Recent News – Page 137

Posted on October 25, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft for Healthcare: new people, products and partnerships

a male doctor wearing a suit and tie

In healthcare and life sciences, advances in research and technology development are providing a deeper understanding of human health and leading to more effective ways to prevent and treat disease. At the same time, the shifting landscape of the business of healthcare, including changes in policy and new business models, has created disruption and uncertainty for health providers, insurers, and, most of all, for patients.

At the heart of both this promise and this uncertainty is data. Twenty years ago, much less than 20 percent of healthcare records existed in digital form. Today, that number stands at better than 98 percent – a remarkable digitization of an entire industry. This massive shift to digital creates an opportunity to use cloud computing, AI, and a host of other advanced digital technologies to usher in a new era of profound and powerful insights about human health. But to realize this opportunity, we need to make all that data usable.

It’s relatively easy to find interesting datasets that may contain important insights for human health. People and organizations engage with us every day to explore promising ideas about how to turn their datasets into better outcomes, better experiences, and lower costs. The potential is pretty amazing, but converting these opportunities into action is surprisingly difficult and time-consuming. There are still many barriers that must be overcome before the impact of AI can be made real, including information systems that are difficult to manage, incompatible data standards, inconsistent privacy regulations, and conflicting commercial incentives.

One of our most important commitments is to work with partners from across the healthcare industry and in governments to eliminate these barriers and make it much easier for healthcare innovators everywhere to be successful. The good news is that real progress is being made. Today, I am excited to provide an update on some of the work Microsoft is involved in that is helping to make that progress possible.

Partnerships

One thing that’s clear to all of us is that healthcare is so complex, and the issues so broad, that the best way to move forward is through partnerships with people and organizations that have deep expertise in every aspect of healthcare research, analysis, and delivery.

One example is our relationship with the Walgreens Boots Alliance, the largest retail pharmacy, health and daily living destination across the United States and Europe. With more than 75 percent of the U.S. population now living within five miles of a Walgreens, there is an important opportunity to extend care to where it is most convenient. One way we’re doing this is by working together to develop cloud AI platforms to integrate information across healthcare providers, pharmacies, and payers in ways that create personalized, community-based care networks. Central to our partnership is a focus on connecting people to healthcare services through their digital devices to support preventative self-care and reduce emergency room visits.

In July, we launched a new partnership with one of the largest health systems in the United States, Providence. We’re accelerating the adoption of data-driven clinical and operational decision-making by developing new tools and solutions that use Azure and the FHIR interoperability standard to integrate disconnected data sources. Building on this foundation, we’re working together to create a flagship “clinic of the future” in the Seattle area. We’re also bringing Microsoft’s strength in AI together with Providence’s clinical expertise and data to develop natural language processing tools to assist in cancer care.

For the past two years, we have been working intensively with our partners at Adaptive Biotechnologies on a major effort to decode the human immune system by coupling Adaptive’s advanced immune system sequencing technology with our large-scale machine learning capabilities to develop a map of T-cell receptor repertoires to disease states. While this is something close to a “moonshot” effort, we are increasingly convinced that real diagnostic and therapeutic results are possible in the near term. As part of this, it has been exciting to see Adaptive’s business success follow the trajectory of our joint science and technology success.

Earlier this month, we announced a groundbreaking alliance that will combine Microsoft’s advanced AI technology and the deep life sciences expertise of Novartis to address the challenges that make it so costly and time-consuming to develop new treatments. One of the most important goals of this multi-year alliance is to empower Novartis associates at every level of the organization to wrangle and share important datasets and then use AI to analyze information, and speed the discovery of new treatments, even if they aren’t data scientists by training.

Just recently, we’ve shared news of two more major partnerships. The first, with Nuance Communications, will see our two companies work together to transform the exam room by deploying ambient clinical intelligence solutions that capture, with patient consent, interactions between clinicians and patients so that clinical documentation writes itself. The goal is to empower caregivers to focus more on patients by dramatically reducing the burden of documenting doctor-patient visits.

The second is a seven-year partnership with Humana to use data and AI to enable a more holistic, value-based approach to healthcare delivery. Together we will create predictive solutions and intelligent automation to support more personalized care and help patients follow treatment plans and medication schedules. With a more longitudinal view of a person’s health, including the use of intelligent home health solutions that use voice technologies, we hope that Humana will better address factors that influence health outcomes.

Products

Working together with researchers and industry partners, we’re also moving forward to create a broad range of cloud-based tools and solutions that touch many aspects of the development and delivery of effective care.

As part of our ongoing commitment to making health data more easily accessible, we just announced the general availability of the Azure API for FHIR. FHIR is quickly becoming the preferred standard for exchanging electronic health information and enabling the management of PHI data in the cloud. A rapidly growing number of healthcare delivery and healthcare technology companies are already using the Azure API for FHIR to improve interoperability within their own IT systems, including Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) of the NHS, Darena Solutions, Northwell Health, and Humana. With the release of the Azure API for FHIR, Microsoft is the first cloud with a fully-managed, enterprise-grade service for health data in the FHIR format.

