access to Viva and help employees start their day on track, a new home experience in Viva Connections will bring all the Viva apps together in one place, and updates to the Viva briefing email will provide more personalized productivity recommendations to help employees catch up on work, meetings and learning.

The new Viva capabilities will begin rolling out to customers in early 2023.

To learn more, visit the Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft 365 Blog and the new Work Trend Index Pulse report.

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.

[1] The Work Trend Index Pulse report is based on an external study of 20,000 people in 11 countries, along with analysis of trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, LinkedIn labor trends and Glint People Science insights.

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777, [email protected]

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 https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts.

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Today, we’re sharing new Microsoft Viva innovations and Work Trend Index findings to help leaders end productivity paranoia, rebuild social capital, and re-energize their employees.

Announcing updates to Azure Space, as we work with our growing ecosystem of partners to provide low latency access to the cloud from anywhere.

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Xbox and Minecraft: Education Edition partner with BBC Earth to create Frozen Planet II worlds

To celebrate the acclaimed nature programme, Frozen Planet II, Minecraft Education has partnered with BBC Earth to bring the icy splendour of the landmark show to Minecraft: Education Edition.

Through five all-new free worlds, Minecraft players will be able to meet and learn about animals and landscapes featured in BBC Studios Natural History Unit’s iconic series.

As the best-selling game of all time, Minecraft reaches millions of players all over the world, and its Education Edition – available in 29 languages – helps students learn about a variety of subjects via the magic of creative gameplay. With the Frozen Planet II content, teachers can access lesson plans designed to inform and inspire students about our frozen worlds, allowing them to explore the effects of climate change as part of their curriculum.

<img data-attachment-id="78535" data-permalink="https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2022/09/21/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds/frozen-planet-ii-episode-01-frozen-worlds/" data-orig-file="https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/68/2022/09/Frozen_Planet_II_01_070_Screengrab-scaled.jpg" data-orig-size="2560,1440" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"BBC STUDIOS","camera":"","caption":"Picture Shows: An adult Polar Bear walks across the sea ice in the Arctic.","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"BBC STUDIOS 2022","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Frozen Planet II: Episode 01: Frozen Worlds","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Frozen Planet II: Episode 01: Frozen Worlds" data-image-description="

Polar bear walking on snow

” data-medium-file=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.jpg” data-large-file=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-1.jpg” loading=”lazy” class=” wp-image-78535″ src=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.jpg” alt=”Polar bear walking on snow” width=”943″ height=”531″ srcset=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.jpg 300w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-1.jpg 1600w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-2.jpg 768w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-3.jpg 1536w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-4.jpg 2048w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-5.jpg 1333w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-6.jpg 924w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-7.jpg 793w” sizes=”(max-width: 943px) 100vw, 943px”>

Image credit: ©BBC Studios, from TV programme Frozen Planet II

The first of five free Frozen Planet II worlds is available to download from 21st September 2022, via the Minecraft Marketplace for all Minecraft: Bedrock Edition players and for all users of Minecraft: Education Edition. The worlds will allow players to experience life through the unique perspectives of animals like a chinstrap penguin, Lapland bumblebee, and polar bear, and what it’s like to work as a natural history filmmaker researcher, documenting animal behaviour and environmental research.

“One of the great things about the natural world is its power to engage and enthral viewers young and old,” said Elizabeth White, series producer, Frozen Planet II. “We are delighted to partner with Minecraft on this range of educational computer games which will enable children to interact with stories inspired by the series through gameplay, and learn more about the challenges of these habitats through the additional lesson content.”

