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See the future of Xbox July 23 on the Xbox Games Showcase

The day you’ve been waiting for is nearly here: On Thursday, July 23 at 9 a.m. PT, we’ll be giving you a closer look at the future of gaming with the Xbox Games Showcase, including world premieres and updated looks at some of the games we’ve already revealed. And yes, that includes your first-ever look at campaign gameplay from Halo Infinite.

Xbox Game Studios is pushing the industry forward with a huge variety of games, all of which support services and features that put the player first, including Xbox Game Pass and Smart Delivery.

What’s more, our celebration of all things Xbox games will start with a Summer Game Fest pre-show beginning at 8 a.m. PT. Tune in for reveals, predictions, insights from YouTube creators, and more on some already-announced titles coming to Xbox. Hosted by Geoff Keighley, the Xbox Games Showcase pre-show will air on YouTube Gaming.

You’ll be able to watch the Xbox Games Showcase in a variety of ways. You can tune-in on:

On the Xbox YouTube channel, live language support for the Xbox Games Showcase will include Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Arabic translations.

If you’re a content creator interested in hosting a watch-along or co-stream of the Xbox Games Showcase, or posting a reaction or recap after the show, know that Xbox is appreciative!

If you’ve never co-streamed before, be sure to follow your platform’s terms and guidelines, and look for tips on your stream setup. For example, Twitch has put together some top-line tips for content creators to get you started here. Keep an eye out for the new Master Chief emotes!

We hope you’ll join us as we take a closer look at the future of Xbox on Thursday, July 23 at 9 a.m. PT. If you can’t make it, don’t worry: you can check out highlights immediately following the show or view the whole Xbox Game Showcase on-demand soon after it airs.

We’ll see you next week!

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Female Founders Competition winners announced

Deeptech — Global Winners : iLoF — Oxford, UK

iLoF uses AI and photonics to build a cloud-based library of disease biomarkers, initially focusing on the biggest epidemic of our time: Alzheimer’s disease.

How does it feel to be a winner of the Female Founders Competition?
It’s an honor to be selected as a winner from such an inspiring and trail-blazing group of women-led deeptech companies from all over the globe. We are immensely excited to be able to join M12, Mayfield and Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures in the fight for increased diversity, and to be able to do our small part in supporting an environment of inclusion, openness and acceptance. As we begin this next phase in our journey with the backing and support of world-renowned investors, we believe we will be able to fast-track the development and deployment of our platform and our vision.

Clockwise from the top left: Mehak Mumtaz, Joana Paiva, and Paula Sampaio pitch iLoF remotely to Tamara Steffens from M12 at the Female Founders Competition Finals Event

How has your offering impacted customers to date?
Using our non-invasive, low-cost and agnostic platform, we are transforming the drug discovery and development process, creating value for customers in a wide range of applications.
In our main focus area, Alzheimer’s disease, we have enabled a promising biotech to validate a new nano-sized therapeutic biomarker. At the same time, we are providing a public hospital with a tool to screen thousands of patients for a clinical trial in a non-invasive and patient-centric way.

How do you plan to use the funding from the Female Founders Competition?
We at iLoF are on a mission to enable a new era of personalized medicine, by helping the industry develop precise and personalized treatments for patients. This investment will be used to fast track our collaboration with one of our industry partners for development of a treatment for Alzheimer’s, while also accelerating our work in two additional verticals: oncology and cardiovascular disease.

What advice do you have for other female founders who are fundraising right now?

1. Find other female founders to share and learn from each other, leverage communities or build your own.

2. Identify female-led startup role models, reach out to them and get them to show you the ropes.

3. Be prepared, understand the process, know your numbers and practice, practice, practice.

4. Brace yourself for rejections and learn to reframe them into learning opportunities.

Follow iLoF on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

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How to create clarity in your company’s accessibility journey

We’re often asked what the secret is to our approach to accessibility and inclusion at Microsoft. The simple answer is, we manage it like a business. As with any business, it needs to be actively managed and measured to ensure it continues to grow and stay healthy. To help bring other organizations along, I’d like to dive in a bit deeper into our model in the hopes that you can take what we’ve learned adapt it for your company’s purpose and grow accessibility in a sustainable way that’s integrated into your culture.

