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Well, Microsoft’s handling of Bethesda properties may serve as a pointer to the future when Activision Blizzard is under Redmond’s wing. This week, Microsoft confirmed that three upcoming Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox and PC (Game Pass). Microsoft divulged the information in filings to courts amid its battle with the FTC. The information is unlikely to cool concerns the company wants to make Activision games exclusive to Xbox Game Pass....

Microsoft has partnered with the University of Copenhagen and boosting its investment in the Niels Bohr Institute. The company’s employees will collaborate with researchers within the institute. The purpose is to create the world’s first general-purpose scalable quantum computer. Researchers will deal with getting the components and structure ready. Microsoft will help in the process of turning the research into something that is “tangible reality”. The company says it agreed to the partnership because the institute is already deep into development on quantum computing: “The critical pillars for successful and productive Quantum research already exist at the University of Copenhagen – an aligned vision between Microsoft and the University, an exceptional team of top Quantum researchers, a broad and deep pool of post doctorate and student talent, and a solid baseline of facilities and equipment dedicated to Quantum research....

1 Microsoft Teams Changes2 OneNote for Teachers Changes3 Timeline In a rather lengthy post on its blog, the Office team detailed significant changes to Office 365 Education. Corporate education VP Eran Mediddo confirmed changes to Microsoft Teams, OneNote Teachers, and much more. Diction features are arguably the most significant addition coming to Office 365 Education. Students and teachers will be able to dictate hands-free to Word, Word Online, Outlook Desktop, OneNote for Windows 10, OneNote Online, and PowerPoint....

As well as hands-on training, the new expansion gives access to systems integrators. In a blog post, senior director of HoloLens marketing Jeff Hansen explained: “We’ve learned that successful mixed reality solutions are built on great experiences — and those experiences require both a creative design component and a strong competency in application and infrastructure integration and deployment,” he said. “SIs around the world already know how to build, support, integrate and extend Microsoft technologies to meet their customers’ business and IT goals....

The company says Microsoft Authenticator will stop being available starting in January 2023. That means Apple Watch users will not be able to install the app or use its features. Microsoft is clear that this decision is specific to watchOS and does not affect the app on iOS, or indeed any other platform. Microsoft typically releases a companion update for watchOS alongside its updates for the iOS app. However, in January the companion update will stop....

From small macro details to covering the company’s digitization of day-to-day operations, Microsoft’s AI and cloud platforms will play a pivotal role. Kraft Heinz will migrate most its global assets to Microsoft Cloud, while its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software will also migrate to SAP on Azure. The company wants to streamline operations and develop a supply chain with more collaboration. On the consumer end, the deal will help Kraft Heinz provide better quality through accessing real-time data analysis....

Most major companies are promising to become “net-zero” in terms of carbon (GHG Greenhouse gas) emissions across business operations. Timelines for those goals vary from org to org, whether through using tech innovation, reducing waste, getting green credits, of a combination of all those options. Microsoft has gone further than its rivals by setting up a major operation that is solely focused on achieving its environment/carbon commitments. Not only is the company aiming for net-zero across operations, it also plans to atone for all emissions it has ever released since Microsoft was founded....

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection is Microsoft preventative security technology. It arrived on the cloud productivity suite in April. The company is now expanding it to more services within Office 365. The solution is design to stop zero-day exploits before they can corrupt a machine. It is currently available in Office 365 Enterprise E5 and Office 365 Education A5, and it can also be used on Exchange and Office 365 subscription plans....

While the smartphone will run Android, we expect Microsoft wants to deeply integrate its own services into the experience. During the last week, we have seen how this may include support for UWP apps while the handset will also provide a perfect base for Project xCloud. While those are interesting ideas, it is Microsoft’s Your Phone that will provide the backbone of the company’s services on Android and Surface Duo....

Interstitial banner ads have become popular for monetizing apps and games. Microsoft says bringing them to Store Services SDK means apps will have higher eCPMs than standard banners. The company adds that earnings can increased eight to ten times by using the new support. This increase is due to the following reasons: Full user attention: The full screen ads grab the full attention of users. Larger surface area: The increased real estate provides advertisers with more options to show content that attracts potential customers....