Earlier this month, we released Cromwell on Azure, an open-source project on GitHub from Microsoft Genomics that provides scientific workflow management for genetic analysis. There is so much promising genomics-powered research underway right now, including the work St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Seattle Children’s Hospital are doing with the Microsoft Genomics service to gain a better understanding of pediatric cancers and how genetic variations contribute to infant mortality. It is extremely gratifying to have the opportunity to support these important initiatives.

And earlier this year, building on the Microsoft Healthcare Bot Service, we announced a new technology to help patients learn about clinical drug trials and enable researchers to find people to participate in clinical trials. It was an honor to have our clinical trials work included in the U.S. White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

People

Improving healthcare also demands a great team that understands the challenges that the healthcare industry faces and brings the right combination of expertise, passion, and insight. Over the last six months, we’ve added a number of the industry’s most talented and dedicated leaders to Microsoft’s healthcare leadership team, beginning with Dr. Gregory Moore, who joined Microsoft last spring as Corporate Vice President, Health Technology and Alliances. A neuroradiologist, researcher, engineer, and former Geisinger Health clinician, he is leading our research and development partnerships that focus on next-generation healthcare technologies and experiences.

This summer we were fortunate to recruit Dr. David Rhew to serve as Microsoft’s Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Healthcare. David came to Microsoft from Samsung where he led the company’s healthcare initiatives. An adjunct professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, David is a computer scientist who holds six U.S. patents related to healthcare technology and he was recently named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential clinical executives.

I’m very excited to welcome the newest member of our leadership team, Lisa Maki, who joined the company two weeks ago. As General Manager of Health Alliance Formation, she’ll play a central role in identifying new opportunities for strategic partnerships. Lisa is a highly respected technologist and entrepreneur. The startups she has founded have been unique in harnessing deep knowledge of the mechanics of data and data connections in the healthcare industry, making them remarkably impactful and successful. Most recently, Lisa co-founded and was CEO of PokitDok, a platform for healthcare interoperability including DokChain, one of the first blockchains for healthcare. PokitDok was recently acquired by Change Healthcare.

These leaders join an experienced team of healthcare and technology leaders that includes Heather Cartwright, Vikram Dendi, Jean Gabarra, Dr. Joshua Mandel, Ben Shobert, Desney Tan, Dr. Jim Weinstein, and others.

Looking ahead to the future

As exciting as the past few months have been, I know we’ve really only taken the first few steps to address the challenges in healthcare that we have long dreamed about solving. I believe the work that we are doing now with great people and fantastic partners from across the industry will open the door to new ways to understand human health that we are only beginning to imagine.

In that spirit, I look forward to sharing more news with you in the very near future as we continue to push the boundaries of what technology can do to improve health outcomes for people around the world. At the HLTH conference next week, we’ll share news of another exciting partnership and, hopefully, have a chance to connect with many of you.

Posted on October 24, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New series explores how AI transforms business

Microsoft is privileged to work with leading-edge customers and partners who are taking the power of the cloud and artificial intelligence and applying it to their businesses in novel ways. Our new series, How AI Transforms Business, features insights from selective such customers and partners. Join us in these conversations and see how your company and customers may be able to benefit from these solutions and insights.

All Episodes

1. How Can Autonomous Drones Help the Energy and Utilities Industry?
Headquartered in Norway, eSmart Systems develops digital intelligence for the energy industry and for smart communities. When it comes to next-generation grid management systems or efficiently running operations for the connected cities of the future, they are at forefront of digital transformation. In a conversation with Joseph Sirosh, CTO of AI in Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business, Davide Roverso, Chief Analytics Officer at eSmart Systems, talks about interesting new AI-enabled scenarios in world of energy, utilities and physical infrastructure.

Posted on October 24, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Now available in Power BI: automated machine learning

Earlier this year, we introduced Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) in Power BI as Public Preview. Now, we’re happy to announce that AutoML in Power BI is generally available in all public cloud regions where Power BI Premium and Embedded is available.

Using AutoML in Power BI, business analysts without a strong background in machine learning can build ML models to solve business problems that once required data scientists. Most of the data science behind the creation of the ML models is automated by Power BI, while giving visibility into the process used to create your ML model to provide you with full insight. Since AutoML targets analysts who may not have prior experience building ML models, we have made a significant investment in adding automatic guardrails such as class balancing, training-test data split, cross-validation, missing value imputation, and high cardinality feature detection to ensure that the model produced has good quality.

Macaw, a Dutch full-service digital company, deployed automated machine learning in Power BI to quickly ingest sales data and train, validate, and invoke machine learning models directly in Power BI. Dave Ruijter, Principal Consultant Data and AI at Macaw, shared that “The automated functionality within Power BI helps us scale how we infuse our solutions with AI capabilities. Now Macaw Power BI analysts can include machine learning in their solutions without involving a data scientist.” One of their customers, Mitch van Deursen, the Co-owner and Chief Information Officer at Shoeby says, “We now get answers to key business questions within five days, where normally modelling would take months. “ Read about their story here.