Accessibility is a journey. Back in 2016, we realized we needed to evolve our approach to accessibility and so we set out to rebuild our company-wide accessibility program in more systematic way that allowed us to measure progress and set targets. Started by studying best practices in maturity models—the Carnegie Mellon Capability Model and the Level Access Digital Accessibility Maturity Model. The wisdom from these models was discussed by the Microsoft Accessibility Leadership Team who then considered the dimensions and criteria that would work for Microsoft. This led to development of the Accessibility Evolution Model (AEM) which we have been using and improving on for over four years. The use of this model has enabled us to understand year-over-year growth, by division and function, and track progress. To manage accessibility like a business.

The model defines how developed an organization is in addressing a business problem like accessibility and includes a set of structured levels that describe how well the behaviors, practices, and processes of an organization can reliably and sustainably produce desired outcomes.

A graphic illustrating the different types of accessibility evolution models.

The AEM is comprised of eight overarching dimensions by which we assess our accessibility journey. People & Culture, Vision, Strategy and Engagement, Investments, Standards, Training, Support & Tools, Procurement, Product Development Lifecycle, and Sales, Marketing & Communications. We realize that each organization has its own pace and starting point, and you may have your own criteria, but the starting point for building a culture of accessibility and disability inclusion is People.

At Microsoft, we approach inclusion in everything we do and consider disability as a strength. The more you focus and take this approach, the more your culture will improve and evolve. It really starts by hiring people with disabilities and empowering that talent as an integral part of your organization. The mission of Microsoft is to empower every person and every organization to achieve more. So, inclusion of people with disabilities is deeply connected to the core of our company goals. By empowering talent with disabilities, we gain expertise that enables us to build products and services that reflect the diverse needs of our global customers. Our focus on inclusive hiring programs including the Autism Hiring Program is at the core of building a long-term successful organization. Additionally, it’s important that every employee is trained on accessibility and understands why and how to be inclusive using accessibility. We created an ‘Accessibility in Action Badge’ for our employees, 90 minutes of virtual online content to shine a spotlight on how technology can empower everyone. After receiving a lot of positive feedback, we created a similar program for other employers, nonprofits, and consumers to take alongside our employees which launched in May this year. Invest your time to complete the accessibility fundamentals learning path today on Microsoft Learn and consider how similar training could benefit your organization.

The AEM has helped us to understand the maturity of our Product Development Lifecycle. As a technology company, this is imperative, but the same principles apply to every company regardless of what your ‘product’ is. This dimension focuses on how to plan, design, code, build & deploy, test, and receive feedback, to ensure requirements are built into the development lifecycle and that accessibility is a part of the normal engineering processes. While much of this is baked into our formal processes, we also are aware of the need to continue in innovation and creativity within technology. It is important to setup repeatable processes, while also providing flexibility within engineering teams, particularly in design phases. Taking a look at the five levels within the development lifecycle, we explore the reactive mode, whereby teams are learning accessibility, testing, finding and remediating bugs – completely reactive. As we grow in maturity, we begin to see the proactive activities, such as spec reviews with an inclusive lens. This reduces the reactive bug fixes, and allows us to “shift left”, which means moving the accessibility lens and actions upstream into the conceptual and design phases and most importantly listening to user needs. A great and timely example of this is accessibility features in Microsoft Teams including custom backgrounds and live captions. These features stemmed from one of our engineers in the Deaf community who saw an opportunity to improve the product which resulted in features that are now widely used for collaboration. In fact, we saw a 30x increase in captions usage from February to April this year as more and more people leveraged the feature to collaborate globally as a result of the pandemic.

Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a sustainable culture of accessibility. You’ll need to tailor your program to fit the dynamics of your organization to ensure it’s embedded into your DNA and most importantly, part of how you run your business. You’ll need to evolve the model as you mature and learn what factors and dimensions fuel growth. We have a long way to go on our journey but our hope is that by sharing more about our journey and how the Microsoft AEM has helped us mature accessibility at Microsoft, it provides you with a guide and operational model to learn from, and accelerate your journey no matter your starting point.

There is so much more that we want to share that can’t be covered in the span of this blog so we encourage you to check out the resources we’ve made available on Microsoft.com/Accessibility.

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Get a closer look at the tech driving gaming innovation forward on Xbox Series X

When we set out to design the Xbox Series X, we aspired to build our most powerful console ever powered by next generation innovation and delivering consistent, sustained performance never before seen in a console with no compromises. To achieve this goal, we knew we needed to analyze each component of the system, to push beyond the limitations in traditional console performance and design. It was critical in the design of the Xbox Series X to ensure we had a superior balance of power, speed and performance while ensuring no component would constrain the creative ambition of the world’s best creators, empowering them to deliver truly transformative next gen gaming experiences not possible in prior console generations.