<img data-attachment-id="78536" data-permalink="https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2022/09/21/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds/frozen_planet_ii_marketingscreenshot_0/" data-orig-file="https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-7.png" data-orig-size="1920,1080" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Frozen_Planet_II_MarketingScreenshot_0" data-image-description="

Snow capped mountain in Minecraft

” data-medium-file=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.png” data-large-file=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-1.png” loading=”lazy” class=”alignnone wp-image-78536″ src=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.png” alt=”Snow capped mountain in Minecraft” width=”932″ height=”525″ srcset=”https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds.png 300w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-1.png 1600w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-2.png 768w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-3.png 1536w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-4.png 1333w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-5.png 924w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-6.png 793w, https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/xbox-and-minecraft-education-edition-partner-with-bbc-earth-to-create-frozen-planet-ii-worlds-7.png 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px”>

“We’re excited to partner with BBC Studios in this unique venture – we’re bringing a whole new perspective to Minecraft and, collaborating with the great minds behind Frozen Planet II, a truly authentic experience of some of the most fascinating and important areas of our world,” adds Allison Matthews, Head of Minecraft Education.

“It’s never been more crucial to educate players everywhere about the effects of climate change and inspire a new generation of young people around sustainability. We believe it’s our responsibility to do so, and this partnership is the next big step in that direction.”

The first of five free Frozen Planet II worlds are available to download from 21st September 2022. Frozen Planet II is showing now on BBC One and is available to stream via BBC iPlayer.

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Take Xbox to more places with Xbox Cloud Gaming on the Logitech G CLOUD Handheld when it launches Oct. 17

At Xbox, we’re always looking to make gaming available to more people in more ways. Since launching Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) two years ago, we’ve continued to expand device support: bringing Halo Infinite to entry-level PCs, Forza Horizon 5 to iOS phones and tablets, Microsoft Flight Simulator to Xbox One, and hundreds of games to even more devices like 2022 Samsung Smart TVs.

As we look ahead, we will continue to meet people on the devices they already own, breaking down barriers of entry to play.

So today, we’re announcing that Xbox Cloud Gaming will be available in more places with the Logitech G CLOUD Gaming Handheld when it launches in North America on October 17. Soon you’ll be able to play Grounded and Sea of Thieves, or discover your next favorite game, right in the palm of your hands using the power of the cloud on an all-new device.

Handhelds are a natural next step in our cloud gaming evolution, and it’s great to see a world-class hardware leader like Logitech optimize Xbox Cloud Gaming for their new device. You can jump right in with ease, anywhere you are, and take advantage of the 16:9 full-screen display. With extended battery life, built-in Wi-Fi, and ergonomic controls, the Logitech G CLOUD will allow you to progress through campaigns or get online for a multiplayer session where it’s most convenient to you.

Getting started is easy: Once you boot up your Logitech G CLOUD, you’ll see the Xbox Cloud Gaming shortcut pinned right to the home screen. You can play hundreds of high-quality titles with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership, including new games on day one from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, as well as fantastic titles from our partners such as, The Gunk, PowerWash Simulator, and Tunic. You can also play Fortnite with your friends for free, no Game Pass subscription required.

Additionally, we’ve worked with Logitech to enable our Remote Play feature, also pinned as a shortcut to the home screen. Remote Play differs from Xbox Cloud Gaming by letting you stream your full Xbox library – going beyond titles in Xbox Game Pass – from your personal Xbox console to phones, tablets, and now handhelds.

You can read more about the Logitech G CLOUD Gaming Handheld announcement here, and to learn more about Xbox Cloud Gaming, visit xbox.com/cloudgaming.

Logitech G CLOUD Gaming Handheld

☆☆☆☆☆
★★★★★

$349.99 $299.99

Get the best of cloud gaming right in your hands. The 7-inch full HD 1080p touchscreen, 12+ hour battery life, and lightweight portability mean an exceptional experience while you play hundreds of AAA video game titles. It also features integration with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) and NVIDIA GeForce NOW, with access to more cloud services through the Google Play store app Remote Play.

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How can leaders empower employees in the face of economic uncertainty? On Sept. 22, join CEO Satya Nadella and others for urgent insights

How can leaders empower employees in the face of economic uncertainty? On Thursday, Sept. 22, join Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky and Microsoft CVP of Modern Work Jared Spataro for urgent insights every leader needs to know in a rapidly changing environment. 

Join us at 6 a.m. PT on Sept. 22

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Goldman Sachs eyes quantum advantage for derivative pricing

TBD.TBD.
Goldman Sachs text-only company logo.

