Tag: Recent News

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New capabilities help IT manage eDiscovery for Microsoft Teams and Yammer

Traditionally, eDiscovery data sources were primarily limited to email and cloud storage. However, modern organizations require eDiscovery to extend to chat-based communication and collaboration tools. This creates new challenges such as identifying people of interest (custodians) and relevant content. With the exponential growth of data, there is also a pressing need for broader visibility into ever-increasing data for review.

Today, we are pleased to share several new capabilities in Microsoft 365 to help you manage eDiscovery for Microsoft Teams and Yammer with expanded visibility into case content.

eDiscovery support for Teams

We are delighted to announce that legal hold on Microsoft Teams private channel messages is now rolling out. Legal hold is critical to preserve all message copies and help prevent tampering of content and is vital for legal investigations. Now you can apply legal hold to files and messages in private channels.

To learn more about this capability and how to include private channels in your search, read Place a Microsoft Teams user or team on legal hold.

We also recently announced the general availability of Microsoft Teams conversation reconstruction. With our built-in conversation reconstruction solution, you can identify relevant chats by using targeted queries and include contextual messages in your collection. The individual messages are threaded together and presented in the review set. From this review set you can annotate, tag, and redact entire conversations or individual messages. This will help you efficiently review and export complete dialogues without having to conduct multiple searches to understand the context around messages.

Conversation reconstruction is available today. Learn more by reading Review conversations in Advanced eDiscovery.

Microsoft Teams conversation reconstruction threads individual messages together and is presented in the review set.

eDiscovery support for Yammer

Yammer is a critical productivity application for cross-organization collaboration and sharing. We are pleased to share that Yammer now supports eDiscovery for new networks and for existing customers in Native Mode. eDiscovery for Yammer is generally available today, and Advanced eDiscovery for Yammer is now available in public preview.

We plan to support additional capabilities such as conversation reconstruction in Advanced eDiscovery later this year. You can learn more about eDiscovery and Advanced eDiscovery for Yammer in this FAQ.

eDiscovery locations now include Yammer.

Extended visibility into case content

As the volume of data grows, the review process can be challenging. We are pleased to provide broader visibility into your Advanced eDiscovery activities.

First, we are releasing tenant-level reports. Tenant-level reports provide a view that aggregates information around custodians, data sources, communications, and cases. With this capability, you can filter your view based on various criteria and export the aggregated information for further analysis. These reports will help organizations better manage their overall eDiscovery process.

Another capability we are releasing is a customizable dashboard, which enables you to view reporting and eDiscovery data visually. You can also take bulk actions during early case assessment such as culling unresponsive data. Additionally, even before you start your review process, the dashboard can help you quickly analyze your content, identify trends or key statistics, and develop your review strategy. The dynamic dashboard is customizable so you can add, remove, and configure widgets appropriate to your case and drill down into your content through the visuals.

Customizable eDiscovery dashboard enables you to view reporting and eDiscovery data visually and take bulk actions during early case assessment.

The Advanced eDiscovery dashboard and tenant-level reports are rolling out and will be in public preview by the end of this month. Learn more about the dashboard in this article and tenant reports in this article.

Reduce risk and manage compliance with Microsoft 365

By providing eDiscovery native to the Microsoft 365 platform and by extending to include data outside of Office 365, we provide an efficient and effective way to help manage your litigation or internal investigations in-place. These eDiscovery capabilities are just one part of our broader compliance capabilities to help you manage risk and compliance.

We recently introduced native connectors to third-party systems to help you bring in the right data into your organization. The new Records Management solution lets you easily onboard and manage complex retention schedules, declare items as immutable records, and automate retention based on events. We also integrated trainable classifiers into Records Management to help categorize your records. All these capabilities complement and extend your eDiscovery activities for more efficient and effective investigations.

Finally, to help you interpret requirements and reduce legal risk from data protection laws, we also recently announced several new assessments available in public preview of Microsoft Compliance Score, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and more. You can learn more about this in our recent blog.

Get started

Many of these compliance capabilities are available in Microsoft 365 E5, and learn more about how you can trial them today by reading Try or buy a Microsoft 365 subscription.

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Now in Microsoft 365: New tools for Firstline Workers, supercharged search and more

Since the early days of personal computing, information workers have benefited the most from technology. That makes sense, since these workers tend to spend the bulk of their day at a computer screen. But there are 2 billion workers in the world who don’t work behind the computer. You’ll find them, instead, behind the counter, on the factory floor, in the operating room, and out on the tarmac. First with customers, first with products, and first to represent your brand, these Firstline Workers are the lifeblood of organizations across the planet. And for too long, they’ve been underserved by technology.