With the Public Preview release, AutoML in Power BI enabled users to:

Train a machine learning model to perform Binary Prediction, General Classification, and Regression
View the model training report
Apply the ML model to their data, and view predictions and explanations

Since then, we have been improving and adding new capabilities to AutoML in Power BI.

Binary prediction support for non-Boolean outcomes

Earlier, AutoML expected the outcome field for a binary prediction model to be a Boolean value. We now also support non-Boolean values in the outcome field. In the wizard, you can directly choose the target outcome that you’re most interested in, saving you the preprocessing steps of converting it to Boolean.

Improved Feature Recommendation

We improved the statistical methods that suggest input fields that can be used for training the ML model. Auto ML now analyzes a sample of the selected entity, recommends fields, and shows the reasons for fields that are not recommended. If a certain field has too many distinct values or only one value, or low or high correlation with the output field, it would not be recommended.

Controlling training time

AutoML now allows you to control the time for training a model.

You can choose to decrease the training time to see quick results or increase the amount of time spent in training to get the best model. The former is useful when you are building a POC or for making sure that you have selected the right fields.

Improved training reports

Training reports have been improved to make them more readable. Additionally, reports are now generated two times faster.

Binary prediction reports now include a Cost-Benefit analysis tool. Given an estimated unit cost of targeting and a unit benefit from achieving a target outcome, it helps you identify the subset of the population that should be targeted to yield the highest profit.

Explainable AI

AutoML emphasizes the explainability of predictions to provide visibility into fields that are most important. It provides top predictors during training as well as explanations for each prediction that the ML model produces during scoring.

The Top Predictors section has been improved to show comprehensible feature breakdown so that you can easily validate that the model aligns with your business insights about the outcome field. In the house price prediction example below, the feature breakdown chart for “sqft_living”(on the right) shows that higher “sqft_living” values have higher house prices.

In addition to this, we have added support for text features in top predictors.

Explanations for predictions are now surfaced as a separate entity to make them easily accessible and readable. In order to make the model predictions interpretable, we show the contribution of every feature towards the prediction, and these contributions add up to the predicted value.

In the house price prediction example below, you can see that some features have a positive influence (in green), and other features have a negative influence (in red). Adding these contributions to a base value (average value of the house price in the training data in this case), gives you the predicted house price of $379,738, thus allowing you to easily explain these model predictions.

Using this explanations entity you can quickly build reports explaining model predictions. Automatically generated explanation reports will be available shortly.

Get started building you own ML Models

Here is a step-by-step tutorial that shows how to build your machine learning model using Auto ML. To learn more, refer to the documentation. If you have any questions or would like to get in touch with us about your use cases, pain points, please reach out to automlpowerbi@microsoft.com. We’d love to hear about your experiences, feedback, and ideas on how you’d like to use Auto ML in Power BI.

Posted on October 24, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Porsche Holding shifts to a digital future with Microsoft 365 productivity cloud

Workplace transformation addresses industry disruptors
Global collaboration is even more important today, when the automotive industry faces disruptors such as electric and self-driving vehicles, shared cars, and connected fleets of vehicles. With Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities for data collection and machine learning, the industry is set to revolutionize services for customers who want to optimize their driving resources while reducing their impact on the environment.

“Tech-driven industry disruptors are rapidly changing how people purchase, drive, share, and service their vehicles,” says Peter Friedwagner, Head of Infrastructure and Common Platforms at Porsche Informatik. “And customers’ expectations for flexible, cloud-based online services are evolving just as quickly. We must keep up through a renewed emphasis on software development and flexible online customer service. But to make that happen, our global workforce needed better mobile and cloud-connected business productivity tools. That’s why we deployed Microsoft 365.”

Including Microsoft Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security, Microsoft 365 is the productivity cloud that connects people and information in intelligent, highly secure new ways. Using Windows 10 Enterprise as the operating system of choice means Porsche Holding can take advantage of the interoperability between Windows 10 and Microsoft Intune for modern workplace management. Using Intune for unified endpoint management will simplify operations while speeding up delivery of workstations to users.

As Porsche Holding positions itself as a tech-savvy organization that’s capable of taking on the world of digital automotive services, Eder reaffirms the concept of open communications and business opportunity. “Our future is all about company-wide collaboration via a standard set of tools,” says Eder. “Porsche Holding chose Microsoft 365 to connect people and information intelligently so that we can work together to grasp business opportunities without worrying about the technology.”

Given the diversity of services that Porsche Holding provides, it’s even more important to offer a standard set of productivity tools so that employees in dealerships, headquarters, warehouses, and logistics centers, including a significant cadre of software developers, can all connect and work at the same high level of productivity. “It’s a significant part of our employer branding strategy to offer a cool workplace for all employees,” says Herbert Lohninger, Head of Digital Workplace Services at Porsche Informatik. “We see the physical office environment as a critical factor for recruiting new talent. Employees need a mobile way of working that empowers them to interact easily with colleagues, partners, and customers through simplified knowledge sharing. Office 365 ProPlus fills that role.”