At the heart of the Xbox Series X is our custom processor leveraging the latest RDNA 2 and Zen 2 architectures from our partners at AMD to deliver a best in class next generation processor delivering more than 12 TFLOPs of GPU power and more than 4 times the CPU processing power of the Xbox One X. Xbox Series X includes the highest memory bandwidth of any next generation console with 16GB of GDDR6 memory, including 10GB of GPU optimized memory at 560 GB/s to keep the processor fed with no bottlenecks. As we analyzed the storage subsystem, it became clear that we had reached the upper limits of traditional hard drive technology and to deliver on our design aspirations, we would need to radically rethink and revolutionize our approach with the Xbox Series X.

Empowering Next Generation Game Design and Creative Vision

Modern games require a significant amount of data to create the realistic worlds and universes that gamers experience. To enable the processor to work at its optimum performance, all of this data must be loaded from storage into memory. The explosion of massive, dynamic open-world environments and living, persistent worlds with increased density and variety has only increased the amount of data required. From environmental mesh data, high polygon character models, high resolution textures, animation data, audio and video source files and more all combine together to deliver the most immersive game play environment for the player.

Despite the ability for modern game engines and middleware to stream game assets into memory off of local storage, level designers are still often required to create narrow pathways, hallways, or elevators to work around the limitations of a traditional hard drive and I/O pipeline. These in-game elements are often used to mask the need to unload the prior zone’s assets from memory while loading in new assets for the next play space. As we discussed developers’ aspirations for their next generation titles and the limitations of current generation technology, this challenge would continue to increase exponentially and further constrain the ambition for truly transformative games. This feedback influenced the design and development of the Xbox Velocity Architecture.

Introducing the Xbox Velocity Architecture

The Xbox Velocity Architecture was designed as the ultimate solution for game asset streaming in the next generation. This radical reinvention of the traditional I/O subsystem directly influenced all aspects of the Xbox Series X design. If our custom designed processor is at the heart of the Xbox Series X, the Xbox Velocity Architecture is the soul. Through a deep integration of hardware and software innovation, the Xbox Velocity Architecture will power next-gen gaming experiences unlike anything you have seen before.

The Xbox Velocity Architecture comprises four major components: our custom NVME SSD, hardware accelerated decompression blocks, a brand new DirectStorage API layer and Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS).

Let’s dive deep into each component:

  • Custom NVME SSD: The foundation of the Xbox Velocity Architecture is our custom, 1TB NVME SSD, delivering 2.4 GB/s of raw I/O throughput, more than 40x the throughput of Xbox One. Traditional SSDs used in PCs often reduce performance as thermals increase or while performing drive maintenance. The custom NVME SSD in Xbox Series X is designed for consistent, sustained performance as opposed to peak performance. Developers have a guaranteed level of I/O performance at all times and they can reliably design and optimize their games removing the barriers and constraints they have to work around today. This same level of consistent, sustained performance also applies to the Seagate Expandable Storage Card ensuring you have the exact same gameplay experience regardless of where the game resides.
  • Hardware Accelerated Decompression: Game packages and assets are compressed to minimize download times and the amount of storage required for each individual game. With hardware accelerated support for both the industry standard LZ decompressor as well as a brand new, proprietary algorithm specifically designed for texture data named BCPack, Xbox Series X provides the best of both worlds for developers to achieve massive savings with no loss in quality or performance. As texture data comprises a significant portion of the total overall size of a game, having a purpose built algorithm optimized for texture data in addition to the general purpose LZ decompressor, both can be used in parallel to reduce the overall size of a game package. Assuming a 2:1 compression ratio, Xbox Series X delivers an effective 4.8 GB/s in I/O performance to the title, approximately 100x the I/O performance in current generation consoles. To deliver similar levels of decompression performance in software would require more than 4 Zen 2 CPU cores.
  • New DirectStorage API: Standard File I/O APIs were developed more than 30 years ago and are virtually unchanged while storage technology has made significant advancements since then. As we analyzed game data access patterns as well as the latest hardware advancements with SSD technology, we knew we needed to advance the state of the art to put more control in the hands of developers. We added a brand new DirectStorage API to the DirectX family, providing developers with fine grain control of their I/O operations empowering them to establish multiple I/O queues, prioritization and minimizing I/O latency. These direct, low level access APIs ensure developers will be able to take full advantage of the raw I/O performance afforded by the hardware, resulting in virtually eliminating load times or fast travel systems that are just that . . . fast.
  • Sampler Feedback Streaming (SFS): Sampler Feedback Streaming is a brand-new innovation built on top of all the other advancements of the Xbox Velocity Architecture. Game textures are optimized at differing levels of detail and resolution, called mipmaps, and can be used during rendering based on how close or far away an object is from the player. As an object moves closer to the player, the resolution of the texture must increase to provide the crisp detail and visuals that gamers expect. However, these larger mipmaps require a significant amount of memory compared to the lower resolution mips that can be used if the object is further away in the scene. Today, developers must load an entire mip level in memory even in cases where they may only sample a very small portion of the overall texture. Through specialized hardware added to the Xbox One X, we were able to analyze texture memory usage by the GPU and we discovered that the GPU often accesses less than 1/3 of the texture data required to be loaded in memory. A single scene often includes thousands of different textures resulting in a significant loss in effective memory and I/O bandwidth utilization due to inefficient usage. With this insight, we were able to create and add new capabilities to the Xbox Series X GPU which enables it to only load the sub portions of a mip level into memory, on demand, just in time for when the GPU requires the data. This innovation results in approximately 2.5x the effective I/O throughput and memory usage above and beyond the raw hardware capabilities on average. SFS provides an effective multiplier on available system memory and I/O bandwidth, resulting in significantly more memory and I/O throughput available to make your game richer and more immersive.

