By Amber Neely
Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 07:31 pm PT (10:31 pm ET)

Apple will attend a White House conference alongside other tech industry giants to coordinate responses to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Representatives from major tech companies are planning on attending a meeting at the White House hosted by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios. The conference hopes to tackle how the federal government and the tech industry can work together in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Twitter will all likely attend, either in-person or through teleconference, according to a spokesperson for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said Politico.

COVID-19 continues to spread across the U.S., with nearly 1,000 cases as of Tuesday evening. Apple has already taken measures to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, both at Apple campuses and Apple retail locations.

Apple is offering hourly workers and retail employees unlimited sick leave if they exhibit symptoms of the virus, which could be instrumental in preventing the spread to customers.

Apple has also placed restrictions on employee travel to Italy and South Korea after cases of COVID-19 jumped in those countries. All non-essential travel to COVID-19 hotspots has been restricted, and a company vice president must approve business-critical travel.

It’s also increasingly likely that WWDC will be cancelled. A new order has been issued by the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, explicitly banning mass gatherings for at least three weeks, as the county gathers more information about COVID-19. While technically not forbidden yet, a three-week delay is not a promising sign for the live event to happen on-schedule.

In honor of International Women’s Day, Microsoft is proud to recognize some of the amazing women of Microsoft Quantum. These engineers, scientists, program managers and business leaders are working toward realizing Microsoft’s mission of building a scalable quantum computer and global quantum community to help solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.

Last year, we introduced you to some of the women working on quantum software; this year we’re profiling more women delivering impact in the Microsoft Quantum program, across quantum hardware, software, partnerships, and business development.

This is the second of a two-part series. In case you missed it, meet The Women of Microsoft Quantum in Part 1.

Sydney Schreppler – Quantum Hardware Engineer

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a Quantum Engineer working as part of a global hardware team that characterizes quantum materials for the development of our topological qubit technology. Our team measures electrical transport properties in cryogenic environments, probing the quantum nature of the materials. Right now I’m excited to be working in Redmond, where, together with the Quantum Systems team, we span Microsoft’s full quantum stack, from our topological qubit layer at the very bottom all the way up to the algorithms offered in Azure Quantum.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

Long before I knew I wanted to study physics, people around me seemed to know it. I think it was because I was always asking for simple explanations for how the world worked and because I liked to understand those answers through a mathematical lens. Once I started studying physics, the more I learned, the simpler and more elegant the explanations got.

What attracted me to quantum measurements first, and later to quantum computing, was the idea that something that seemed so non-intuitive and mysterious was nonetheless observable, and even useful! I wanted to see quantum effects for myself, so as a college student, I sought out opportunities in labs measuring quantum things. And once I had “seen” quantum, I was hooked. I measured the quantum mechanical motion of tiny membranes, the interaction of ultracold atoms with laser light (obtaining my Ph.D. in physics along the way), and the quantum entanglement of superconducting circuits. Now at Microsoft, I get to harness these same kinds of measurements to develop our quantum hardware.

Amrita Singh – Quantum Hardware Engineer

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a hardware engineer and coordinate the substrate fabrication activities with a small team of nanofabrication engineers at Microsoft Quantum Labs – Delft. We engineer the substrates and create a platform for selective area growth of a high-quality III-V semiconductor/ superconductor hybrid network, which is a building block of the topological quantum qubit.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I was born and raised in a remote rural village in northern India where a girl’s education wasn’t important and the only expectation from a girl was to get married at an early age, raise children, and at the most, become a primary school teacher in the village. Mathematics and Science were considered to be boys’ subjects and weren’t even available as an option until the senior year at my all-girls school when I started. I was fortunate though, in that they were introduced a year before I reached my final year.

I studied science in my school to prove my worthiness as much as the boys in the neighborhood, but didn’t fully believe in it because it conflicted with my belief in God and other superstitions. But I always loved mathematics because of its precision, as no belief could justify 2+2≠4.

My exposure to technology was very limited and I had my first encounter with computers during my Masters (Physics) degree at IIT Delhi. During my Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, I started appreciating the power of scientific attitude when I would verify a hypothesis with experimental data. Being an experimental physicist, I would feel restless for my blind faith and that is when I started to question my deep-rooted superstitions and religious beliefs, getting rid of them over the course of about four to five years. This was only possible due to my career choice in Science and Technology and it has shaped me into who I am today.