With Microsoft 365, the world’s productivity cloud, we’re changing that. Thanks to new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, we can build experiences across devices to connect organizations from the shop floor to the top floor. So, while we continue to unlock new productivity experiences for information workers, we can help their Firstline colleagues get more done too.

Firstline Workers already use tools like Microsoft Teams and Power Apps to digitize shift schedules, take meetings from anywhere, and simplify workflow. And this month, I’m thrilled to announce some exciting new tools to help Firstline Workers collaborate and complete tasks, along with management tools to make managing them simple and fast.

Starting with this month’s “What’s new to Microsoft 365” blog post, we’re partnering with Modern Workplace on a new podcast that complements both the blog and the Modern Workplace video series. For the first episode, host Alex Bradley and I talked about news coming out of the National Retail Federation (NRF) tradeshow, this month’s Microsoft 365 updates, and my 2020 productivity New Year’s resolutions. Please have a listen, subscribe if you want to hear more, and feel free to leave a comment with topics you’d like us to cover.

Read on to learn all the important Microsoft 365 updates this month.

Empower your Firstline Workforce

Several new Microsoft Teams updates help you drive higher levels of employee engagement and enhance customer experiences.

Improve collaboration with Walkie Talkie in Teams—Now Firstline Workers can more easily communicate and manage tasks at the touch of a button. The new push-to-talk experience in Teams delivers clear, instant, and secure voice communication over the cloud, turning employee- and/or company-owned smartphones and tablets into walkie talkies. This new feature not only reduces the numbers of devices your employees need to carry but can also lower IT costs. And when integrated with new devices—such as the recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro—your Firstline Workers can communicate with each other instantly. Walkie Talkie will be available in private preview in Teams in the first half of this year.

Image of a phone with an arrow pointing to the button on its side. The UI shows the Walkie Talkie feature.

Streamline user experiences for Firstline Workers—Firstline Workers can now sign in to all their Microsoft 365 and custom apps using one-time SMS codes—streamlining their sign-in experience. And shared device sign-out enables users to sign out of their apps on shared devices with just one tap, helping to protect customer data while improving the user experience. Finally, an updated Tasks feature in Teams delivers new capabilities and reporting to everyone from the C-suite to Firstline Workers.

Image showing a one-time SMS code used to log in to Office on a phone.

Make management easier for your IT pros—Now you can minimize management of employee tasks for IT pros. The new delegated user management feature allows IT managers to approve password resets and enable Firstline Workers to use their phone numbers for SMS sign-in via a single, customizable portal. In addition, Azure Active Directory (AD) user provisioning now integrates with SAP SuccessFactors, making it easy to onboard and manage identities at scale, across any application. And finally, off-shift access controls for the Teams app enables your IT administrators to limit employee access to the Teams app on their personal devices outside of working hours. These updates are rolling out over the next couple of months.

Image showing access turned off in Teams for a worker who's off shift.

Save time and create more impactful content

Deliver more engaging content find what you need quickly and easily.

Connect with your audience during presentations with Live Presentations—Presentations can provide a great opportunity to communicate information and connect with your audience, but language barriers, screen distance, and pacing can all affect audience engagement. With Live Presentations, audience members can turn on live captioning (available in 60 languages), navigate between slides to catch details, or send reactions to the presenter—all in real-time. Live Presentations is coming soon to PowerPoint for the web. Presenters can access it as part of any Office 365 subscription.

Image of Live Presentations being used on a phone. The presentation is about oceans.

See why the new Microsoft Edge is the browser for business—Built on the Chromium open source project, the new Microsoft Edge is simple to manage with world-class performance and compatibility, Microsoft security features, and tools to help your organization be more productive. You can download the new Microsoft Edge today for all supported versions of Windows and macOS in more than 90 languages.

Find what you need quickly with Microsoft Search—Searching through personal files or a company intranet without knowing what you’re looking for (or when you do) can make your search experience difficult and time-consuming. Our new Microsoft Search experience is built with AI technologies and intelligence and insights from the Microsoft Graph. You’ll get contextually relevant results, when you need them, where you’re already working—whether in Microsoft Word, SharePoint, or Bing. To get started, just click in the new Search box and instantly see answers and insights from the applications, people, and information that matter the most.

Image showing Microsoft Search used in SharePoint. Search suggests sites, files, people, and news for the user.

And over the course of the next couple of months, we’ll add new features for businesses. Using Microsoft Graph connectors, available now in preview, you can search over content sources beyond Microsoft 365. Additionally, we’re also announcing capabilities to set up custom verticals, add your own refiners, and use adaptive cards to create your own visualizations in the results page in Office.com and SharePoint. Finally, to help ease the transition, we’ve enabled developers to use the tried and true SharePoint framework to customize the appearance and develop applications on top of Microsoft Search.