Porsche Holding started to build awareness of the upcoming changes in its business technology by putting an Office 365 demonstration booth next to the cafeteria at its headquarters. The company worked with the Microsoft FastTrack team to streamline mailbox migration from on-premises IBM Notes to Microsoft Exchange, and peer counselling and workshops introduced the other apps and services to the workforce. To date, 6,000 office workers and software developers now use Office 365 ProPlus, with a further 20,000 employees expected to join them by the end of 2019.

Enhanced security powers mobile productivity
Porsche Informatik chose Microsoft 365 for Porsche Holding not only for its interoperable business tools, but for its state-of-the-art security features. Porsche Informatik defined the company’s top security requirements as identity, data, and device protection. For each area, the Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security component in Microsoft 365 offers a solution that works well in the Office 365 environment. “The intersection of security and usability is a key benefit of Microsoft 365,” says Lohninger.

Interoperable security services also simplify the delivery of a mobile-first workplace. “Compared to building a mobile device management solution on top of our Office 365 environment, Microsoft Intune provides what we need with no extra work,” says Friedwagner.

For identity protection, key capabilities within Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium, such as Azure Multi-Factor Authentication and conditional access, work with Intune to dynamically adjust security requirements depending on an employee’s device and environment. “Today, we require multi-factor access for all employees,” says Friedwagner. “This works well with conditional access policies, which allow seamless and highly secure usage of both private and company devices. A practical example of conditional access policies is the use of encrypted app containers, which do not allow data processing of company data with unmanaged apps on private devices. And we use Azure Information Protection for data classification to protect our documents. These overall security improvements to our organization can be accomplished within an integrated system that understands the context of a device and the location of the user.”

Posted on October 22, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

How AI is helping secure water for your future

Last year, Cape Town, South Africa, came within days of running out of water. This summer, Chennai, India, ran dry, with residents standing in line for hours for government water supplies.

Global demand for water is rapidly growing – but it is becoming increasingly scarce. Almost a third of the world’s population is estimated to be living in water-scarce areas, according to the World Data Lab.

With an increase in shortages driven by climate change and a growing global population, better management of this resource is crucial.

Here’s how some grantees from Microsoft’s AI for Earth program are trying to help

Monitoring drinking water supplies

A team of researchers at Stanford University’s Natural Capital Project is combining remote-sensing data with machine learning to detect smaller dams and reservoirs. These structures deliver drinking water and generate hydropower, but they can also risk threatening ecosystems if not built and managed carefully.

Developed using Microsoft Azure, the algorithm will be made freely available to the sustainable development community.

Dr Simmhan — Dr. Simmhan is part of an interdisciplinary team applying its experience with IoT to the challenge of water management in megacities

Managing water in megacities

The rapidly growing demand for water in India will soon significantly outpace its supply. Dr. Yogesh Simmhan is using the Internet of Things (IoT) to help ensure people have access to an affordable, safe water supply. This can be an issue in areas with dense populations, particularly megacities (those with populations over 10 million), many of which experience water scarcity and inequitable access.

As part of his work with the EqWater project, Dr. Simmhan is using data analytics and machine learning to understand the causes of variations in access to water for individual neighborhoods; algorithms can be used to better manage supplies, such as improved water scheduling or detecting leaks.

Pooling data on areas such as flow from reservoirs, seasonal weather and residential use, the team can predict peak demand and identify shortfalls.

Better understanding of the weather

Improved forecasting of droughts and floods will become increasingly important as climate change drives more extreme weather events. The Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes project, based at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, is working to increase its understanding of some of the less well-recognized weather phenomena affecting the western U.S.

Such phenomenon is atmospheric rivers – large bodies of water vapor in the sky. Although little is understood about them, they are known to trigger intense storms and flooding, and are major contributors to water supplies. Equally, droughts can occur if they fail to arrive at the expected time or place. Deep learning is helping the team predict their behavior.

Conservation Science Partners Wood Supply Model — Conservation Science Partners wood supply model

Investigating the effect of tree loss

Drought, climate change, wildfires and insect infestation have all contributed to an increase in tree loss in the western U.S., where forest health is a major concern. Trees help prevent flooding by absorbing rain and slowing run-off; they contribute to drinking water supplies by helping replenish aquifers and purifying water; and they play a vital role in carbon capture.

Tony Chang and a team at the research nonprofit Conservation Science Partners are using cloud computing and machine learning to assess tree health and biomass, using images from NASA, the U.S. Geological Society, the National Agricultural Imagery Program and others. This data is linked to information about regional water sources in order to uncover the connections between forest conservation and management and water supplies.

The analysis is initially being applied in California before being rolled out to rest of the western U.S.

Africa Flores in a canoe — Africa Flores, research scientist at the Earth System Science Center in the University of Alabama

Predicting armful algae blooms

Africa Flores, a research scientist at the University of Alabama’s Earth System Science Center, and her team are using AI to analyze satellite images and weather models to help predict harmful algal blooms. These out-of-control colonies of algae deplete oxygen in the water and make it potentially toxic to humans and wildlife.

Working on Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan Highlands, she uses machine learning to analyze data on variables such as rainfall, temperature and cloud cover. She hopes deeper insight into the conditions that may lead to such blooms will help authorities take preventive measures and potentially improve agricultural practices. Her plan is to use her algorithm in other freshwater bodies in Central and South America.

