Microsoft
Microsoft has been criticised and has now apologised, for enabling "workplace surveillance" after privacy campaigners warned that the company’s “productivity score”, a feature that allows managers to use Microsoft 365 to track their employees’ activity at an individual level.
The company says it will now make changes to the service, which lets IT administrators “help their people get the most” from its products, in order to limit the amount of information about individual employees that is shared with managers.
Microsoft's Browser Edge is rolling out a new feature for users in the United States. In the future users will receive information about discount vouchers when shopping online and automatically redeem the one with the largest discount. Previously Microsoft had integrated a price comparison feature to inform users about cheaper providers in October.
In an all-hands meeting, Microsoft's gaming boss Phil Spencer has announced that the Xbox Game Pass will come to iOS in 2021. Using a "direct browser-based solution" the company aims to circumvent the Apple App Store which prohibits the offering of the Game Pass.
Spencer stated that "we absolutely will end up on iOS,".
Public Health England (PHE) in the United Kingdom have used an old file format known as XLS for the reporting templates for Covid-19 test results. As a consequence, each template could handle only about 65,000 rows of data rather than the one million-plus rows that Excel is actually capable of.
16,000 positive Covid-19 cases have gone unreported and have only now - days later - been submitted.
The European Commission is working on a new legislative package in order to regulate major online platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others. According to an internal paper, one of the goals is to prevent "unfair practices". One rule could specify that the platforms would "not be allowed to pre-install their own applications exclusively" such as installing mobile apps on smartphones and preventing users to uninstall them.
In addition, there could be new restrictions on the usage of data generated by their services for their own commercial activities. This kind of data could only be used if made "accessible to other commercial users".
With a delay of almost nine years, the new Berlin airport is scheduled to be opened on the last day of October. A journalist from t-online has now spotted that parts of the IT systems at the Berlin airport still run on an outdated version of Windows XP that lost support my Microsoft latest in April 2019.
The system has been spotted in an elevator. Currently, it is unclear if the system is connected to the internet or to an internal network leaving the security implications unclear.
With Microsoft announcing that the U.S. operations of TikTok won't be sold to the technology company, rumours have broken out that Oracle will be the winner of the bid for the TikTok U.S. operations.
The Chinese state broadcaster CGTN has now reported that the TikTok owner ByteDance will sell its U.S. operations to neither Microsoft nor Oracle. ByteDance themselves refused to comment.
Bytedance has decided to not sell TikTok's U.S. operations to Microsoft.
"ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users while protecting national security interests," so Microsoft in a statement on Sunday.
Hackers from China, Russia and Iran are targeting the 2020 presidential elections, Microsoft found. In a blog post, Microsoft stated that the three hacker groups Strontium (Russia), Zirconium (China) and Phosphorus (Iran) have launched attacks aimed at both the Democratic and Republican party. The groups have attacked "more than 200 organizations including political campaigns, advocacy groups, parties and political consultants", "high-profile individuals associated with the election" including associates of Biden's campaign and "personal accounts of people associated" with the Trump campaign.
"The majority of these attacks were detected and stopped by security tools built into our products. We have directly notified those who were targeted or compromised so they can take action to protect themselves," so Microsoft
Walmart is partnering with Microsoft to potentially buy TikTok's U.S. business from BtyeDance. The news was first reported by CNBC, which was later confirmed by Walmart.
In a statement, Walmart said that TikTok's integration of e-commerce and advertising "is a clear benefit to creators and users in those markets" and that the retailer believes "a potential relationship with TikTok US in partnership with Microsoft could add this key functionality and provide Walmart with an important way for us to reach and serve omnichannel customers as well as grow our third-party marketplace and advertising businesses."
Scientists have renamed some 27 human genes over the past year to avoid Microsoft Excel misinterpreting their alphanumeric codes as dates.
These codes are used as a shorthand method for researchers to identify the genes in the human genome. Sometimes, though, they end up reading as something else. For instance, the gene symbol for Septin 2, SEPT2, defaults to the date '2-Sep' when typed into Excel, while Membrane-Associated Ring Finger, aka MARCH1, becomes '1-Mar'.
The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) defined guidelines for naming protein-coding genes, RNA genes, and pseudogenes to avoid such mishaps. The instructions further say gene symbols should only contain Latin letters and Arabic numerals; should not contain common abbreviations; should not refer to any particular species; should not be offensive, and should be unique.
Apple Inc has no interest in acquiring TikTok, a company spokesperson told Axios, denying an earlier report published by Axios, citing Apple has expressed interest in buying the ByteDance-owned firm.
Microsoft is currently negotiating a deal to acquire the popular short-video app, with a 45-day deadline imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The discussions with ByteDance will build upon a notification made by Microsoft and ByteDance to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The two companies have provided notice of their intent to explore a preliminary proposal that would involve a purchase of the TikTok service in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and would result in Microsoft owning and operating TikTok in these markets. Microsoft may invite other American investors to participate on a minority basis in this purchase.
The complaint details Microsoft’s illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law. Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the actual cost to enterprise customers.
Microsoft's professional networking site LinkedIn has said it plans to cut 6% of its global workforce as the Covid-19 pandemic is having a sustained impact on demand for its recruitment products. Nine hundred sixty jobs will be cut across sales and hiring divisions of the group globally.
LinkedIn said employees affected by its job cuts would be informed this week, and they will start receiving invitations in the next few hours to meetings to learn more about next steps.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 will launch for PC on August 18, the first release of the franchise since 2014.
The game will come in three versions:
- The standard edition ($59.99) includes 20 planes and 30 airports.
- The deluxe edition ($89.99) adds five planes to the fleet and five additional international airports.
- The premium deluxe edition ($119.99) has a total of 30 planes and 30 airports.
It is possible to pre-order the game now on Windows 10, or pre-install with Xbox Game Pass for PC.
The non-profit Tech Inquiry has discovered alleged ties between technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft with the United States law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, Department of Defense, Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Prisons and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Tech inquiry has analyzed over 30 million governmental contracts from the past five years and sub-contracts below them. They discovered that Google and Amazon several hundreds of subcontracts with United States law enforcement agencies while Microsoft several thousand.
Microsoft announced Wednesday new features to improve the Microsoft Teams experience and beat Zoom, including the new Together Mode and the support to up to 1,000 people in a call.
Together Mode, digitally place up to 50 participants in a shared background, so it emulates the experience of sitting in the same room while meeting remotely.
Microsoft Teams also support for up to 1,000 participants in meetings, soon allow up to 20,000 viewers in presentations and seminars.
Following the news that AT&T is considering parting ways with Warner Bros., Microsoft is considering acquiring the game division.
The Information reported that Microsoft is not the only one interested in the company; EA, Take-Two and Activision Blizzard are also considering buying WB Interactive and its several development studios (Avalanche Software, Monolith Productions, NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady Studios, TT Games, and many others).
Microsoft announced its plan to permanently close all its retail stores worldwide, with staff being relocated to Microsoft's corporate facilities. Four stores in London, Sydney, New York and Redmond are to remain open but will be "reimagined".
"Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location," so David Porter, Microsoft Corporate Vice President.