Create and share data-driven Visio diagrams directly in Excel—You can now create impactful Visio diagrams (such as flowcharts or organizational diagrams) from your data directly in Excel with the public preview of the Visio Data Visualizer add-in. Each diagram category provides a wide range of layout styles and theme options, making it easy to build a diagram to fit your needs. Visio Data Visualizer is available to Office 365 subscribers. To get started, add the “Visio Data Visualizer” add-in in Excel.

Animated image of Data Visualizer in Excel.

Model systems and processes using Unified Modeling Language (UML) shapes in Visio for the web—We made diagramming simpler and easier for everyone by bringing UML shapes and functionalities to Visio for the web. UML diagrams provide software developers and systems architects the ability to design and visually represent software-based systems, as well as model business processes and workflows. To start diagramming, all Visio Plan 1 and Visio Plan 2 users can visit visio.office.com, select the preferred UML diagram, and start modeling their systems or processes instantly.

Image showing Unified Model Language shapes used in Visio for the web.

Access company branded templates from within Office apps—It can be tricky to find your organization’s templates when creating new presentations and documents. Office now provides easy access to company-branded templates right from within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—saving you time lost to digging through intranet and document stores. To get started, update Office to the latest version, select File > New, then select your organization’s name.

Make IT management easier

New capabilities and resources to help you migrate from Windows 7 and meet data residency requirements.

Migrate from Windows 7 to Windows 10—This month marked the end of support for Windows 7. Fortunately, Windows 10 enables you to harness the power of the cloud while making you and your organization more productive and secure than ever before. And when purchasing Windows 10 with a Microsoft 365 license, your users will get a highly productive and secure experience, while IT will find these tools much easier to deploy and manage. Check out our Windows 7 end of support resources to start your migration path today.

Meet data residency needs in Switzerland with new Microsoft datacenters—Now new Microsoft Office 365 customers in Switzerland will have their Office 365 data stored in an in-country datacenter, helping organizations with data residency requirements to meet their obligations.

Also new this month

I am so thrilled to bring powerful tools for Firstline Workers while continuing to bring new productivity experiences to information workers as well. It’s all about helping entire organizations be more productive and connected, from the shop floor to the top floor. As always, every Microsoft 365 update reflects our commitment to improving the experience for you—so if you have feedback or ideas on how we can improve, don’t hesitate to let us know.

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HIMSS 20 coming in March; Microsoft Health Innovation Awards 2020 now open for submission

Four MHIA awards displayed on a tableFour MHIA awards displayed on a table

Accelerating innovation for better experiences, better insights, and better care

There’s never been a more demanding time in healthcare, with many factors driving the need for innovation to solve the industry’s most prevalent and persistent challenges. There has been considerable progress made in this space as we all strive to achieve healthier lives. With that, the submissions for the Microsoft Health Innovation Awards 2020 are now being accepted.

About the Microsoft Health Innovation Awards

Today’s health and wellness organizations require real-time, accurate, and secure data to enable a more personalized patient experience, empower care teams, reduce the cost of care, and accelerate innovative treatments. At Microsoft, we understand these challenges and we’re committed to partnering with and empowering healthcare organizations across the globe to help them transform and reimagine healthcare and improve health outcomes.

The Microsoft Health Innovation Awards have consistently recognized forward-thinking health, wellness, life sciences, and technology solution partners that leverage technology to achieve innovative excellence and industry disruption. Microsoft is proud to join industry innovators and world-class health information and technology leaders at HIMSS 20 “Be the Change” in Orlando, FL, March 9 to March 13, 2020. Winners for the Microsoft Health Innovation Award will be announced during the Microsoft Health Forum on Tuesday, March 10.

Official Microsoft Health Innovation Award categories include:

  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  • Empower care teams
  • Enable personalized care
  • Improve operational outcomes
  • Protect health information
  • Reimagine healthcare

Submission Deadline:  Friday, February 21, 2020, 5:00 PM Pacific Time

I look forward to highlighting all the 2020 entry winners and the innovative work they’ve accomplished in the industry. The entry period is officially open and ends on Friday, February 21, at 5:00 PM Pacific Time. No entries will be accepted after the entry period closes. Until then, you can learn more about our previous Microsoft Health Innovation Award winners.

Good luck and I’ll see you soon in Orlando at HIMSS 2020!

For a full description and to enter, please read the 2020 Microsoft Health Innovation Awards Contest How to Enter Guide and Official Rules for complete details.   

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Just in time for the big game’s kickoff: Custom Xbox One inspired by Special Edition Air Max 90s

Xbox, EA Sports, and Nike are celebrating Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers with a limited-edition custom Xbox One X console, inspired by the special edition Nike x Madden NFL 20 Air Max 90 dropped this evening on the red carpet of EA Sports Bowl, EA’s annual Super Bowl event.