I did my Ph.D. on quantum devices for spintronic application and I extended my knowledge to superconducting spintronics during my postdoc work at Leiden University, where I gained expertise in interface engineering for hybrid quantum devices. I believed that, with my diverse background in quantum physics and device engineering, I would be able to contribute toward the realization of an ambitious topological quantum computer at Microsoft, as well as be able to learn and grow without limit by working with great minds.

Science for me is not just a profession but a way of living. I strongly believe that we could change the lives of millions of unprivileged deserving children in the world by giving quality education and bring them into the mainstream by using technologies.

Aarthi Meenakshi Sundaram – Researcher

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Research and Applications team at Microsoft Quantum, where my overarching goal is to understand both the power and limitations of using quantum computers to solve some of our most challenging problems. Sometimes, this means defining efficient quantum algorithms for various problems. Other times, this means defining a mathematically rigorous computational model and analyzing which problems are “easy” or “difficult” in this model à la complexity theory.

Currently, I am looking forward to tackling both aspects in the context of quantum machine learning. It’s a nascent but rapidly evolving area with new algorithms being discovered and comes with its own set of challenges for us to understand precisely what kinds of learning problems can be sped up with quantum resources and to what extent. In classical computational learning theory, there are many well-established models of learning. Inevitably, we find that there may be various ways to “quantize” these models (i.e., add some “quantum magic” to these models, and each way could be useful in vastly different scenarios – some abstract/mathematical, some very real and even implementable in the near-term on quantum computers! Investigating these in all their variations is what excites me right now.

On a slightly different track, I also care about building tools that could help to efficiently verify quantum programs – through type checking or other methods. One of the main challenges is that any quantum program debugger that observes or measures how a quantum state is manipulated in the program could destroy the quantum nature of the state itself. Another challenge is that certain techniques that work well on small quantum programs will scale badly with the size of our program and could take too long to verify realistically. So, along with my collaborators here, we are investigating ways to build efficient type checkers that could provide us with the ability to verify some, if not all of the properties of interest in a quantum program.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I have been reliably informed by my mother that, as a 4- or 5-year old, I took great joy in sitting on her lap and helping her with her programming work by entering the programs into our computer at home and marveling at this new object that knew how to follow my orders (or throw error messages!) So, while I don’t remember ever having to make a conscious choice to work in the world of computing, it has always seemed like a foregone conclusion in my mind, leading to my Math and Computer Science majors during undergrad.

For the first time at my university, one of my professors offered a course in quantum information and computing. I had just started getting interested in cryptography then and being introduced to this new computing model that could break state-of-the-art cryptosystems was a revelation! I was intrigued by this field that almost sounded like something out of science fiction and seemed so counterintuitive, at first.

Encouraged by my professor to pursue it beyond that one course, it was a natural progression for me to eventually pursue a Ph.D. in quantum complexity theory. It allowed me to blend the skills I had learned from both of my undergrad majors seamlessly. Being interested in the more abstract and theoretical aspects of computer science, I spent my Ph.D. analyzing the power of quantum analogs of various computational models. A continuous inspiration since I’ve delved more into quantum computing is that by living at the intersection and cutting edge of many different fields, one gets to work and learn from people whose expertise is vastly different than your own. With Microsoft Quantum’s aim of delivering a full stack of quantum services, that means, I am thrilled for the opportunity to interact with everyone from material scientists to mathematicians within the team.

Judith Suter – Senior Researcher

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

In my work as a Senior Researcher in the Microsoft Quantum Hardware Program, I focus mainly on electrical characterization of different device types, materials, and fabrication processes. My days revolve around planning and designing experiments, running and optimizing low-temperature measurements, and exploring the resulting aggregated data. As part of a global team, another element of my job is cross-site collaboration where we leverage the diverse expertise of the whole team to collectively tackle challenging projects.