For more on AI, visit AI for Earth. And follow @MSFTIssues on Twitter.

Posted on October 22, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

EVP Judson Althoff: How the cloud is democratizing digital to unlock a new wave of innovation

Man standing in field of crops — The USDA is using data and AI to address the critical need to sustainably feed a global population, potentially revolutionizing how food is grown.

I have been talking a lot this year about democratizing digital. It is about empowering everyone to have a digital experience and enabling everyone to participate in the digital economy. This trend is large-scale, with broad business and social impact. This was clear earlier this month at the Microsoft Government Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. There, I met with federal agency and department leaders to discuss how cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are delivering new levels of innovation and impacting entire markets and industries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers one of the best examples of the power of data and AI to transform agricultural productivity through the FarmBeats initiative. By using data from sensors, drones, satellites and tractors, farmers hope to reduce costs, increase yields and grow crops that are more sustainable. The USDA is piloting FarmBeats at its largest research facility — a 7,000-acre farm in Beltsville, Maryland, with plans to expand the technology to more than 200 farms in the national research network, ranging from small family farms to large commercial operations.

Another example of government innovation is taking place within the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Office of Aviation Services. The DOI is increasing the speed, accuracy and scalability of data captured from over 500 million acres of land from its unmanned aviation systems — more commonly known as drones. By leveraging Power BI and PowerApps, employees can build tools and custom applications to quickly gain insights from data captured during critical missions (like natural disaster relief).

Scientist looking at tablet — Novartis is bringing together deep bioscience and AI to help patients worldwide, reinventing treatment discovery and development.

Health care is one of the most important areas of focus as we talk about democratizing digital. To support this, we have announced three important partnerships, each aimed at solving pressing challenges facing doctors, researchers and patients. Yesterday we announced our seven-year partnership with Humana to develop predictive solutions for personalized and secure patient support. Using the Microsoft Azure cloud, Azure AI and Microsoft 365, Humana will also be able to equip home health care workers with real-time access to information and voice technology to better understand key factors that influence patient health.

We also announced last week a partnership with health care solutions provider Nuance to transform the doctor-patient experience through the delivery of ambient clinical intelligence technologies (ACI). By using speech-recognition technology and advanced conversational AI with Azure, doctors will have more time to focus on meaningful conversations with their patients. Once a patient gives consent to the ACI system, the clinical documentation writes itself — all while meeting the security and privacy requirements of this regulated industry.

Novartis will bring Microsoft AI capabilities together with its deep expertise in life sciences to address specific challenges that make the process of discovering, developing and delivering new medicines so costly and time-consuming. Today, it typically takes 10 years and more than $2 billion to develop and bring to market a new prescription drug. Because streamlining this process could save so many lives, our goal is to empower Novartis associates at each step of drug development to use AI to unlock the insights hidden in vast amounts of data, even if they are not data scientists by training.

People inside a film set — Technicolor is empowering creative professionals to collaborate together in the cloud from anywhere in the world.

I am excited to see the cloud revolutionizing the media and entertainment industry, empowering creators to tell stories more collaboratively. Studios and broadcasters around the world are looking to the cloud to unlock new, more efficient ways to create, produce and distribute content. We are working with The Walt Disney Studios, as a StudioLAB innovation partner, to pilot new ways to use the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to accelerate innovation in the production and postproduction process — or from “scene to screen.” Technicolor is moving Pulse, its cutting-edge data asset management platform, to Azure to empower content creators to quickly and easily organize and access their work from anywhere in the world. Plus, in India, we are collaborating with Eros Now to build a next-generation platform on Azure, strengthening the company’s position as a leading provider of online video streaming entertainment for viewers around the world.

Spices and ingredients in spoons — Majans is one of the first manufacturers in the world to deploy the IoT intelligence capabilities of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain, capturing salt, flavor and moisture readings from its production line.

Seeing the industry momentum above reinforces the fact that every company can be a technology company, and everyone can benefit from a digital experience to become more agile, efficient and data-driven. Ste. Michelle Wine Estates is creating a holistic consumer experience by reimagining the shopping journey with Dynamics 365 Commerce, bridging physical and digital channels. The leading Australian snack food business Majans is using Dynamics 365 AI-driven insights to create a digital feedback loop for production and distribution on a global scale, bringing the company closer to its factory of the future.

To keep inspiring innovation, we continue to expand and deepen our relationships with many companies — including other technology providers. We are working with Oracle to streamline workflows that enable customers to use AI-powered voice within Microsoft Teams to access Oracle Cloud Applications. Two days ago, we announced an extensive go-to-market partnership with SAP to continue powering business transformation for enterprise customers, making it easier to migrate to the cloud. This exciting milestone is another step toward helping our customers reduce complexities and minimize cost while leveraging best-in-class technologies. Further, we are building upon our long-standing partnership with Samsung to combine our intelligent experiences with Samsung’s devices to help people be more productive on any device, anywhere.

Across all these examples, I am amazed by the scale and impact of our customers’ digital ambitions — from government to health care to media and beyond. I look forward to seeing our customers’ innovations solve even more business, industry and societal challenges around the world.