Through the massive increase in I/O throughput, hardware accelerated decompression, DirectStorage, and the significant increases in efficiency provided by Sampler Feedback Streaming, the Xbox Velocity Architecture enables the Xbox Series X to deliver effective performance well beyond the raw hardware specs, providing direct, instant, low level access to more than 100GB of game data stored on the SSD just in time for when the game requires it. These innovations will unlock new gameplay experiences and a level of depth and immersion unlike anything you have previously experienced in gaming.

Unlocking Next Generation Experiences

What does this all mean for you as a gamer? As the industry’s most creative developers and middleware companies have begun to explore these new capabilities, we expect significant innovation throughout the next generation as this revolutionary new architecture enables entirely new scenarios never before considered possible in gaming.  The Xbox Velocity Architecture provides a new level of performance and capabilities well beyond the raw specifications of the hardware itself. The Xbox Velocity Architecture fundamentally rethinks how a developer can take advantage of the hardware provided by the Xbox Series X. From entirely new rendering techniques to the virtual elimination of loading times, to larger,  more dynamic living worlds where, as a gamer, you can choose how you want to explore, we can’t be more excited by the early results we are already seeing. In addition, the Xbox Velocity Architecture has opened even more opportunities and enabled new innovations at the platform level, such as Quick Resume which enables you to instantly resume where you left off across multiple games, improving the overall gaming experience for all gamers on Xbox Series X.

We can’t wait for gamers around the world to get to experience these new, next generation gaming experiences on Xbox Series X this holiday and beyond. For more information on the Xbox Velocity Architecture, check out the video above.

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AnyLogic and Project Bonsai help companies teach machines to solve real-world business problems

Four years ago, I joined the startup Bonsai, which envisioned a new way of training AI agents. The idea was to enable subject matter experts to use their knowledge of a particular problem to teach the AI agent how to make decisions about it, or to create an optimal control policy. Bonsai chose reinforcement learning (RL) as the first AI category to support, as we believed it could enable new use cases for automation and create significant value for future customers.

Before then, reinforcement learning had mostly received attention for teaching AI agents how to play games like Pong and other Atari classics. Then, OpenAI enabled users with a library of example environments that could be used to learn more about RL and increase performance of the latest RL algorithms. Soon thereafter, examples of simple physics-based models were added, either as simple robotic systems or games that took advantage of built-in physics engines. At Bonsai, we accelerated that trend and focused on teaching AI agents how to become more intelligent controllers for advanced control problems where traditional approaches may have shortcomings.

With a vision of developing an AI toolchain that enables engineers to add intelligence to their existing and future systems, we started to take a broader view of what might be possible. This goes back to the question: What is a controller? Is a supply chain or any other business process a controller? If so, could we make these controllers more intelligent?

I found a simulation model of the Beer Distribution Game on AnyLogic’s cloud platform and connected it to our deep reinforcement learning service to see if we could teach an AI agent to learn a successful control policy for one of the standard models taught in business school when supply chains are covered. It worked! It easily beat our co-workers when playing the game in real time and enabled our sales team to sign our first supply chain customer.