Recently I also became part of the Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure Diversity and Inclusion Council, where I represent the Quantum Hardware Program. I am excited to help drive the efforts towards the ambitious goals of Microsoft to fuel systemic change, widen our pipelines to reach and engage a diverse group of people, and transform our culture to ensure that everyone feels welcome and valued.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

My path to working on quantum computing was not without detours. As a high school student, I was fascinated by surrealist painters and the strange but self-consistent worlds they portrayed, so I commenced my studies at an arts and graphic design academy. Eventually, I left, longing to do something completely different, something I knew nothing about. I signed up for an undergraduate degree in Nanoscience, where I felt I could get a taste of different scientific fields. There, quantum physics intrigued me from the start: counterintuitive concepts born out of creative boldness – surprisingly, some lectures ended up reminding me of my art classes studying surrealism. I was hooked. I bought a one-way ticket to the epicenter of quantum physics, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, joined Prof. Charles Marcus’ lab there at the Center for Quantum Devices and started my training to become a quantum physicist.

Vicky Svidenko – Partner Quantum Data Sciences

Q: Tell us more about your role in the Microsoft Quantum group. What exciting things are you working on right now?

I am leading the Quantum Systems Integration team – helping to accelerate quantum research and development. The Microsoft Quantum group is exploring ways to build a full-stack quantum computer and has become the world’s center of expertise on topological quantum computing. I am incredibly humbled by the opportunity to support this development effort and contribute to the new breakthroughs, together with an amazing team of talented researchers and engineers.

Q: What was it that attracted you to the technology field? How and why did you decide to join the domain of quantum computing?

I came to Quantum because I enjoy the loosely orchestrated chaos of early product development and the frenzy of excitement for every new learning and every new benchmark. I like that incredible sensation of being part of something futuristically amazing, now evolving and materializing.

Another reason: This was my first opportunity to work for an amazing female manager – Krysta Svore – and I wasn’t going to miss it.

Meet more of The Women of Microsoft Quantum in Part 1 of this series.

This is just a small sample of the amazing people on the Microsoft Quantum team. If you want to join us as we build the quantum future, we’re hiring!

Quarkus is a framework for Java development that is described on their web site as:

Silverblue — a Fedora Workstation variant with a container based workflow central to its functionality — should be an ideal host system for the Quarkus framework.

There are currently two ways to use Quarkus with Silverblue. It can be run in a pet container such as Toolbox/Coretoolbox. Or it can be run directly in a terminal emulator. This article will focus on the latter method.

Why Quarkus

According to Quarkus.io: “Quarkus has been designed around a containers first philosophy. What this means in real terms is that Quarkus is optimized for low memory usage and fast startup times.” To achieve this, they employ first class support for Graal/Substrate VM, build time Metadata processing, reduction in reflection usage, and native image preboot. For details about why this matters, read Container First at Quarkus.

Prerequisites

A few prerequisites will need to configured before you can start using Quarkus. First, you need an IDE of your choice. Any of the popular ones will do. VIM or Emacs will work as well. The Quarkus site provides full details on how to set up the three major Java IDE’s (Eclipse, Intellij Idea, and Apache Netbeans). You will need a version of JDK installed. JDK 8, JDK 11 or any distribution of OpenJDK is fine. GrallVM 19.2.1 or 19.3.1 is needed for compiling down to native. You will also need Apache Maven 3.53+ or Gradle. This article will use Maven because that is what the author is more familiar with. Use the following command to layer Java 11 OpenJDK and Maven onto Silverblue:

$ rpm-ostree install java-11-openjdk* maven

Alternatively, you can download your favorite version of Java and install it directly in your home directory.

After rebooting, configure your JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables to reference the new applications. Next, go to the GraalVM download page, and get GraalVM version 19.2.1 or version 19.3.1 for Java 11 OpenJDK. Install Graal as per the instructions provided. Basically, copy and decompress the archive into a directory under your home directory, then modify the PATH environment variable to include Graal. You use it as you would any JDK. So you can set it up as a platform in the IDE of your choice. Now is the time to setup the native image if you are going to use one. For more details on setting up your system to use Quarkus and the Quarkus native image, check out their Getting Started tutorial. With these parts installed and the environment setup, you can now try out Quarkus.

Bootstrapping

Quarkus recommends you create a project using the bootstrapping method. Below are some example commands entered into a terminal emulator in the Gnome shell on Silverblue.