Now, the Redmond giant has announced a new update to SwiftKey for Android, which brings keypress sounds to the application. The latest update brings four new keyboard sound profiles, while it also fixes several bugs. To change keypress sounds users should tap or slide the hamburger icon on the left of the prediction bar, open the Typing panel and select Sound and Vibration. In addition, Microsoft has fixed a bug which caused the brackets on Right-to-Left languages to incorrectly flip....

Perks allow users on Xbox Game Pass to access features such as DLC for games, extra in-game content, and more. Perks are now available on the Game Pass app for iOS and Android. All Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Perks are free. Regarding to DLC, it will be interesting to see what content is available. It seems likely that only DLC from Microsoft Game Studios titles will be free. Viewing perks on mobile is easy and users can redeem their perks directly on the application....

More specifically, Microsoft introduced some new apps and capabilities for the platform. One of the new features is a web app called Video Indexer. This allows any Cognitive Services users to manage their large library of videos more easily. Video Indexer will automatically create metadata through the media. It achieves this by transcribing the video in any of 10 languages supported in Microsoft Translator. This allows the indexer to add subtitles to the file....

Microsoft followed the outage on its Azure status webpage. Customers started reporting an error when trying to access some resources in Azure Active Directory. The error message read “AADSTS90033: A Transient error has occurred. Please try again.” By time the situation was resolved, 2 hours and 40 minutes had passed. According to the Microsoft Azure Active Directory team, the issue was caused by request traffic volume in the specific region....

According to a report in Reuters, Microsoft deeming TikTok to be a security risk broke the deal. ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming was upset by Redmond’s stance. Microsoft registered its interest in the company back in August. The interest came following President Trump’s decision to ban TikTok from the United States. An executive order signed last month stops ByteDance from handling any transactions in the United States. In fact, the company was meeting with ByteDance before Trump’s order, going as far as to sign a nonbinding agreement....

In a blog post to confirm the situation, Microsoft describes the potential threat in the following way: “The Microsoft Defender for IoT research team recently analyzed a cross-platform botnet that originates from malicious software downloads on Windows devices and succeeds in propagating to a variety of Linux-based devices. The botnet spreads by enumerating default credentials on internet-exposed Secure Shell (SSH)-enabled devices. Because IoT devices are commonly enabled for remote configuration with potentially insecure settings, these devices could be at risk to attacks like this botnet....

The test showed how SQL Server 2017 with scalable persistent memory could run queries more than five times faster than a fast SSD drive array, but at 50% the cost. Microsoft says this makes the service the world’s first enterprise-grade diskless database server. The company also debuted a tool called Microsoft SQL Operations Studio. With the features, developers and admins improve their database development and operations. SQL Operations Studio is available for dev’s working on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines....

The company is starting to test the new Xbox Home UI for Insiders this week. For everyone else, the UI will come to the Xbox consoles in 2023. Amongst the new UI ideas is a change to the design and layout to make accessing games and applications easier. Microsoft says it will conduct testing experiments through the Insider Program over the coming months before a wider rollout: “We know the Xbox homepage is where our gamers spend the most time, and it’s a space that’s very personal,” says Ivy Krislov, senior product manager lead of Xbox experiences....

This week, Microsoft offered an update on how it is handling Azure cloud capacity. As usual, the focus is on how the company manages demand for Microsoft Teams, which is based on Azure. Microsoft workplace collaboration/video communication platform has seen a significant rise in users during COVID-19. From a daily active userbase of around 20 million, Microsoft Teams usage has soared to over 75 million. Even that figure comes from Microsoft’s financial announcement last month....

Now that the Windows 10 Creators Update is out in the wild, Microsoft is showing how the feature update has improved battery efficiency in Edge. If you have been following the Microsoft Edge battery life story, you will know the company has issued videos pitting the browser against rivals. In its latest test, Microsoft conducted the same test across Edge, Firefox, and Chrome. The same hardware and conditions were used for all browsers....