The limited-edition Xbox One X features an all-white foundation
with speckled red and blue details matching the outsole of the sneakers, representing
the EA Sports logo and NFL shield. The iconic Nike swoosh and Madden NFL 20
title can be seen imprinted on the top of the console along with EA Sports infamous
tagline, “It’s In The Game”, which is also featured on the shoes’
interchangeable laces. The console comes with two controllers, one red-themed
controller and one blue-themed controller, perfectly matching the design of the
console and shoes.

A mainstay in the Air Max legacy, the custom Air Max 90s include
snaps that can be mixed and matched in different areas of the shoe – allowing
for extensive customization – and comes with interchangeable red, white and
blue laces.

Starting January 31 at 8:00am PT through February 8 at 7:00pm PT, fans will have the chance to win the console of sneakerhead dreams – all you need to do is retweet the Xbox contest tweet and include the hashtag #NikeMaddenNFL20XboxSweepstakes. One lucky winner will receive the special edition Nike x Madden NFL 20 Air Max 90s, Nike x Madden NFL 20 Xbox One X console plus two custom controllers, and a copy of Madden NFL 20. Please see here for official rules.

Available in both men’s and women’s sizes, fans will also be
able to unlock pairs of the Nike x Madden NFL 20 Air Max 90s through a
raffle at Nike Miami starting on Friday, January 31.

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Microsoft’s chief financial officer in Portugal shares lessons from her childhood

*****

A former competitive surfer, Rita took up the sport when she was 14. Back then, few females surfed in Portugal, she explains.

“When I’d find another girl on the water with me, it was instant friendship.” But being one of the only girls in the waves was hard. Other surfers told her to get out of the water, to go home.

“Why shouldn’t I be out there?” she remembers thinking at the time. “I’m entitled to learn just as anyone else. It looks fun, and it is fun, and it’s what I wanted to do. I just stood up for myself. But it wasn’t easy.” [embedded content]

Rita taught herself how to surf by practicing on her bed, but she soon became so dedicated to surfing that she went pro, becoming a pioneer for women in the sport.

And yet, she was always humbled by the sea. “The ocean can kick your behind. You try and you try, and you can’t. And then you try and you try again, and you still can’t. But then the first time you catch that wave, and you ride it unbroken. . .”

She sighs as she looks at the horizon. “I can’t even describe it.”

*****

On land, Rita shows just as much determination. A planner who calls herself “by the book,” Rita knew from an early age that she wanted the freedom and security that a good paying job could offer. Plus, she wanted to see the world. So, she applied herself, and she studied hard.

So far, it’s worked out: her life has taken her to live and work in Seattle, Paris, São Paulo, Miami, and Madrid. “Mostly importantly, I was doing the things I loved: talking with new people and sharing experiences with others,” she says.

But Lisbon is home, and a big reason she lived in all those cities so was to get the experience she needed to land what she calls her dream job as chief financial officer for Microsoft Portugal.

*****

Microsoft 
Lisbon, Portugal

“It’s because of Rita.”

Just as I’d heard, Rita Picarra is ubiquitous, almost legendary, in the hallways of Microsoft’s Lisbon office. Many employees are quick to credit Rita for helping them grow and make a difference in ways they never imagined.

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Using AI to advance the health of people and communities around the world

The health of people and communities around the world has been improving over time. For example, the steep decline in child and maternal mortality is a key indicator of positive momentum.

However, progress has not been equal across the globe, and there is a great need to focus on societal issues such as reducing health inequity and improving access to care for underserved populations. While researchers work to unlock life-saving discoveries and develop new approaches to pressing health issues, advancements in technology can help accelerate and scale new solutions.

That is why we are launching AI for Health, a new $40 million, five-year program to empower researchers and organizations with AI to improve the health of people and communities around the world. The program is underpinned with a strong foundation of privacy, security and ethics, and was developed in collaboration with leading health experts who are driving important medical initiatives. AI for Health is the fifth Microsoft AI for Good program, a $165 million initiative to empower researchers, nonprofits and organizations with advanced technologies to help unlock solutions to the biggest challenges facing society today.

The AI for Health initiative will focus on three key areas:

  • Quest for discovery. Accelerating medical research to advance prevention, diagnoses and treatment of diseases
  • Global health insights. Increasing our shared understanding of mortality and longevity to protect against global health crises
  • Health equity. Reducing health inequity and improving access to care for underserved populations

AI for Health is a philanthropic initiative that complements our broader work in Microsoft Healthcare. Through AI for Health, we will support specific nonprofits and academic collaboration with Microsoft’s leading data scientists, access to best-in-class AI tools and cloud computing, and select cash grants.