$ mvn io.quarkus:quarkus-maven-plugin:1.2.1.Final:create \ -DprojectGroupId=org.jakfrost \ -DprojectArtifactId=silverblue-logo \ -DclassName="org.jakfrost.quickstart.GreetingResource" \ -Dpath="/hello"

$ cd silverblue-logo

The bootstrapping process shown above will create a project under the current directory with the name silverblue-logo. After this completes, start the application in development mode:

$ ./mvnw compile quarkus:dev

With the application running, check whether it responds as expected by issuing the following command:

$ curl -w '\n' http://localhost:8080/hello

The above command should print hello on the next line. Alternatively, test the application by browsing to http://localhost:8080/hello with your web browser. You should see the same lonely hello on an otherwise empty page. Leave the application running for the next section.

Injection

Open the project in your favorite IDE. If you are using Netbeans, simply open the project directory where the pom.xml file resides. Now would be a good time to have a look at the pom.xml file.

Quarkus uses ArC for its dependency injection. ArC is a dependency of quarkus-resteasy, so it is already part of the core Quarkus installation. Add a companion bean to the project by creating a java class in your IDE called GreetingService.java. Then put the following code into it:

import javax.enterprise.context.ApplicationScoped; @ApplicationScoped

public class GreetingService { public String greeting(String name) { return "hello " + name; } }

The above code is a verbatim copy of what is used in the injection example in the Quarkus Getting Started tutorial. Modify GreetingResource.java by adding the following lines of code:

import javax.inject.Inject;

import org.jboss.resteasy.annotations.jaxrs.PathParam; @Inject GreetingService service;//inject the service @GET //add a getter to use the injected service @Produces(MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN) @Path("/greeting/{name}") public String greeting(@PathParam String name) { return service.greeting(name); }

If you haven’t stopped the application, it will be easy to see the effect of your changes. Just enter the following curl command:

$ curl -w '\n' http://localhost:8080/hello/greeting/Silverblue

The above command should print hello Silverblue on the following line. The URL should work similarly in a web browser. There are two important things to note:

1. The application was running and Quarkus detected the file changes on the fly.
2. The injection of code into the app was very easy to perform.

The native image

Next, package your application as a native image that will work in a podman container. Exit the application by pressing CTRL-C. Then use the following command to package it:

$ ./mvnw package -Pnative -Dquarkus.native.container-runtime=podman

Now, build the container:

$ podman build -f src/main/docker/Dockerfile.native -t silverblue-logo/silverblue-logo

Now run it with the following:

$ podman run -i --rm -p 8080:8080 localhost/silverblue-logo/silverblue-logo

To get the container build to successfully complete, it was necessary to copy the /target directory and contents into the src/main/docker/ directory. Investigation as to the reason why is still required, and though the solution used was quick and easy, it is not an acceptable way to solve the problem.

Now that you have the container running with the application inside, you can use the same methods as before to verify that it is working.

Point your browser to the URL http://localhost:8080/ and you should get a index.html that is automatically generated by Quarkus every time you create or modify an application. It resides in the src/main/resources/META-INF/resources/ directory. Drop other HTML files in this resources directory to have Quarkus serve them on request.

For example, create a file named logo.html in the resources directory containing the below markup:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<!--

To change this license header, choose License Headers in Project Properties.

To change this template file, choose Tools | Templates

and open the template in the editor.

-->

<html> <head> <title>Silverblue</title> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> </head> <body> <div> <img src="fedora-silverblue-logo.png" alt="Fedora Silverblue"/> </div> </body>

</html>

Next, save the below image alongside the logo.html file with the name fedora-silverblue-logo.png:

Now view the results at http://localhost:8080/logo.html.

Testing your application

Quarkus supports junit 5 tests. Look at your project’s pom.xml file. In it you should see two test dependencies. The generated project will contain a simple test, named GreetingResourceTest.java. Testing for the native file is only supported in prod mode. However, you can test the jar file in dev mode. These tests are RestAssured, but you can use whatever test library you wish with Quarkus. Use Maven to run the tests:

$ ./mvnw test

More details can be found in the Quarkus Getting Started tutorial.

Further reading and tutorials

Quarkus has an extensive collection of tutorials and guides. They are well worth the time to delve into the breadth of this microservices framework.