Fast forward to May 2020. After being acquired by Microsoft in 2018, Bonsai recently launched as a fully integrated Azure service at Microsoft’s Build developers conference. Over the past two years, we have continued to invest in our partnership with AnyLogic, and have learned more about how to use multi-method models with a deep reinforcement learning service such as ours.

If you’re not familiar with RL, it’s based on the idea of framing problems as a Markov decision process in which an AI agent learns a control policy to always pick the best possible action for a given state of the system. Ideally this system is somewhat random and dynamic, which makes a reward-based learning approach superior compared with other traditional control theories. More details can be found here.

Let’s look at an example: Activity Based Costing Analysis (ABCA)

A simplistic factory floor model where cost associated with product processing is calculated and analyzed using activity-based costing (ABC). Each incoming product seizes some resources, is processed by a machine, conveyed, and releases the resources. Cost accumulated by a product is broken down into several categories for analysis and optimization.

A screenshot of an Activity Based Costing Analysis model

In this case, we’re training an AI agent to learn a policy for choosing factory floor parameters with the goal of optimizing product cost. State is defined as the product arrival rate, the number of resources and their utilization, idle and busy costs, as well as process time, and the speed of the conveyor belt. Action is defined as setting the number of resources, process time and the speed to the conveyor. The goal is to reduce cost per product while maintaining a high overall throughput. Users need to describe these parameters to the AI agent using machine teaching, then upload the simulation model and start training. The AI agent will start by initially picking random values for the action, then assess if the changed state is getting closer to the defined goal. Based on this assessment, the agent will adjust actions and over time will reach the goals defined by the user. Depending on problem complexity, the agent may require anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of these iterations. Once the goal has been reached, the AI agent has learned to always choose the best possible parameters for any given state of the production process. Enterprises could use a customized version of this simulation model in connection with the Project Bonsai service to optimize their factory floor processes.

The Project Bonsai preview is now available. To get started, you can either access it directly or request engagement from an expert through this form. The model used in this example and more information can be found on the AnyLogic website.

To learn more, please join AnyLogic and our Microsoft team for a live webinar on July 28 showcasing how you can bring deep reinforcement learning to practical business applications in a series of concise and easy-to-follow steps. In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how an AnyLogic model can be transformed into an RL-ready model and used as the training environment (simulator) in Project Bonsai.

Related:

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AnyLogic and Project Bonsai help companies teach machines to solve real-world business problems

Four years ago, I joined the startup Bonsai, which envisioned a new way of training AI agents. The idea was to enable subject matter experts to use their knowledge of a particular problem to teach the AI agent how to make decisions about it, or to create an optimal control policy. Bonsai chose reinforcement learning (RL) as the first AI category to support, as we believed it could enable new use cases for automation and create significant value for future customers.

Before then, reinforcement learning had mostly received attention for teaching AI agents how to play games like Pong and other Atari classics. Then, OpenAI enabled users with a library of example environments that could be used to learn more about RL and increase performance of the latest RL algorithms. Soon thereafter, examples of simple physics-based models were added, either as simple robotic systems or games that took advantage of built-in physics engines. At Bonsai, we accelerated that trend and focused on teaching AI agents how to become more intelligent controllers for advanced control problems where traditional approaches may have shortcomings.

With a vision of developing an AI toolchain that enables engineers to add intelligence to their existing and future systems, we started to take a broader view of what might be possible. This goes back to the question: What is a controller? Is a supply chain or any other business process a controller? If so, could we make these controllers more intelligent?

I found a simulation model of the Beer Distribution Game on AnyLogic’s cloud platform and connected it to our deep reinforcement learning service to see if we could teach an AI agent to learn a successful control policy for one of the standard models taught in business school when supply chains are covered. It worked! It easily beat our co-workers when playing the game in real time and enabled our sales team to sign our first supply chain customer.

Fast forward to May 2020. After being acquired by Microsoft in 2018, Bonsai recently launched as a fully integrated Azure service at Microsoft’s Build developers conference. Over the past two years, we have continued to invest in our partnership with AnyLogic, and have learned more about how to use multi-method models with a deep reinforcement learning service such as ours.

If you’re not familiar with RL, it’s based on the idea of framing problems as a Markov decision process in which an AI agent learns a control policy to always pick the best possible action for a given state of the system. Ideally this system is somewhat random and dynamic, which makes a reward-based learning approach superior compared with other traditional control theories. More details can be found here.

