Specifically, the company wants to make Cortana Skills Set easier to use for creating “company-specific”. Called the Cortana Skills Kit for Enterprise, the solution pushes Microsoft’s plans to steer Cortana away from consumers and more towards organizations. The original Skills Kit was announced back at Build 2017. It allows developers to create applications and tools to work on the assistant. Available across platforms, the Skills Kit leverages the Microsoft Bot Network to create bots and apps....

According to the company, Z-code models use “Mixture of Experts” learning techniques, which Microsoft says means they are more efficient. That’s because only parts of the model are necessary to complete tasks. Microsoft says the set of Z-code medals will enhance translations driven by machine learning. Furthermore, Translator and Azure AI will support more languages, including those that have less data available for training. Because of their efficiency, the models are significantly more scalable than previous resources, able to handle more parameters without increasing compute load....

To do so, it ensures malicious apps can’t make changes to the registry, via PowerShell cmdlets, and by adjusting group policies. It has been available to Windows Insiders since late 2018, but this signals its readiness for wide deployment. As well as Windows, Tamper Protection is available in Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection. This is Microsoft’s enterprise-grade tool that uses techniques like heuristic analysis to discover threats that traditional AVs would miss....

It has since hosted a 20-minute AMA in which it explained its reasoning, as well as its priorities and trade-offs in the coming year. However, this doesn’t appear to have sated partner program participants, and the video has since been removed from YouTube. So, what are internal use rights, and why are partners so ready to dispute the change? Well, the name is quite self-explanatory. It means they can use Microsoft software in their business, a tiered system determining how many IURs they’re allowed....

In a message posted by the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) today, the company confirmed the delay. The message says that a late issue found in the release could compromise customers. Microsoft needs time to resolve the issue before sending it out. “Our top priority is to provide the best possible experience for customers in maintaining and protecting their systems. This month, we discovered a last minute issue that could impact some customers and was not resolved in time for our planned updates today....

Starting with the Surface Laptop 2, the device comes with the matte black finish we have discussed recently. This is the same new color Microsoft introduced earlier in the event for the Surface Pro 6. Elsewhere, Surface chief Panos Panay says attention was paid to the keyboard to deliver an excellent typing experience: “If you don’t get a great typing experience, you can’t stay in the flow,” he says....

However, Microsoft admits a launch of the technology is still some way off. At the moment, the company is demoing ElectionGuard in a controlled environment. Indeed, Microsoft says it will not release any commercial voting machines. Instead, ElectionGuard will be open sourced on GitHub and will be available later this year. That will allow developers to implement the technology into their voting hardware. ElectionGuard makes voting systems auditable and verifiable....

It seems the slowdown in the economy is pushed Microsoft to pause TV advertising. Three sources speaking to Business Insider say the company has ceased all TV ads for the main Microsoft brand. Moreover, there is so far no indication of when the ads will resume. This move was signposted by Variety in an earlier report. According to the publication, Microsoft did not participate in the TV upfronts. This means the company opted out of buying network inventory which would have given it a better rate....

It was solid month for the new browser, which is running on Google’s Chromium base these days. First up is a new feature for the Collections section of the browser. Collections was brought to the Microsoft Edge preview last year before reaching all users in April. Collections can help users organize and share to help keep track easier. Microsoft says the feature leverages “Cloud featured intelligence and an intuitive interface to help you collect, organize and share content” as you browse content on the web....

Sleeping tabs launched fully at Build 2021 after spending several months in preview. Sleeping Tabs offers performance gains when a user has multiple tabs open at once. Microsoft Edge automatically switches background tabs idle and consumes less power. Microsoft points out it can reduce memory usage by 32% and uses 37% less CPU on average. While Microsoft Edge Sleeping Tabs work automatically, users can also take customizable action. Timers can be set on sleeping apps, such as leaving them inactive for a set amount of time before their a put to sleep....