Quarkus also maintains a publications page that lists some very interesting articles on actual use cases of Quarkus. This article has only just scratched the surface of the topic. If what was presented here has piqued your interest, then follow the above links for more information.

Switch owners might not be getting their hands on DOOM Eternal later this month, but they’ll at least be able to relive the hellish Nintendo 64 title DOOM 64 for just $4.99 / £3.99 (or the regional equivalent). If the game itself wasn’t already enough, Nightdive Studios – the talented team behind this port – have revealed the re-release will also come with an entirely new chapter, during an interview with our friends at US Gamer.

Here’s exactly what senior developer James Haley had to say:

On our end, persistent players will have the opportunity to unlock a new chapter in the Doomguy’s saga, taking place shortly after [Doom 64’s] original campaign concludes. The Mother Demon you defeated in that outing had a sister, and since you’ve been messing up Hell non-stop, she tries to get rid of you by sending you away. If you can make your way back and take revenge, you’ll be rewarded with a bit of lore that fans of both series, new and classic, should enjoy.

So, there you go – once you defeat The Mother Demon, you’ll have to take on her sister. You’ll even get a little bit of extra lore after this as a reward. Are you as excited as we are about the release of DOOM 64 on the Switch? Leave a comment below.

Today, Microsoft and partners across 35 countries took coordinated legal and technical steps to disrupt one of the world’s most prolific botnets, called Necurs, which has infected more than nine million computers globally. This disruption is the result of eight years of tracking and planning and will help ensure the criminals behind this network are no longer able to use key elements of its infrastructure to execute cyberattacks.

A botnet is a network of computers that a cybercriminal has infected with malicious software, or malware. Once infected, criminals can control those computers remotely and use them to commit crimes. Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, BitSight and others in the security community first observed the Necurs botnet in 2012 and have seen it distribute several forms of malware, including the GameOver Zeus banking trojan.

The Necurs botnet is one of the largest networks in the spam email threat ecosystem, with victims in nearly every country in the world. During a 58-day period in our investigation, for example, we observed that one Necurs-infected computer sent a total of 3.8 million spam emails to over 40.6 million potential victims.

Necurs is believed to be operated by criminals based in Russia and has also been used for a wide range of crimes including pump-and-dump stock scams, fake pharmaceutical spam email and “Russian dating” scams. It has also been used to attack other computers on the internet, steal credentials for online accounts, and steal people’s personal information and confidential data. Interestingly, it seems the criminals behind Necurs sell or rent access to the infected computer devices to other cybercriminals as part of a botnet-for-hire service. Necurs is also known for distributing financially targeted malware and ransomware, cryptomining, and even has a DDoS (distributed denial of service) capability that has not yet been activated but could be at any moment.

On Thursday, March 5, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued an order enabling Microsoft to take control of U.S.-based infrastructure Necurs uses to distribute malware and infect victim computers. With this legal action and through a collaborative effort involving public-private partnerships around the globe, Microsoft is leading activities that will prevent the criminals behind Necurs from registering new domains to execute attacks in the future.

This was accomplished by analyzing a technique used by Necurs to systematically generate new domains through an algorithm. We were then able to accurately predict over six million unique domains that would be created in the next 25 months. Microsoft reported these domains to their respective registries in countries around the world so the websites can be blocked and thus prevented from becoming part of the Necurs infrastructure. By taking control of existing websites and inhibiting the ability to register new ones, we have significantly disrupted the botnet.

Microsoft is also taking the additional step of partnering with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and others around the world to rid their customers’ computers of malware associated with the Necurs botnet. This remediation effort is global in scale and involves collaboration with partners in industry, government and law enforcement via the Microsoft Cyber Threat Intelligence Program (CTIP). Through CTIP, Microsoft provides law enforcement, government Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), ISPs and government agencies responsible for the enforcement of cyber laws and the protection of critical infrastructure with better insights into criminal cyber infrastructure located within their jurisdiction, as well as a view of compromised computers and victims impacted by such criminal infrastructure.

For this disruption, we are working with ISPs, domain registries, government CERTs and law enforcement in Mexico, Colombia, Taiwan, India, Japan, France, Spain, Poland and Romania, among others. Each of us has a critical role to play in protecting customers and keeping the internet safe.

