If you think about it, there’s arguably no competition at all. Companies increasingly want to work to help the climate and the more that do, the better it is for all of us and the future of the planet. Tech companies being the ultra-competitive bunch they are actively competing on who can be cleanest. In return, they get a nice pat on the back. In an extensive report, Vox looks at Microsoft’s climate commitments and what the company is doing to achieve them....

It is worth noting Microsoft has since confirmed Xbox Live, Mixer, and Xbox Live support are all now back up. However, the company is also experiencing some unrelated issues with Microsoft Teams today. Microsoft confirmed through its Xbox Support Twitter account that Xbox Live and Mixer were affected by the outage. The Xbox Live status page was also down so the team was forced to update through Twitter. Mixer also went down as confirmed by the service’s status page, with the following message: “Update – A data center networking outage is having impact across several services....

“We’ve seen recent activity targeting democratic institutions in Europe as part of the work our Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) and Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) carry out every day to protect all of our customers,” said Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security & Trust at Microsoft. “These attacks are not limited to campaigns themselves but often extend to think tanks and non-profit organizations working on topics related to democracy, electoral integrity, and public policy and that are often in contact with government officials,” Burt said....

Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President in the Operating Systems Group at Microsoft, confirmed the changes on Twitter: “We use Win10S as an option for schools or businesses that want the ‘low-hassle’/ guaranteed performance version,” Belfiore said. “Next year 10S will be a “mode” of existing versions, not a distinct version. SO … I think it’s totally fine/good that it’s not mentioned” The Windows 10 S mode will be included on Windows 10 will allow users to choose which version to use....

1 What to Expect2 Console News We’ll touch on both those aspects below but it’s worth mentioning Microsoft has not said anything about Lockhart or more details on the Xbox Series X. At the moment, the event is billed directly as a game showcase for Xbox Game Studios titles. The event is part of Microsoft’s Xbox 20/20 events, which run every month. Started in May, the events are packaging what Microsoft planned to announce at E3....

As a new platinum sponsor, Microsoft joins Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Booking.com. However, Microsoft is not just sponsoring MariaDB, but is also partnering. The company announced a preview of Azure Database for the database. Starting today, Azure Database for MariaDB joins Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL in the Azure stable of managed database service. The decision follows Microsoft evolution as a company that now embraces the open source community....

With the preview now rolling out, Microsoft is offering pricing details. Instead of paying for separate Xbox Game Pass subs, users can pay a single price for up to four friends or family. It is worth noting the sharing plan is only available for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This is the premium version of the service that provides the complete Game Pass library, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox Gold, Xbox Live, and EA Play....

While Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is no longer flagging Chrome, it remains unclear if install file was indeed malicious. It is likely this was a mistake from Microsoft’s product because the same install files are no longer being flagged. It is worth noting Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an enterprise tool. Of course, these days when any program is flagged as malicious admins panic. Organizations face multiple threats from cyber attacks....

It was January 2019 when the project was announced and two years may seem like a long time on paper, especially for a company with Microsoft’s resources. However, there are some things to consider when looking at the timeframe and progress. Firstly, the Redmond campus is a 500-acre site and Microsoft is redoing almost all of it. That’s a lot of work over a multi-billion-dollar project. In total, Microsoft will revamp 6....

Normally Edge will offer a prompt to import data from another browser during the initial launch. This allows you to easily take your passwords, bookmarks, open tabs, history and other information across browsers. However, there is currently no way to granularly choose which information to take. Microsoft is expanding on this feature to make it more flexible, starting with the Microsoft Edge 104 Canary release. Specifically, there are new settings where users can now choose what data Edge should bring along....

A team at security firm Armorblox says the attacks are targeting Microsoft emails through phishing expeditions coming from legitimate domains. Among them is Google Firebase. This means the emails with the malicious payload can bypass Microsoft’s security filters. “The email titles, sender names and content did enough to mask their true intention and make victims think the emails were really from FedEx and DHL Express respectively,” researchers say. “Emails informing us of FedEx scanned documents or missed DHL deliveries are not out of the ordinary; most users will tend to take quick action on these emails instead of studying them in detail for any inconsistencies....

During an Azure migration tutorial at Microsoft Ignite, an employee had to pause the presentation and switch to Chrome to get things up and running. Though it happened back in September, users have only recently discovered the slip-up. However, as you can tell by the video below, Edge was in private browsing mode, which could have been the cause. Naturally, Microsoft’s browser usually works perfectly with Azure. Lock-down Issues The employee also handled it admirably....

However, reported suggest Microsoft will not be launching a new Surface Pro or Surface Book. We have already speculated as much. That leaves fewer theories over what the company will unveil. It seems far too early for the oft-rumored Surface Phone to be launched. The hardware and software event will get underway 9:30AM ET on May 2nd. The invite leads with “Learn what’s next” which offers a subtle hint that the event will put a focus on education....

Azure IP Advantage was launched by Microsoft in 2017 and gives Azure organizations a protective barrier against intellectual property (IP) risks, such as patent infringements. Since joining OIN and LOT, Microsoft says it realizes more can be done to help companies. Indeed, the company says IoT-litigated patents have increase over 400 percent from 2013 to 2018 in the United States alone. Microsoft spent time with customers to better understand how to improve the Azure IP Advantage program....

E3 should see Microsoft fully reveal Project xCloud following last year’s initial announcement. We may get a preview but will almost certainly get full details and a firm launch cycle. In the meantime, Microsoft is whetting the appetite by dropping some details regarding the platform. The company has been allowing employees to test xCloud, including using the solution as intended. That means allowing them to take devices outside and play Xbox games anywhere by leveraging the Azure-powered cloud....

If you are unfamiliar with the difference in the sites, a classic SharePoint site has customization from added code. Online sites use modern user interfaces that use the SharePoint Framework extensions. Details were provided by Bob German, a partner technical architect with Microsoft. He highlighted the difference between the branding of sites. Classic SharePoint customers will be happy there have been no code changes made, so nothing has changed at their end....

The Redmond giant is planning to extended servicing for Windows 10 1511, 1607, 1703, and 1709 for six months. The plan should help organizations specifically, who can struggle to keep up with the bi-yearly updates. As a result, the support schedule now looks like this: This only applies to those on Enterprise or Education versions, not regular consumers. There are more logistical hurdles for large organizations when upgrading, and this should give some time for those....

That release date is good news as a report last week suggested the Surface Pro with LTE would be delayed until the spring. While it is essentially the same as the normal Surface Pro with added LTE connectivity, the new device is limited to the Core i5 configuration. This means the Surface Pro with LTE gets 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage....

After months of further development, you can now use Script Lab to easily test Office’s JavaScript APIs. It lets you open a code window from which you can write and execute JavaScript with ease. In part, it’s a training tool. It lets developers play around with code to quickly create prototypes and modify them. It also means those with little experience can play around without complex setups. It requires no extra apps or configuration and can be done inside of the Office program....

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) are a Google-led project for creating webpages that are faster and more responsive. Reducing loading times through caching techniques is the main benefit of AMP. In terms of Microsoft, the company will now integrate support directly into Bing on the web. Users will now see a lightning icon at the top of websites that already support AMP. Pages that do support the project will now load faster than websites that do not....