Posted on October 22, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3 available now

Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3 in both 13.5” and 15” sizes are available starting today in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and 17 European markets.

Surface products have always delivered a balance of performance, quality and versatility that lets our customers create and work in the way that best suits their style, and these new products drive that vision forward with innovation inside and out. We’re incredibly excited to read the early product reviews and we look forward to our customers experiencing these new products.

Surface Pro 7

Surface Pro 7, powered by the latest 10th Generation Intel Core processors, is twice as fast as Surface Pro 6, and supports fast charging so that you can charge to 80% in about an hour. Like its predecessors, it offers all the versatility of a kickstand and touch and pen input, with new Surface Pen and Surface Pro Signature Type Covers in vibrant Poppy Red and Ice Blue. We’re excited by the early product reviews, like this one from Windows Central.

Surface Laptop 3

Surface Laptop has enjoyed the highest customer satisfaction rating for this class of device, and Surface Laptop 3 delivers more of what customers love in both 13.5” and 15” sizes. The new devices deliver more power, fast charging and a 20% larger trackpad. There are new color options like Sandstone and new finish options with both Alcantara and machined aluminum. Surface Laptop 3 remains true to the product’s fundamentals of an amazing display, a keyboard that is second-to-none, and great battery life that together make Surface Laptop a joy to use. Along with models powered by 10th Generation Intel Core processors, this is the first time we’re launching a product powered by the exclusive AMD Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition processor, delivering amazing computing, graphics and battery performance in a slim 15” form. Initial reviews of the product are strong, including these from CNN, Gizmodo, Inverse and Anandtech, and we can’t wait to hear feedback from our customers as well.

The new products are available today. Visit Surface.com to learn more and purchase yours.

Posted on October 22, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Coming soon to Xbox Game Pass for Console: The Outer Worlds, Afterparty, Subnautica and more

This time of year, our office starts to get into the Halloween getting-dark-early-so-let’s-hibernate-and-play-some-great-games kind of mood. Meanwhile, we’re prepping our pumpkin carving designs, curating our “most likely to make you scream” gaming playlists and debating what makes a game spooky. Like drinking with the devil, killer alien sharks, and the cold, dark vacuum of space — bonus points if you figured out what upcoming Xbox Game Pass titles I’m referring to.

One of them is The Outer Worlds, which is coming to Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC, and you can play it day one on October 25. Get ready by preloading it like… right about… now! Seriously, right now. Here’s the full list of games coming to Xbox Game Pass for Console in the near future:

October 23

Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Xbox Play Anywhere)

Just you, your bike, and a mountain. Take a thrilling ride down an unspoiled mountain landscape and make your way through thick forests, narrow trails and wild rivers. Race, jump, slide and try not to crash all the way from the peak to the valley.

Secret Neighbor

Follow-up to the fantastic Hello Neighbor, Secret Neighbor is a suspenseful multiplayer horror game where a group of kids try to rescue their friend from the neighbor’s creepy basement. Only problem is one of the kids is the Neighbor in disguise.

October 24

Minit

Minit is a peculiar little adventure played 60 seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute.

October 25

The Outer Worlds (Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC)

A new single-player, first-person sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment and Private Division. Lost in transit while on a colonist ship bound for the furthest edge of the galaxy, you awake decades later only to find yourself in the midst of a deep conspiracy threatening to destroy the Halcyon colony. As you explore the furthest reaches of space and encounter various factions, all vying for power, the character you decide to become will determine how this player-driven story unfolds.

October 29

Afterparty

Milo and Lola are recently deceased best buds who suddenly find themselves staring down an eternity in Hell. But there’s a loophole: outdrink Satan and he’ll grant you re-entry to Earth. Control Milo and Lola with an intelligent conversation system that changes the story and your relationships based on every decision. Uncover their personality quirks and foggy history during the wild events of the night. Every step is up to you as you stumble through the underworld. Go on a hellish bender, uncover the mystery of your damnation, and drink Satan under the table.

October 31

LEGO Star Wars III

Laugh your way through an all-new story that takes you through 16 different systems and experience features like massive ground battles, boss fights, and multi-layered space combat. Expanded Force abilities, characters, environments, and over 20 story-based missions make this the most one of the most action-packed LEGO games.

November 7

Subnautica

You have crash-landed on an alien ocean world, and the only way to go is down. The ocean ranges from sun drenched shallow coral reefs to treacherous deep-sea trenches, lava fields, and bio-luminescent underwater rivers. Manage your oxygen supply as you explore kelp forests, plateaus, reefs, and winding cave systems. The water teems with life: Some of it helpful, much of it harmful.

Quests:

Starting November 1, play as some of the toughest, most daring femmes in games. Earn any achievement in the upcoming Fearless Femmes collection to earn 100 Rewards points. Whether you choose to explore the world as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider or live in fear in Alien: Isolation, we’ve got a game for you to play.

Game Updates and Events

In addition to the exciting and spooky games releasing for Console and Ultimate soon, we also wanted to share some sweet game updates you can take advantage of this month just by being an Xbox Game Pass member because why not?