I am honored to lead AI for Health as part of my mission at Microsoft to fuse AI and data to address the world’s greatest challenges. As a tech company, it is our responsibility to ensure that organizations working on the most pressing societal issues have access to our latest AI technology and the expertise of our technical talent.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii-FfE-7C-k]

The Role of AI in Health

Over the last 30 years, health professionals around the world have reduced the number of annual child and maternal deaths by half. This monumental achievement demonstrates that great progress can be made when the global health community works together to create positive change, but we have an opportunity go further, to accelerate research and scale new solutions. This is where AI for Health can help.

Child and maternal mortality

While great progress has been made in reducing child and maternal mortality, these improvements have not been equal across the globe. For example, Finland’s child mortality rate is 43.7 compared to Somalia’s at 1,899.2 per 100,000 live births, and the U.S. maternal mortality rate is 29.9 compared to Chad’s at 383.3 per 100,000 live births. Even in countries such as the U.S. that have made great progress in reducing child mortality, the probability of a child surviving to their fifth birthday depends heavily on the zip code where that child was born and varies dramatically by demographics.

child and maternal mortailty

There are real health issues in which AI can play an important role, and it may be our best option to accelerate research or expand the reach of new solutions, especially in areas that may lack attention from the commercial health sector.

For example, technology can help scale screenings for diabetic retinopathy – an issue facing 463 million people – to expand the reach of ophthalmologists, as there are only 210,000 in the world. Or in cases such as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), where it is tough for organizations to invest in research given the size of the affected population, but there are huge knock-on effects to better understand and mitigate against general infant death.

diabetes slide

But to truly make an impact, we need to make sure that medical experts and researchers have access to the best technical talent possible, people who can provide their expertise to get the most value out of technology. Currently, AI talent is disproportionately concentrated in the tech industry.

More than 50% of AI professionals work in tech, and less than 5% are operating within the health and nonprofit sectors. As a result, medical researchers are hampered due to AI talent shortages worldwide.

AI Professionals

To succeed, we recognize there must be a balance between privacy and innovation. Therefore, we are working hard to deliver advanced privacy technologies based on the work Microsoft and academic researchers invented years ago, called differential privacy, which makes it possible to extract useful insights from datasets while guaranteeing the privacy of individuals. This is being undertaken in collaboration with Microsoft and Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

At Microsoft and across the tech industry, we also have a responsibility to ensure that new technology is human-centered and developed in a manner consistent with broadly held societal values. We are taking a principled and transparent approach to the development of technology, and we are hopeful the world will see what a compelling force for good AI can be when it’s used responsibly in partnership with innovative organizations.

Empowering Grantees

Microsoft has a unique opportunity to extend its contribution to the world by dedicating data science expertise, technology and resources to help solve pressing health issues. The AI for Health program will operate via collaborations that leverage our best AI tools and technical expertise from Microsoft to further quests for medical discovery, uncover global health insights and increase health equity across underserved populations. A handful of our current projects include:

We are also deepening our explorative partnerships with three leading nonprofits –  BRAC, PATH and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – to propel additional advancements in the important fields of maternal mortality, tuberculosis treatment and pediatric cancer.

You can explore the below Power BI, an interactive visual analysis of global health information.

We look forward to working with researchers, academics, nonprofits, health industry professionals and policymakers around the world as we accelerate research and insights, such as the work we have undertaken in the SIDS space to improve data quality and collection with the Scarlett’s Sunshine on Unexpected Death Act. Together, we can improve the health of people and communities globally.

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From tech adoption to tech creation: Customers across industries are using advanced cloud and AI tools to build their own digital solutions

In December, we shared the State of Tech Intensity study, which highlighted a trend we are seeing in our work with customers: many organizations are going beyond simply adopting the latest tools and technologies and are building their own unique digital capabilities. This shift is accelerating change in these organizations and helping them propel their businesses forward in new ways. Leveraging innovative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning built on Microsoft’s cloud, there were numerous examples this past quarter of initiatives our customers across multiple industries are pursuing — and how many are putting technology at the heart of their business strategies.

Rendering of car chassis
Example of software-driven connected chassis functions by ZF Friedrichshafen.

In automotive, manufacturers are redefining experiences to shape the future of mobility, while also helping address challenges that conventional computing alone cannot solve. Through our partnership with Ford, we’re exploring the potential for using quantum algorithms to solve urban traffic congestion. Bosch is leveraging Microsoft Azure data services to create one of the world’s first connectivity-based, wrong-way driver warning solutions aimed at helping drivers avoid serious accidents.

Global technology company ZF Friedrichshafen is transforming into a provider of software-driven mobility solutions, leveraging Azure cloud services and developer tools to promote faster development and validation of connected vehicle functions at a global scale. Ericsson is integrating its Connected Vehicle Cloud, which connects more than 4 million vehicles across 180 countries, with Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform to accelerate the delivery of safe, comfortable and personalized connected driving experiences with our cloud, AI and IoT technologies. We are also helping Scania build a modern workplace foundation to break down communication barriers and meet ever-growing security requirements through cloud-based collaboration tools like Microsoft 365 and Teams.