At Goldman Sachs, our Research and Development team is always looking to push forward the cutting edge in technology for financial services. While quantum computing remains in an early stage, the promise of the technology means that we are actively researching where and how it can be applied in the future. A key approach here is for us to “work backward.” We start with a valuable, well-defined mathematical problem in finance that we can pair with a theoretical computational advantage for quantum computers. We then ask: what would the specifications of a real quantum computer need to be to achieve a practical advantage for this problem? In doing this resource estimation work we need to fill in practical details and plug gaps in theoretical approaches. It also often uncovers important optimizations that can, for example, reduce time to solution or the required quantum memory.

Resource estimation for quantum advantage in derivative pricing

One example that we have focused on is the pricing of complex derivatives. Derivatives are financial contracts whose value today is based on some statistical model of what will happen in the future. A common example of a financial derivative is a stock option. When you have a complicated contract or a complicated statistical model then it can be computationally expensive to compute the price. Derivatives are so common in finance that even a small improvement in pricing them, or in calculating related quantities, could be very valuable.

Derivatives are a good target for resource estimation because the underlying algorithm that is often used is Monte Carlo, and it’s known that there is a theoretical speedup available to quantum computers for fairly generic Monte Carlo algorithms. The algorithm builds on a subroutine called amplitude estimation and offers a quadratic speedup. For instance, to achieve an accuracy ε in the price a classical Monte Carlo algorithm needs to run for O(1/ε2) steps. However, the quantum algorithm runs in only O(1/ε) steps. For example, if you are targeting accuracy of one part per thousand (ε = 10-3) then the quantum algorithm could need only 1,000 steps vs. a classical algorithm that would need 1,000,000.

Of course, this is just the theoretical scaling and details need to be filled in to see if this is practical. For example, each step on a quantum computer might take much longer than each step on a classical computer because the clock rate is slower. There also may be other overheads that influence the constant factors in the algorithm.

In 2020, we worked with co-authors at IBM to produce the first end-to-end resource estimate for derivative pricing in our paper “A Threshold for Quantum Advantage in Derivative Pricing.” We used two practical examples of derivative contracts in that paper: an autocallable and a Target Accrual Redemption Forward (TARF). These are examples that are complicated enough to price today that we would like a speedup and that are traded in enough volume that improving their pricing matters. In order to make the resource estimate practical, we introduced some modifications to the algorithm called the re-parameterization method. This resulted in the following estimates for the resources needed for the autocallable example. We include the total resources needed as well as the resources used in an important subroutine of amplitude estimation, the Q operator:

  Total Resources Q Operator
T-count 1.2 x 10^10 11.4M
T-depth 5.4 x 10^7 9.5k
Logical Qubits 8k 8k

We include three important figures of merit to describe the resources. The T-count gives the number of T-gate operations needed in the algorithm. The T-gate operation in many fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures requires significantly more resources than other operations and so dominates the resources needed by the computation. We also include the T-depth. This is the number of T-gate operations that needed to be executed sequentially. In some architectures, this depth number then determines the overall runtime of the algorithm as other T-gates can be parallelized. Finally, we include the amount of quantum memory needed for the algorithm as measured by the number of qubits.

Resource estimation with Q#

Resource estimation is challenging as all the details matter. For example, our paper uses fully mixed precision in the implementation, where each fixed-point register is optimized to use the right number of qubits. How can we be sure that we didn’t make mistakes when we can’t run a full implementation?

In order to take our resource estimate to the next level, we chose to use Q# and work with Mathias Soeken and Martin Roetteler on the Microsoft Azure Quantum team to develop a full Q# implementation of our algorithm. Doing resource estimation this way had many benefits:

  1. Handling complexity: We could use Q#’s features to automatically handle the allocation and management of quantum memory. Further, features like automatically generating controlled and adjoint operations made it easier for us to express the algorithm at a higher level and let the compiler figure out the details.
  2. Using libraries: Much of the resource complexity in our derivative pricing algorithm is used by reversible arithmetic on quantum registers. Q# already has many libraries for fixed-point arithmetic operations that we could import and invoke without needing to re-implement them ourselves.
  3. Finding mistakes: Since much of the code in our implementation is dealing with reversible versions of classical arithmetic, we were able to make use of Q#’s Toffoli simulator to efficiently test portions of our implementation for correctness. While the whole algorithm cannot be directly simulated, we were able to develop unit tests for key components that we could efficiently simulate to build up confidence in our resource counts.
  4. Modular design: The overall algorithm is complicated. Having a concrete implementation lets one focus on optimizing specific functions one at a time and then letting the system tell you the overall effect on resource counts.