State of Decay 2: The Swine & Bovine Halloween costume pays gory tribute to the chain of restaurants dotting the abandoned landscapes of State of Decay 1 and 2. Players can unlock this new limited time outfit by playing State of Decay 2 between October 24 and October 31. You’ll be the horror of your friends! Happy Halloween, survivors.
Gears 5: The day after Judgment Day is here. Play as Grace and the Rev-9 from Terminator Dark Fate before the theatrical release November 1. Use your Xbox Game Pass member discount to purchase the new Gears 5: Terminator Dark Fate Character pack, which became available October 16. You can also fight off a Horde of Terminators in the Gears 5: Terminator Dark Fate Horde event which runs through October 29.
Minecraft: Celebrate the launch of Character Creator in Minecraft and Minecraft Earth with this free fashionable cape – the first of its kind on this platform! Download it today as it will only be available for a limited time!
Rocket League: Things are a bit stranger this year in the annual Haunted Hallows in-game event. Now through November 11 you can earn candy corn while driving through the Upside Down unlocking themed items and exclusive rewards. And yes, there are Golden Pumpkins to find.
Ark: Survival Evolved: From October 22 to November 5, one of the most desired events in Ark will return: Fear Evolved 3! From spooky graves, infested pumpkin fields to zombie dodos you will find something for everybody. This event has been wished for by the fans again and again and these wishes have now been heard: Fear Evolved is coming back just in time for Halloween. There will be lots of new event items and event creatures from previous events.
Black Desert: The divine beast Heilang is the loyal companion of Tamer, the newest character class in Black Deserton Xbox One. Available to play today as part of a free update, Tamer wields a Shortsword and Trinket, hunting enemies alongside her legendary protector. To fully understand the origin of Tamer and how to use her skills in combat, we’re sharing a peek inside her story.
Human: Fall Flat: Free Human: Fall Flat – Ice content update releasing November 8 includes a new ice level with hidden, snowy mansion level ending. This update introduces exciting new winter mechanics which include ridable snowboards, use of shadows, melting ice, rolling big snowballs and two new pieces of music. Unlock four new achievements/trophies and find the hidden Easter Egg speech.

Did you go pre-install The Outer Worlds yet? Future you will be pleased with immediate playtime when the game drops on October 25, so get on it. Just sayin’. If you’ve got some spooky games that need to be added to our playlist, give us a shout on Twitter, or on Instagram. Download the mobile app, and you can see what other collections of games we’ve put together (not just spooky though that’s on the brain), and you can download directly to your console. And since games are more fun when played with friends, or when you can talk to friends that have also played the same games, let your friends know they can get their first month of Xbox Game Pass for only $1 and can jump in on the fun and spookiness with you this month.

Posted on October 21, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft acquires Mover to simplify and speed file migration to Microsoft 365

I’m excited to announce that Microsoft has acquired Mover, a leading provider of cloud file migration, including admin-led and self-service offerings. As customer demand to move content to the cloud continues to grow, Mover will help make it easier than ever for customers to migrate files to Microsoft 365.

Our goal is to help customers move to the cloud with confidence. Today, we offer several options to support cloud file migrations, including FastTrack and offerings from trusted Microsoft partners, as well as the SharePoint Migration Tool for migrating content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to Microsoft 365. Mover will enhance these offerings with proven tools, plus more self-service options over time.

Today, Mover supports migration from over a dozen cloud service providers – including Box, Dropbox, Egnyte, and Google Drive – into OneDrive and SharePoint, enabling seamless file collaboration across Microsoft 365 apps and services, including the Office apps and Microsoft Teams. The Mover team also brings deep expertise and migration technology, which advances Microsoft’s commitment to providing organizations of all sizes with the right tools, people and partners to successfully migrate to the Microsoft Cloud.

Together with Mover, we’ll continue to provide customers with fast and reliable migrations to the cloud, with best practices and security and more connectors to more source systems, ultimately making the move into Microsoft 365 as seamless and cost effective as possible.

We are excited to welcome Mover to Microsoft and encourage you to get started on your migration today at Mover.io. Learn more here about how to use and adopt Microsoft 365 with Microsoft FastTrack. Stay tuned for updates at Ignite 2019 (November 4-8, 2019), where we plan to share more details about Mover integration and new capabilities to make it easier to plan, analyze, and move your content into Microsoft 365.

Posted on October 21, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New Secured-core PC requirements designed to protect against targeted firmware attacks

Recent developments in security research and real-world attacks demonstrate that as more protections are proactively built into the OS and in connected services, attackers are looking for other avenues of exploitation with firmware emerging as a top target. In the last three years alone, NIST’s National Vulnerability Database has shown nearly a five-fold increase in the number of firmware vulnerabilities discovered.

To combat threats specifically targeted at the firmware and operating system levels, we’re announcing a new initiative we’ve been working on with partners to design what we call Secured-core PCs. These devices, created in partnership with our PC manufacturing and silicon partners, meet a specific set of device requirements that apply the security best practices of isolation and minimal trust to the firmware layer, or the device core, that underpins the Windows operating system. These devices are designed specifically for industries like financial services, government and healthcare, and for workers that handle highly-sensitive IP, customer or personal data, including PII as these are higher value targets for nation-state attackers.