To make sure your computer is free of malware, visit support.microsoft.com/botnets.

Tags: botnet, CTIP, cyberattacks, cybercrime, Microsoft Cyber Threat Intelligence Program, necurs

While streaming and uploading footage of video games online has become a common practice nowadays, not every company is necessarily thrilled about it. For example, a number of Japanese companies like Arc System Works and Atlus have released special recording and streaming guidelines for their new releases.

In 2017, Nintendo even went to the extent of ruling out live streaming of its games on YouTube. Fortunately, it ended up replacing this program with new guidelines early last year. As the company slowly begins to warm up to the idea of its game footage being shared online by creators, the famous Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has recently shared his own thoughts about players uploading gameplay videos.

The response comes from his recent 12-page Famitsu interview, and was translated by BlackKite (via Japanese Nintendo):

I think it’s good that there’s a variety of ways to enjoy things. In the ROM era, we preferred to have [customers] play for a long time with materials created with very miniscule memory without publicising them. At that time, it would be problematic if the whole game content were to be revealed. But it is now an era where customers that bought [the games] publish videos broadly, and I think that may pique interest about those games to other people who watch it. I think I would also watch walkthrough videos of [games] made by someone else. Honestly, I don’t want to watch my own [games], but if it’s made by someone else it should still be okay.

As Miyamoto explains, sharing gameplay footage online can obviously help pique interest in certain titles. It’s also a great way to see a walkthrough of a video game. When Nintendo relaxed its content creator guidelines last year, the global head of YouTube said the video platform was glad to see the company take a “big step forward” and that it was a testament to what the power of creators can do.

What do you think about Miyamoto’s response? Does Nintendo need to do more? Share your thoughts below.

Earlier this year Respawn debuted new playable Apex Legends character Revenant with a bit of a bait-and-switch, introducing him as the assassin of Forge, a ringer which design director Jason McCord told Dot eSports was designed explicitly to foil data miners and leakers.

“It started as a fun way to misdirect data miners who, at the time, felt like they had solved our next legend and had ruined our surprise,” said McCord, who credited the idea to Apex Legends designer Rayme Vinson. “We actually purposefully leaked fake concept art and details of Forge’s kit in patches, so there would be a bread crumb trail by the time we announced him. It’s pretty insane, really. I can’t think of any other game that has gone through such hijinks.”

It’s a remarkable bit of effort to outwit data miners and, sure enough, it seems many Apex Legends players were earnestly surprised by Revenant’s reveal, presaged by an animated teaser in which Forge is murdered mid-interview by the rapacious robot.

The surprise appeared to land even though Revenant’s existence was leaked ahead of time by said data miners, whose efforts continue to frustrate McCord and other game developers. Late last year, for example, Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan made a point of highlighting how leaks of a game’s existence or assets can negatively impact game devs’ morale, as they lose out on getting to promote something they’ve worked hard on and instead often have to deal with misunderstandings and mistaken assumptions based on incomplete or unfinished work.

This week many at Microsoft began working from home for an extended period due to COVID-19 concerns, and now the company says even though hourly contractors are working less, it still plans to pay them their usual rates.

“We recognize the hardship that lost work can mean for hourly employees,” reads today’s company blog post.  “As a result, we’ve decided that Microsoft will continue to pay all our vendor hourly service providers their regular pay during this period of reduced service needs. This is independent of whether their full services are needed.”

As COVID-19 drives more game makers to embrace the convenience of remote computing and collaboration, this is a good reminder that a lot of people whose labor is critical to the industry don’t have the same luxury. Microsoft makes a point of recognizing the contributions of on-site hourly workers, including folks who drive shuttles, care for on-site food services, and support Microsoft’s IT and A/V needs.

“We’re committed as a company to making public health our first priority and doing what we can to address the economic and societal impact of COVID-19​,” the Microsoft post continues. “We appreciate that what’s affordable for a large employer may not be affordable for a small business, but we believe that large employers who can afford to take this type of step should consider doing so.”

Destiny 2 developer Bungie announced this week it would enact a remote work policy in order to help curb the spread of COVID-19, while Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick suggested that the outbreak could lead to a seachange in how the game industry views remote work at large.