Maersk container ship
Maersk strengthens a global operation with fast thinking and an integrated security solution.

In transportation and logistics, Danish company Maersk, one of the largest container shipping and supply vessel operators in the world, is leveraging Microsoft’s security capabilities in Azure and Microsoft 365 to streamline and automate classification for more than 6.6 million documents every month, improving communications and reducing the risk of data loss and regulatory non-compliance. Maersk has also implemented Identity Protection to further enhance its security posture.

Two people in KPMG office
KPMG’s digital shift fuels AI-empowered audits and more, reducing risk across every industry.

In highly regulated industries like insurance, where regulatory compliance and high security standards are a top priority, customers are choosing Microsoft as their trusted cloud provider to help ensure these needs are met while building new digital capabilities. KPMG is bringing the latest advances in cloud and AI to highly regulated workloads in tax, audit and advisory. This move is helping its clients achieve greater accuracy and decision-making capabilities, increased productivity and cost efficiencies with tools such as Dynamics 365 and Teams. German-based Allianz, along with our partner Syncier, is reimagining the insurance industry experience by creating a new cloud-based marketplace built on Azure with customized platform solutions and related services tailored to the industry. Automobile insurer GEICO is turning to Azure to modernize its internal business applications and create a frictionless experience for its customers, from real-time updates to performance and security. AXA, an insurance provider spanning more than 60 countries, is reimagining how it engages with its 105 million customers around the globe using Microsoft 365 productivity tools for its workforce.

In the public sector space, we appreciate the opportunity to work with the Department of Defense to develop and deploy their general purpose enterprise cloud infrastructure. Under the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, we look forward to helping the DoD bring the latest technology to our men and women in uniform in the years ahead.

Photoillustration of NYC
Businesses are connecting people in new ways, from enhanced productivity to cloud transformations to helping people discover their favorite music and video.

Our customers in communications, services and media have a unique opportunity to meet the growing global demand within their industries — by advancing their business with cloud-centric strategies. Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, is using Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Power Platform to work more collaboratively across the organization. They are also leveraging insights from PowerBI to break down data silos and create a unified source of truth to help meet the needs of more than 18 million customers. Japan-based NTT has chosen Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform for modernizing its global IT infrastructure and customer solutions in the areas of advanced analytics for cybersecurity threat intelligence and the hybrid-IT management platform. Our strategic collaboration with Nokia will apply our cloud, AI, IoT and machine learning expertise across mission-critical networking and communications to drive economic growth and productivity for both enterprises and service providers. We also further expanded our partnership with AT&T by announcing our first joint-offering, AT&T Network Edge Compute (NEC) technology, which weaves Azure services into AT&T’s network edge locations closer to customers, unlocking new scenarios for edge computing across industries.

KKBOX Group is harnessing the power of our cloud for new music and video streaming experiences for customers as well as AI technologies to help people more easily discover and listen to music. And in October, SAP selected Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud provider, deepening the relationship between our two companies in a differentiated way to help customers like Coca-Cola, Walgreens Boots Alliance and CEMEX simplify their cloud transformations. This agreement signals a shared commitment to fostering the growth of the cloud ecosystem.

As we enter a new decade, I am extremely excited to see what new digital capabilities will emerge from our customers. From transforming businesses to advancing industries, the opportunity for our customers has never been greater, and we are ready to help them take the next step in their digital journey through close partnerships and new technologies.

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Using AI, people who are blind are able to find familiar faces in a room

Paralympics in Brazil

Project Tokyo was born out of a challenge, in early 2016, from senior leaders at Microsoft to create AI systems that would go beyond completing tasks such as fetching sports scores and weather forecasts or identifying objects. Morrison said creating tools for people who are blind and with low vision was a natural fit for the project, because people with disabilities are often early adopters of new technology.

“It is not about saying, ‘Let’s build something for blind people,’” Morrison said. “We are working with blind people to help us imagine the future, and that future is about new experiences with AI.”

Morrison and her colleague Ed Cutrell, a senior principal researcher at Microsoft’s research lab in Redmond, Washington, were tapped to lead the project. Both have expertise in designing technologies with people who are blind or with low vision and decided to begin by trying to understand how an agent technology could augment, or extend, the capabilities of these users.

To start, they followed a group of athletes and spectators with varying levels of vision on a trip from the United Kingdom to the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, observing how they interacted with other people as they navigated airports, attended sporting venues and went sightseeing, among other activities. A key learning, noted Cutrell, was how an enriched understanding of social context could help people who are blind or with low vision make sense of their environment.