The functionality will be a great assistance to companies who use a hybrid of G Suite and Exchange, allowing for real-time free/busy information, support for Outlook 2010+ clients, and more. New Admin Features Importantly, it also gives admins more tools. They can turn Calendar Interlop on for a domain, use automated tools to verify set up, and view error messages. Naturally, they’ll also be able to track cross-system user requests for free/busy information using the Google Admin console....

“Microsoft OneDrive wants to ensure users have the best possible sync experience on Windows, which is why OneDrive maintains the industry standard of support for NTFS. Microsoft discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem – which was immediately remedied. Nothing has changed in terms of official support and all OneDrive folders will continue to need to be located on a drive with the NTFS filesystem....

It is arguable that Microsoft’s discovery of the pair od zero-day exploits came by chance. The company was analysing a PDF sample of a potential exploit for a Windows kernel flaw. That PDF was sent by ESET senior malware researcher Anton Cherepanov. While looking into that potential vulnerability, Microsoft stumbled upon two entirely different zero-day exploits. The first was a flaw in Adobe services, while the second affected older Microsoft platforms like Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008....

In India, Microsoft could count a major cost for ransomware attacks on Windows. The country is pushing the company to offer customers a one-time discount on Windows 10 upgrades. Authorities say 50 million Windows users should be able to upgrade to Windows 10 at a lower price to better combat ransomware. So, is Microsoft being held to ransom over ransomware? Well, it does seem that way, but reports in India suggest the company’s division in the country has agreed in principle to the discount....

Matt Miller, a Microsoft security engineer, told attendees the company has shored up its products and widescale attacks through security flaws are rare. Miller says Microsoft’s ongoing improvement of security features has helped protect customers. Among those features are on-by-default firewalls, Protected View in Office, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), and app sandboxing. Essentially, low-level cyberattacks are now finding it nearly impossible to rupture Microsoft’s security blanket. As for more sophisticated attacks, those attacks are finding it much more difficult....

By adding Capture to Event Hubs, cloud customers get methods for data retention and downstream micro-batch processing. It allows the ability to pull data directly from Event Hubs to Azure Data Lake Store. With Capture, streaming data in Event Hubs can be automatically delivered to Azure Blob storage and Data Lake Store. This provides important flexibility when selecting time or size intervals. Microsoft says using Event Hubs is the simplest method to load streaming data in Azure....

For some reason, the software has been delayed. By how much depends, but it is certainly launching months behind schedule. If we look at Windows Server as a release barometer, Hyper-V Server 2019 may be as much as eight months late. Sure, Hyper-V Server is a standalone product that is free. It uses the same technology and is highly linked to Windows Server 2019, with the 2019 build arriving in a Windows Server preview last summer....

We will discuss VS 2017 first. This is the latest preview for Visual Studio 2017 and comes with Windows 10 SDK preview 17754 baked into the UWP development Workload. This allows dev’s to access APIs from Windows 10 more efficiently. With VS 2017 version 15.9 Preview 2 comes with several new feature which are detailed below: You can now import and export an installation configuration file that specifies which workloads and components should be installed with an instance of Visual Studio....

Of course, getting an update for Microsoft Office can potentially be exciting with new features a possibility. However, Version 2212 is a more modest release that does not offer any new features or major changes. Instead, Microsoft is focusing on issuing fixes for known problems across Word, PowerPoint, and Office Suite: Fixed the issue responsible for failing to create presentations in PowerPoint Fixed the issue where text in Word was unexpectedly hidden by a shape...

Ahead of the Xbox E3 event, Microsoft will open the sale on Thursday, June 7. Customers can save big on accessories and titles. However, the big part of this sale is a $50 discount on Xbox One consoles. This includes all consoles, even the flagship Xbox One X. With the sale coming in three days, here are the offers that will be available: $199 for 500GB Xbox One S console, whiles supplies last $249 for 1TB Xbox One S bundles such as the the Xbox One S PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Bundle, or Xbox One S Starter Bundle, $449 for Xbox One X console through June 23....