New updates to the algorithm from using Q#

While implementing the algorithm from our previous work in Q# we made some improvements and modifications.

Firstly, we removed the arcsine and square-root arithmetic operations (Step 3 of Algorithm 4.2) and replaced them with the comparator method (Section 2.2 of this work). This reduces the resources needed for that step.

Secondly, we replaced the piecewise polynomial implementation of the exponential function with a lookup table. A lookup table can further reduce resources over reversible fixed-point arithmetic that can be expensive on quantum computers. This lookup table implementation has been open sourced as part of Q#. In the resource estimate results given below, the lookup table for the exponential function has a free parameter given by the number of “swap” qubits used. In the resource estimates below we quote resources for three different choices of swap qubits. As we have an implementation in Q# it is straightforward to manage and compute different resource requirements for differently parameterized implementations.

Resource estimation results

With these updates and the more detailed implementation in Q#, we calculated the resources needed for three key subroutines in derivative pricing and compared them to our previous work. The first is for the Q operator, the key operator in amplitude estimation. The second is for the payoff operator that reversibly implements the derivative payoff. The third is for the exponential function itself, which is the largest resource consumer besides the fundamental amplitude estimation itself.

The benchmark chosen is the 3 asset autocallable on 20 time steps. These parameters match real instances that one could find in practice.

Comparisons are made amongst three methods:

  • Paper: the original hand estimates from our work in Chakrabarti et al: https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2021-06-01-463/.
  • SWAP10: Q# implementation estimates where the exponential lookup table is set to use 10 swap bits.
  • SWAP5: Q# implementation estimates where the exponential lookup table is set to use 5 swap bits.
  • SWAP1: Q# implementation estimates where the exponential lookup table is set to use 1 swap bit.

Overall Q Operator

  Paper SWAP10 SWAP5 SWAP1
T-count 11.4M 14.6M 2.9M 6.3M
T-depth 9.5k 16k 16.6k 36k
Logical Qubits 8k 3.8M 124k 19.2k

Payoff Operator

  Paper SWAP10 SWAP5 SWAP1
T-count 189k 77k 77k 77k
T-depth 3.2k 2.7k 2.7k 2.7k
Logical Qubits 1.6k 19.2k 19.2k 19.2k

Fixed Point Exponential

  Paper SWAP10 SWAP5 SWAP1
T-count 7M 12.3M 617k 3.9M
T-depth 1.2k 62 1.3k 20.5k
Logical Qubits 5.4k 3.8M 124k 11.5k

Broadly speaking, our SWAP1 implementation results are close but not the same as our by-hand estimates. This means that our by-hand estimates were sometimes pessimistic (like for T-count) and other times optimistic, but not by too much.

Takeaways

By working with a Q# implementation we were able to improve the accuracy and flexibility of our resource estimates for quantum advantage in derivative pricing. The implementation also gives us a foundation to more rapidly iterate on updated versions and on other algorithms that use similar subroutines. We look forward to continuing optimization of this algorithm and implementation by taking advantage of new ideas and developments in the Q# ecosystem.

 “Working directly with the Goldman Sachs team has provided a fantastic opportunity to collaborate on resource estimation for an important problem in the finance industry, gain insights to enhance the offerings across the Azure Quantum ecosystem, and share resource estimation techniques and algorithm improvements with the community. It’s exciting to see the impact Q# can enable, from algorithm development to resource estimation and reduction, and it’s been a pleasure working with Goldman Sachs to further quantum impact.”—Dr. Krysta Svore, Distinguished Engineer and VP Quantum Software for Azure Quantum