“We, as humans, have this very, very nuanced and elaborate sense of social understanding of how to interact with people – getting a sense of who is in the room, what are they doing, what is their relationship to me, how do I understand if they are relevant for me or not,” he said. “And for blind people a lot of the cues that we take for granted just go away.”

This understanding spurred a series of workshops with the blind and low vision community that were focused on potential technologies that could provide such an experience. Peter Bosher, an audio engineer in his mid-50s who has been blind most of his life and worked with the Project Tokyo team, said the concept of a technology that provided information about the people around him resonated immediately.

“Whenever I am in a situation with more than two or three people, especially if I don’t know some of them, it becomes exponentially more difficult to deal with because people use more and more eye contact and body language to signal that they want to talk to such-and-such a person, that they want to speak now,” he said. “It is really very difficult as a blind person.”

Microsoft researcher Ed Cutrell in his office with HoloLens devices sitting in front of him on his desk
Ed Cutrell, a senior principal researcher with Microsoft’s research organization in Redmond, Washington, is a co-leader of Project Tokyo. On his desk are several modified Microsoft HoloLenses that project researchers are using to help people who are blind and with low vision learn who is where in their social environment. Photo by Dan DeLong.

A modified HoloLens

Once the Project Tokyo researchers understood the type of AI experience they wanted to create, they set out to build the enabling technology. They started with the original Microsoft HoloLens, a mixed reality headset that projects holograms into the real world that users can manipulate.

“HoloLens gives us a ton of what we need to build a real time AI agent that can communicate the social environment,” said Grayson during a demonstration of the technology at Microsoft’s research lab in Cambridge.

For example, the device has an array of grayscale cameras that provide a near 180-degree view of the environment and a high-resolution color camera for high-accuracy facial recognition. In addition, the speakers above the user’s ears allow for spatialized audio – the creation of sounds that seem to be coming from specific locations around the user.

Machine learning experts on the Project Tokyo team then developed computer vision algorithms that provide varying levels of information about who is where in the user’s environment. The models run on graphical processing units, known as GPUs, that are housed in the black chest that Grayson carted off to Regan’s house for the user testing with Theo.

One model, for example, detects the pose of people in the environment, which provides a sense of where and how far away people are from the user. Another analyzes the stream of photos from the high-resolution camera to recognize people and determine if they have opted to make their names known to the system. All this information is relayed to the user through audio cues.

For example, if the device detects a person one meter away on the user’s left side, the system will play a click that sounds like it is coming from one meter away on the left. If the system recognizes the person’s face, it will play a bump sound, and if that person is also known to the system, it will announce their name.

When the user only hears a click but wants to know who the person is, a second layer of sound that resembles an elastic band stretching guides the user’s gaze toward the person’s face. When the lens’ central camera connects with the person’s nose, the user hears a high-pitched click and, if the person is known to the system, their name.

“I particularly like the thing that gives you the angle of gaze because I’m never really sure what is the sensible angle for your head to be at,” said Bosher, who worked with the Project Tokyo team on the audio experience early in the design process and returned to the Cambridge lab to discuss his experience and check out the latest iteration. “That would be a great tool for learning body language.”

Peter Bosher interacts with Microsoft researchers while wearing a HoloLens, sitting at a table in a research lab, with a Microsoft Surface Book computer in the foreground
Peter Bosher, middle, an audio engineer who is blind who worked with the Project Tokyo team early in the design process, checks out the latest iteration of the system at Microsoft’s research lab in Cambridge, UK, with researchers Martin Grayson, left, and Cecily Morrison, right. Photo by Jonathan Banks.

Prototyping with adults

As the Project Tokyo team has developed and evolved the technology, the researchers routinely invite adults who are blind or with low vision to test the system and provide feedback. To facilitate more direct social interaction, for example, the team removed the lenses from the front of the HoloLens.

Several users expressed a desire to unobtrusively get the information collected by the system without constantly turning their heads, which felt socially awkward. The feedback prompted the Project Tokyo team to work on features that help users quickly learn who is around them by, for example, asking for an overview and getting a spatial readout of all the names of people who have given permission to be recognized by the system.

Another experimental feature alerts the user with a spatialized chime when someone is looking at them, because people with typical vision often establish eye contact to initiate a conversation. Unlike the bump, however, the chime is not followed by a name.

“We already use the name when you look at somebody,” Grayson explained to Emily, a tester in her 20s who has low vision and visited the Cambridge lab to learn about the most recent features. “But also, by not giving the name, it might draw your attention to turn to somebody who is trying to get your attention. And by turning to them, you find out their name.”

“I totally agree with that. That is how sighted people react. They capture someone out of the corner of their eye, or you get that sense, and go, ‘Cecily,’” Emily said.