Let’s look at an example: Activity Based Costing Analysis (ABCA)

A simplistic factory floor model where cost associated with product processing is calculated and analyzed using activity-based costing (ABC). Each incoming product seizes some resources, is processed by a machine, conveyed, and releases the resources. Cost accumulated by a product is broken down into several categories for analysis and optimization.

A screenshot of an Activity Based Costing Analysis model

In this case, we’re training an AI agent to learn a policy for choosing factory floor parameters with the goal of optimizing product cost. State is defined as the product arrival rate, the number of resources and their utilization, idle and busy costs, as well as process time, and the speed of the conveyor belt. Action is defined as setting the number of resources, process time and the speed to the conveyor. The goal is to reduce cost per product while maintaining a high overall throughput. Users need to describe these parameters to the AI agent using machine teaching, then upload the simulation model and start training. The AI agent will start by initially picking random values for the action, then assess if the changed state is getting closer to the defined goal. Based on this assessment, the agent will adjust actions and over time will reach the goals defined by the user. Depending on problem complexity, the agent may require anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of these iterations. Once the goal has been reached, the AI agent has learned to always choose the best possible parameters for any given state of the production process. Enterprises could use a customized version of this simulation model in connection with the Project Bonsai service to optimize their factory floor processes.

The Project Bonsai preview is now available. To get started, you can either access it directly or request engagement from an expert through this form. The model used in this example and more information can be found on the AnyLogic website.

To learn more, please join AnyLogic and our Microsoft team for a live webinar on July 28 showcasing how you can bring deep reinforcement learning to practical business applications in a series of concise and easy-to-follow steps. In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how an AnyLogic model can be transformed into an RL-ready model and used as the training environment (simulator) in Project Bonsai.

Related:

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A powerful laptop with an innovative modular design has been released by Kano

A two-in-one laptop that lets people pull out and click in new parts as they progress has been released worldwide.

The Kano PC is a two-in-one device that is designed to open up technology, reduce the number of devices thrown away, and empower children and adults to learn at their own pace.

According to UK government figures from 2015, schools spend more than £900m a year on education technology, while the UN has found that computers and IT produce 3.5 million tons of electronic waste globally every year. In the US, schools spend an estimated $3.6 billion on new computers that could simply be repaired.

The Kano PC is transparent, so people can see how it operates; its status lights reveal the data flow within; key parts can be disconnected and replaced with new ones, increasing the lifetime of the device.

It runs Windows 10, is more durable, powerful and faster than many rival computers, and at $299.99 it’s often cheaper, too.

Alex Klein, Co-founder and Chief Executive of Kano, said: “Our goal is to create affordable, powerful computers that demystify technology. This is great news for schools that need to upgrade and repair their laptops, for economies in recovery, and for those at home, in need of new and well-designed tools.“



Kano is also releasing a camera, headphones and mouse for the PC that can be built and easily repaired with new parts. These come with creative software projects, suggested when users of the Kano PC click on the Windows 10 Start Menu. Computer science combines with imagery, geometry and music to bring disparate disciplines together. Tutorial videos on topics such as coding, design and 3D modelling come loaded inside the device, and a special curriculum is being made for teachers. The PC runs a suite of Windows 10 apps, such as How Computers Work, Kano Code and Make Art.

As Kano’s PC runs Windows 10, privacy and family safety tools come as standard, enabling families to have full transparency into how the computer is being used.

The company has worked with thousands of people worldwide as it developed the PC, and a year case study at three Tower Hamlets Schools in London showed large improvements in students’ creative confidence and computing capabilities. The tools have empowered Syrian refugees and low-income communities in the US, where the product is also launching today.

The Kano PC is now available for order on the Kano website and at Microsoft Stores online.

Its release comes as the company announces a new partnership with Microsoft.

“The Education sector is undergoing massive change enabled by technology, and our collaboration with Kano is truly advancing the vision of “technology for all,” said Jordan Chrysafidis, General Manager, Worldwide Education Device Sales, Microsoft. “Together we are delivering high quality, accessible and affordable Windows based devices, combined with customized curriculum that teaches design, coding, 3d modelling and more, that enables Kano users to become digital creators.”