In late 2018, security researchers discovered that hacking group, Strontium has been using firmware vulnerabilities to target systems in the wild with malware delivered through a firmware attack. As a result, the malicious code was hard to detect and difficult to remove – it could persist even across common cleanup procedures like an OS re-install or a hard drive replacement.

Why attackers and researchers are devoting more effort toward firmware

Firmware is used to initialize the hardware and other software on the device and has a higher level of access and privilege than the hypervisor and operating system kernel thereby making it an attractive target for attackers. Attacks targeting firmware can undermine mechanisms like secure boot and other security functionality implemented by the hypervisor or operating system making it more difficult to identify when a system or user has been compromised. Compounding the problem is the fact that endpoint protection and detection solutions have limited visibility at the firmware layer given that they run underneath of the operating system, making evasion easier for attackers going after firmware.

What makes a Secured-core PC?

Secured-core PCs combine identity, virtualization, operating system, hardware and firmware protection to add another layer of security underneath the operating system. Unlike software-only security solutions, Secured-core PCs are designed to prevent these kinds of attacks rather than simply detecting them. Our investments in Windows Defender System Guard and Secured-core PC devices are designed to provide the rich ecosystem of Windows 10 devices with uniform assurances around the integrity of the launched operating system and verifiable measurements of the operating system launch to help mitigate against threats taking aim at the firmware layer. These requirements enable customers to boot securely, protect the device from firmware vulnerabilities, shield the operating system from attacks, prevent unauthorized access to devices and data, and ensure that identity and domain credentials are protected.

The built-in measurements can be used by SecOps and IT admins to remotely monitor the health of their systems using System Guard runtime attestation and implement a zero-trust network rooted in hardware. This advanced firmware security works in concert with other Windows features to ensure that Secured-core PCs provide comprehensive protections against modern threats.

Removing trust from the firmware

Starting with Windows 8, we introduced Secure Boot to mitigate the risk posed by malicious bootloaders and rootkits that relied on Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware to only allow properly signed bootloaders like the Windows boot manager to execute. This was a significant step forward to protect against these specific types of attacks. However, since firmware is already trusted to verify the bootloaders, Secure Boot on its own does not protect from threats that exploit vulnerabilities in the trusted firmware. That’s why we worked with our partners to ensure these new Secured-core capabilities are shipped in devices right out of the box.

Using new hardware capabilities from AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, Windows 10 now implements System Guard Secure Launch as a key Secured-core PC device requirement to protect the boot process from firmware attacks. System Guard uses the Dynamic Root of Trust for Measurement (DRTM) capabilities that are built into the latest silicon from AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm to enable the system to leverage firmware to start the hardware and then shortly after re-initialize the system into a trusted state by using the OS boot loader and processor capabilities to send the system down a well-known and verifiable code path. This mechanism helps limit the trust assigned to firmware and provides powerful mitigation against cutting-edge, targeted threats against firmware. This capability also helps to protect the integrity of the virtualization-based security (VBS) functionality implemented by the hypervisor from firmware compromise. VBS then relies on the hypervisor to isolate sensitive functionality from the rest of the OS which helps to protect the VBS functionality from malware that may have infected the normal OS even with elevated privileges. Protecting VBS is critical since it is used as a building block for important OS security capabilities like Windows Defender Credential Guard which protects against malware maliciously using OS credentials and Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) which ensures that a strict code integrity policy is enforced and that all kernel code is signed and verified.

Being able to measure that the device booted securely is another critical piece of this additional layer of protection from firmware compromise that gives admins added confidence that their endpoints are safe. That’s why we implemented Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM) as one of the device requirements for Secured-core PCs. By using the Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM) to measure the components that are used during the secure launch process, we help customers enable zero trust networks using System Guard runtime attestation. Conditional access policies can be implemented based on the reports provided by the System Guard attestation client running in the isolated VBS environment.

In addition to the Secure Launch functionality, Windows implements additional safeguards that operate when the OS is running to monitor and restrict the functionality of potentially dangerous firmware functionality accessible through System Management Mode (SMM).

Beyond the hardware protection of firmware featured in Secured-core PCs, Microsoft recommends a defense-in-depth approach including security review of code, automatic updates, and attack surface reduction. Microsoft has provided an open-source firmware project called Project-Mu that PC manufactures can use as a starting point for secure firmware.

How to get a Secured-core PC

Our ecosystem partnerships have enabled us to add this additional layer of security in devices that are designed for highly-targeted industries and end-users who handle mission-critical data in some of the most data-sensitive industries like government, financial services, and healthcare, right-out-of-the-box. These innovations build on the value of Windows 10 Pro that comes with built-in protections like firewall, secure boot, and file-level information-loss protection which are standard on every device.

More information on devices that are verified Secured-core PC including those from Dell, Dynabook, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic and Surface can be found on our web page.

David Weston (@dwizzzleMSFT)
Partner Director, OS Security