The modified HoloLens the researchers showed to Emily also included an LED strip affixed above the band of cameras. A white light tracks the person closest to the user and turns green when the person has been identified to the user. The feature lets communication partners or bystanders know they’ve been seen, making it more natural to initiate a conversation.

The LED strip also provides people an opportunity to move out of the device’s field of view and not be seen, if they so choose. “When you know you are about to be seen, you can also decide not to be seen,” noted Morrison. “If you know when you are being seen, you know when you are not being seen.”

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Join us Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 9:30 a.m. PT for the launch of a new AI for Good program

Abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel in France.Partner Story

Celebrating priceless architecture in France

The Musée des Plans-Reliefs is bringing architecture to life using AI and mixed reality. Viewers are immersed in an experience that uses technology to recreate a vital piece of French history and culture, based on a relief map of the historic Mont-Saint-Michel.

Learn about relief map project

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2020 release wave 1 plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available

Today, we published the 2020 release wave 1 plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, a compilation of new capabilities that will be released between April and September 2020. The new features and enhancements demonstrate our continued investment to power digital transformation for our customers and partners.

Dynamics 365

The first release wave of the year contains hundreds of new features across Dynamics 365 applications including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Field Service, Finance, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources, Commerce, and Business Central, our comprehensive business management solution designed for small to medium-sized businesses.

Highlights from Customer Engagement applications include:

  • Dynamics 365 Sales continues to focus on user experience and sellers productivity improvements.
  • Dynamics 365 Sales Insights expands focus to include inside sales scenarios and enhances conversation intelligence capabilities. New features include deeper conversation analysis with emotion detection to enable sellers with the information they need, when they need it.
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Service expands agent productivity tooling to help organizations evolve a proactive and predictive service model.
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights optimizes the customer service experience through AI with new capabilities including richer integration with Power Virtual Agents and access to the insights data for in-depth analytics.
  • Dynamics 365 Field Service improves effectiveness through a new resource scheduling dashboard, integration with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and technician time entries.
  • Dynamics 365 Marketing remains focused on enabling marketers by enhancing product usability, personalized marketing capabilities with dynamic content for contacts, and integration scenarios with third-party content management systems and Microsoft Forms Pro.
  • Dynamics 365 Customer Insights enhances data profiling enrichment and segmentation capabilities, helping organizations better understand their customer data and derive actionable insights to drive business processes.

Highlights from Dynamics 365 Operations, Finance, Commerce, and HR applications include:

  • Dynamics 365 Human Resources expands capabilities for human resources professionals, employees, and managers in leave and absence and benefits management programs.
  • Dynamics 365 Commerce strengthens the personalized, omnichannel experience for consumers by adding e-commerce, providing smart product recommendations, and enhancing clienteling.
  • Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection helps merchants increase revenue and reduce fraud losses and costs while improving the consumer’s online check-out experience by releasing two new services, account protection and loss prevention.
  • Dynamics 365 Finance releases enhancements to country-specific tax, invoicing, payment formats, and regulatory reporting capabilities to help global organizations stay compliant with newly introduced local regulations.
  • Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management helps organizations reduce operational costs by introducing customer self-service experiences, enhancements to asset management, and the new on-hand inventory service for inventory visibility across Dynamics 365 and other legacy systems.

Power Platform

New Power Platform capabilities combine Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and the Common Data Service into an unmatched palette of tools to analyze data, build solutions, and automate processes. This release includes robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities in Power Automate, to automate rule-based tasks with point-and-click simplicity supporting on-premises or cloud-based apps. Power Apps gains significant improvements for developers of all skill levels, improving the sophistication and usability of apps that are created across the web and mobile devices. Microsoft business intelligence simplifies how organizations derive insights from transactional and observational data. It helps organizations create a data culture where employees can make decisions based on facts, not opinions. In this release wave, Power BI invests in four key areas including intuitive experiences, a unified BI platform, big data analytics, and pervasive artificial intelligence (AI).

For a complete list of new capabilities, please checkout the Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform 2020 release wave 1 plans.

Lastly, we continue to enhance our industry accelerators to enable organizations and partners to quickly accelerate application development within a vertical industry.

Early access period for 2020 release wave 1

Starting February 3, 2020, customers and partners will be able to validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These features include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled for users in production environments during April 2020. There are many features available for early access across Dynamics 365 applications and the Power Platform. We encourage application administrators to review these changes to understand the impact and determine if change management for new features is required.

Take advantage of the early access period, try out the latest updates in a non-production environment, and get ready to roll out updates to your users with confidence.  For questions, please visit the Early Access FAQ page.

We’ve done this work to help you—our partners, customers, and users—drive the digital transformation of your business on your terms. Get ready and learn more about the latest product updates and plans, and share your feedback in the community forum for Dynamics 365 or Power Platform.