The Kano PC: in pictures

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Microsoft study: Online civility improved in APAC during COVID-19, declined in Latin America

Teens and adults in the Asia-Pacific region reported an uptick in online civility and more respectful digital interactions during the COVID-19 global pandemic, results from a new Microsoft research study show. Meanwhile, respondents in Latin America said online civility worsened, punctuated by an increase in the spread of false or misleading information.

Nearly one-third (31%) of respondents in nine APAC geographies said online civility improved in the COVID-19 stay-at-home environment, a 5-percentage-points increase compared to the worldwide reading of 26%. A total of 32 geographies1 were included in this year’s study, which was conducted in April and May. Across other regions, participants in Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the combined grouping of North American and Western European countries,2 said online civility improved by smaller percentages: 30%, 17% and 20%, respectively.

Meanwhile, in Latin America, 31% said online civility declined during the crisis, topping the worldwide reading of 22% by 9-percentage points. APAC, Central and Eastern Europe, and the combined North American and Western European block, posted “worsening” percentages of 22%, 28% and 17%. (Additional details shown in the chart below.)

digital civility chart

Worldwide (52%) and regionally, a majority of respondents said online civility was unchanged by COVID-19. Regional “unchanged” percentages break down as follows:
• APAC: 47%
• Central and Eastern Europe: 55%
• Latin America: 39%
• North America and Western Europe: 63%

Overall, results underscore that despite anecdotal reports of declining online civility during COVID-19, the global picture is more nuanced.

Five years of digital civility research

The findings come from the latest study, Civility, Safety and Interaction Online – 2020, which polled teens aged 13-17 and adults aged 18-74 about their exposure to 21 different online risks across four categories: behavioral; sexual; reputational; and personal/intrusive.3 This research builds on similar studies about digital civility that Microsoft has conducted in each of the last four years when fewer countries were included.

A total of 16,051 individuals participated in this year’s poll, and we’ve surveyed more than 58,000 people on these topics since the start of this work. Full results, including the release of the latest Microsoft Digital Civility Index (DCI), will be made available on international Safer Internet Day 2021 on February 9. The DCI is a measure of the tone and tenor of online interactions as reported by consumers in all surveyed locales. Last year, the index stood at its lowest level since the research began, indicating a high level of perceived online incivility.

Of the 26% of global respondents who thought online civility improved in April and May during COVID-19, people helping other people and a sense of “we’re all in this together” were the primary reasons behind their responses. More than two-thirds (67%) said they saw people helping others and 60% said they had a greater sense of “we’re all in this together.” Meanwhile, in APAC, nearly three-quarters of positive respondents (70%) saw people helping others, and the second most highly rated reply was people being more encouraging to one another (66%). Other positive responses in the APAC region included a greater sense of community, people coming together to deal with the crisis, and people reconnecting online with family and friends.

In Latin America (70%) and globally (67%), an “increased spread of false or misleading information” was the primary reason given by those who thought online civility had faltered during the pandemic. Other standout “worsening” responses in Latin America included “people taking out their frustrations online” and “people being less tolerant.” (Check out our factsheet on helping young people to identify misinformation and hate speech, and read about what Microsoft is doing to combat COVID-19 misinformation more broadly.)

Seven geographies added in 2020

Given the toll the global crisis was taking on people around the world both online and off, we added some special questions to this year’s study to explore the perceived impact of COVID-19 on online interactions in this fifth milestone installment of our research. That’s also why we added (or re-added) seven geographies to the 2020 study: Australia, Denmark, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and Thailand. (The first Microsoft Digital Civility Index reading for each of these geographies, bar Australia, will be made available on Safer Internet Day 2021. Australia’s 2020 index will be the first reading since Year Two of the study.)

And, while more of the world starts to re-open following what was truly an unprecedented event in most of our lifetimes, many of us are still working and learning from home, and practicing social distancing. These circumstances underscore the need for safer, healthier and more respectful interactions both online and off. We only need to look to last year’s research to recall what people hoped for in this new decade of the 2020s. Respondents in 25 countries said they wanted “respect,” “safety,” “freedom,” “civility” and “kindness” to define online interactions in the 2020s, and they added a few predictions for some more sensitive scenarios. A third of all respondents said they expect fewer women to be sexually harassed online, fewer teens to be bullied and online political discussions to become more constructive in the new decade.

Embrace the Digital Civility Challenge

To get back on track and help realize some of those uplifting 2020s predictions, we continue to point to our Digital Civility Challenge: four common-sense principles to help engender compassion, empathy and kindness. Everyone can commit to the challenge actions and pledge to adopt positive online habits and practices. Those actions are: Live the Golden Rule; respect differences; pause before replying; and stand up for yourself and others. Learn more about the challenge here, and visit our website and resources page for additional advice and guidance for tackling almost any online safety issue.

