In a blog post, Meta says that the AI will be helpful in creating modern virtual assistant technology. It leverages both strategic reasoning and natural language processing (NLP). Cicero can deliver human-level performance when playing the Diplomacy board game. The AI was competing in an online league across 40 games against 82 human players. By the end, the model was able to rank in the top 10% of players. If you are unfamiliar with Diplomacy, it is a game where seven players compete to attempt to control Europe....

Exclusivity is an important aspect of the console gaming market. Companies use exclusive titles to attract gamers to their platform. In other words, the customer knows they can only get some titles on one console. Nintendo has always thrived on this model, but Microsoft and Sony as increasingly doing the same. Microsoft already has some of the biggest franchises under its wing, such as Halo, Forza, Gears of War, and Fable....

Alongside the new preview, Redmond also unveiled .NET now hosts a fully supported release of Blazor WebAssembly. Let’s start with C#, which is moving to version 9.0 in preview. Microsoft says the new build brings a focus on “supporting terse and immutable representation of data shapes”. Specifically, C# 9.0 gives developers the ability to assign values to object properties when it is created. By focusing on initializers, Microsoft’s lead C# maintainer Mads Torgersen says the language is removing a major hurdle facing developers....

1 Street Fighter IV2 Luxor 23 Madballs in Babo: Invasion4 Poker Smash While Street Fighter is the only major title on that list, the new XBLA titles will still be appreciated by current owners. It has the potential to bring new light to them, opening up the multiplayer scene once more. Street Fighter IV For those who didn’t get the chance to play the first time around, Street Fighter IV is a very solid addition to the series....

Cloud storage services are consumer level and store data such as photos, music, videos, and documents. Microsoft’s OneDrive is an example of this type of service. These storage solutions are also higher scale for businesses, but the CMA was more concerned with standard customers. The authority asked the service providers to give sufficient notice before making such changes. The request also applied to suspending and closure of a service. Importantly, customers should be allowed to receive a pro-rata refund if they do not accept the changes....

According to Microsoft and Intel, STAMINA is less complicated than it at first appears. The first step of the method was researchers converting an input malware file in binary form into raw pixel data. Next, the team used the one-dimensional pixel stream and upscaled it to a 2D image that was compatible with image analysis algorithms. Microsoft and Intel selected images based on file size (see table below). Once the pixel stream was converted to 2D, it was resized to be smaller....

One of those is a new Office.com homepage. From now on, it will feature AI-powered suggestions to help you get to the work that matters. In the recommended section, users will see files that most require their attention, while the discover section will show documents colleagues are working on. The AI-driven Office.com features extend to images, where there will be automatic image and video processing. It can determine where photos were taken and the text taken, allowing for an easy search process....

DCS says 6,000 people move through its prison system each year, with more than half returning through re-offence within two years. Education and skills development are one of the areas DCS believes are lacking in rehabilitation efforts. Microsoft has been drafted in to help implement technology as a driver for education in the prison system. Microsoft Australia national technology officer Lee Hickin says the company has worked with DCS on a cloud computing network....

To help handle the load, Microsoft is boosting its worldwide data center output and says it is adding more resource limits to new Azure customers. On the Microsoft Azure blog, Microsoft says how it is managing “business continuity with Azure”, including helping customers complete urgent work and continuing to expand Azure alongside ongoing demands. At the end of last month, Microsoft said it was tweaking cloud services like Microsoft Teams to handle growing demand....

According to Microsoft, the new feature means Azure Sentinel can detect unknown users and insider threats in a more efficient way. Of course, when such threats occur speed of detection is important. Sentinel works with Azure to provide “cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tool.” Sentinel works by gathering huge quantities of data from cloud-based services, such as Office 365 third-party offerings. Powered by AI, Sentinel can work with inner-organizational machine learning tools to reduce “alert fatigue”....

The obvious question is why bother changing the name? Matt Salsamendi, Co-founder and Mixer Engineering Lead, gives a fairly vague answer: “This was a tough decision, and not one that we made lightly. But, it was something that we decided on as a team. We believe so much in the power of the platform and want to grow it in every major market around the world. Unfortunately, that wasn’t something we could do with the Beam name....

Specifically, Microsoft Bing is now making travel searches more powerful with a new AI integration. According to the company, web searches for travel will now provide AI-driven results across package vacations, destinations, flights, car rentals, hotels and more. When a user searches a destination, Bing now surfaces an overview page that is dedicated to travel for the locations. This page shows a description of the location, travel stories from other people, popular similar destinations, and things to see and do in the area....

Azure Data Lake allows developers, analysts, and data scientists to store huge data safety in the cloud. It also provides features for processing across languages and platforms. Microsoft says the solution removed complexities in mass data storage, allowing customers a faster and more efficient experience. The roll out in Europe includes both the company’s Azure Data Lake suites: Azure Data Lake Store – the first cloud Data Lake for enterprises that is secure, massively scalable and built to the open HDFS standard....

1 Edge and Chrome2 Focus Feature Microsoft has created three testing channels: Beta, Developer, and Canary. You may already be familiar with Canary as this is the preview channel for Chrome too. These are early preview releases that can be buggy and are update daily. Canary releases should not be run on your main PC. Elsewhere, the Developer channel will deliver Chromium Edge builds that are more stable through weekly updates....

1 Surface and Windows2 Xbox Surface and Windows also performed in the positive, making this financial round a good one for the company. Overall, Microsoft reported revenue of $28.9 billion for the timeframe ending December 31, 2017. In terms of net income, the company made $7.5 billion. Over the holiday frame, Microsoft saw revenue jump 12 percent compared to the same quarter in 2016. Microsoft cloud strategy has seen CEO Satya Nadella push the company towards a cloud-first model....

Skype Community Manager, Petr, says usernames are being developed for a reintroduction. However, he does not detail when they will return. Petr responded to feedback from way back in December 2018. Petr states that there are “many blockers for [the Skype team], both technical and legal but it is in progress.” What those blockers are is uncertain, but they seem to be holding Microsoft back. Either way, it is arguable that Skype does not need to have usernames....

Deepfake are photos, videos, or audio that are synthetic media. They manipulate the original content with artificial intelligence (AI) to make it seem the content is something else. For example, a person talking in their bedroom could use deepfake to make themselves look like Tom Cruise, complete with movements and voice. While the technology is still new, it is improving constantly. Some of the best deepfakes will fool people who don’t pay enough attention....

The smartphone app uses computer vision to give visually impaired users a description of their surroundings and environment. Once downloaded, users point their iPhone camera at a person and let the AI take over. The app will say who the person is and their current emotion. Seeing AI will also work on items, such as products. In this instance, the app will tell the users what the product is. Microsoft says the AI it uses runs natively on the devices, so there is no need to be connected to the internet or cloud....

Microsoft has named the new Azure service after Bastion hosts. These a specially built computers that operate on a network level to prevent attacks. In a blog post, Corporate Vice President of Azure Networking Yousef Khalidi, says Azure Bastion Services provides off-internet VM security. Azure Bastion is a platform as a service (PaaS) that gives Microsoft’s cloud customers access to RDP and SSH connectivity to VMs through the Secure Socket Layer (SSL)....

Essentially, Microsoft is planning to roll out the Windows Community Toolkit v6.0 this summer, bundled with the WindowsXAMLHost and wrapped controls for .NET. A 6.1 preview will also launch, which will include the .NET Core 3 version and launch in the second half of 2019. As you’d expect, other versions of XAML Islands are looking further out. Here’s the official roadmap: “XAML Islands v2 is intended to ship as a part of WinUI 3....