1 Countries polled in 2020 were: Argentina, Australia*, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark*, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia*, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines*, Poland, Russia, Sweden*, Singapore, Spain*, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand*, Turkey, U.K., U.S., Vietnam
*Indicates country was added (or re-added) to the study in 2020

2 Regional groupings are as follows:
• APAC (9) – Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
• CEE (3) – Hungary, Poland, Russia
• Latam (6) – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru
• NA + WE (12) – Canada, U.S., Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, U.K.

3 The definiton of the four categories are as follows:
Reputational – “Doxing” and damage to personal or professional reputations
Behavioral – Being treated meanly; experiencing trolling, online harassment or bullying; encountering hate
speech and microaggressions
Sexual – Sending or receiving unwanted sexting messages and making sexual solicitations; receiving unwanted
sexual attention and being a victim of sextortion or non-consensual pornography (aka “revenge porn”)
Personal/intrusive – Being the target of unwanted contact, experiencing discrimination, swatting, misogyny, exposure to
extremist content/recruiting, or falling victim to hoaxes, scams or fraud

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Partner of the Year Awards announced ahead of Inspire 2020

Inspire is Microsoft’s premier annual event to celebrate partners and announce key news — an essential experience for anyone interested in growing their business and strengthening connections in this extraordinary time. And this year, it’s free and entirely digital. Learn more about the event, speakers and agenda on the Microsoft Inspire site, and join us here July 21-22.

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Microsoft Flight Simulator to launch Aug. 18 for PC; pre-install today with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta)

Start preparing for take-off. Xbox Game Studios and Asobo Studio are thrilled to announce that Microsoft Flight Simulator launches on August 18, and you can pre-order on Windows 10* or pre-install with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) today.

We have been thrilled and humbled by the support and dedication that has fueled the Flight Sim community for the past 38 years. Since the launch of the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator in 1982, we knew it was finally the right time to develop the next-generation version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. We have the right tools, technology, partners and hardware to release the most realistic and authentic flight simulator to date. Microsoft Flight Simulator features include:

  • Vivid and Detailed Landscapes – Immerse yourself in the vast and beautiful world that is our planet with more than 37 thousand airports, 1.5 billion buildings, 2 trillion trees, mountains, roads, rivers and more.
  • A Living World – Earth is vibrant and ever-changing and so is the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator which includes live traffic, real-time weather and animals.  
  • Highly Detailed Aircraft – Hone your pilot skills in a variety of aircraft from light planes to commercial jets with comprehensive flight models. Every aircraft includes highly detailed and accurate cockpits with realistic instrumentation.
  • New Checklist System – From pro to beginner, scale your level from full manual to full assist with interactive and highlighted instrument guidance and checklist.
  • Dynamic Weather – The new weather engine enables users to switch on the live weather mode to experience real-time weather including accurate wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rain and more.
  • New Day & Night Engine – Experience flight at any time of day or year allowing for night VFR, visual flight rules, navigation.
  • Aerodynamic Modeling – A state-of-the-art physics engine with over 1,000 control surfaces per plane allows for a truly realistic experience.

Three Editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Explore all of this and more with any of the three editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

  • The Microsoft Flight Simulator Standard Edition ($59.99 USD) includes 20 highly detailed planes with unique flight models and 30 hand-crafted airports. The Standard Edition will be available on day one with Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta).
  • The Deluxe Edition ($89.99 USD) includes everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator’s standard edition plus five additional highly accurate planes with unique flight models and five additional handcrafted international airports.
  • The Premium Deluxe Edition ($119.99 USD) includes everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator Standard Edition plus 10 additional highly accurate planes with unique flight models and 10 additional handcrafted international airports.

In addition to its digital versions, Microsoft Flight Simulator will be available as a retail disc version at European stores via Aerosoft. For more information on these retail disc versions in Europe, please visit the Aerosoft website.

Your fleet of planes and detailed airports from whatever edition you choose are all available on launch day as well as access to the ongoing content updates that will continually evolve and expand the flight simulation platform. 

Enhanced Airports

Airplanes

Whether you are new to flight simulation or you are an aviation pro, the sky is calling you in Microsoft Flight Simulator. 

*For more information on supported specs, please visit FlightSimulator.com.