by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Business, Markets, Medium Enterprise, Technology
By Nishant Arora,
New Delhi : Satya Nadella wants people to love the products Microsoft makes and does not want them to just buy because they feel they have to. This also goes for Microsoft Surface Book 2 that arrived in India on Tuesday.
Microsoft’s shipments of Surface Pro and Surface Book 2 reached over 1 million in the second quarter of this year.
According to global market research firm Strategy Analytics, Microsoft’s Surface Pro and Surface Book 2 devices had second straight quarter of double-digit, year-on-year growth since Q3 2016.
Starting at Rs 137,999, Surface Book 2 (that comes in 13.5-inch and 15-inch variants) is a portable powerhouse that claims to end the barrier between the desktop and the laptop.
Let us see what the 13.5-inch detachable with 8GB RAM, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) and Intel HD Graphics 620 has to offer its Indian fans.
Microsoft has not deviated from the original Surface Book design with Surface Book 2.
This time, the design is outstanding. The magnesium chassis gives a much subtler look than an aluminium-finish body; there are hardly any creaks or weak points owing to a unibody design.
With the latest 8th Gen Intel Core processors and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 and 1060 discrete graphics options, Surface Book 2 claims to be up to five times more powerful than the original, and as twice as powerful as the latest Apple MacBook Pro.
Surface Book 2 provides nearly all-day battery life – up to 17 hours of video playback — that is 70 per cent more than the latest MacBook Pro.
What’s more, you get up to five hours of battery life in the detachable mode. To detach, simply press a release button on the keyboard that separates the display from the main laptop body.
Microsoft has placed CPU, RAM, storage, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and battery into the display. The main laptop body has a bigger battery and houses Nvidia GPU for high-performing tasks.
In a pre-briefing session, it was stunning to observe “PixelSense Display” while moving seamlessly between professional apps, immerse in gaming or simply surf.
Surface Book 2’s crisp “PixelSense Display” and multi-touch Surface Pen as well as “Surface Dial” on-screen support can make powerPoint presentations more effective.
The design has been refined — from the dynamic “fulcrum hinge” for a more stable touch experience — with an improved backlit keyboard and flexibility of both USB Type-A and USB Type-C ports.
The keypad comes with glass-track pad, anti-fingerprint coating and improved multi-finger gestures.
The device is compatible with next-generation Surface Pen and Surface Dial on-screen interaction and ships with 64-bit Windows 10 Pro (Windows Creators Update).
There are two cameras: 5MP front and and 8MP camera with auto-focus at the rear.
For an ever-evolving Indian gamer, Surface Book 2 can handle popular PC games at 1080p and 60 frames per second (FPS) – in some cases even matching the graphics performance of game consoles like Xbox One.
The bigger 15-inch tablet even has a built-in Xbox One wireless support which helps you pair Xbox One controllers and compatible headsets to play with no cords or additional dongles required.
The high-end Surface Book 2 models are also ready for Windows Mixed Reality (MR) games — including the highest-performance virtual reality (VR) gaming experience.
What does not work?
Apart from being a bit bulky, we could not find anything else (at the moment).
Conclusion: If you’re a developer, a digital artist, a designer, an accountant or a serious gamer, Surface Book 2 gives the power of a desktop, the versatility of a tablet, and the freedom of a light and thin laptop in one device.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
New Delhi : To help billions of users manage their data and help them transfer that into and out of online services without privacy issues, four tech giants — Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter — on Friday announced to join the open source initiative called Data Transfer Project (DTP).
In the early stages at the moment, the Data Transfer Project will help users of one service to use their data to sign up for another service with encryption.
“Using your data from one service when you sign up for another still isn’t as easy as it should be. Today we’re excited to announce that we’re participating in the Data Transfer Project,” said Steve Satterfield, Privacy and Public Policy Director at Facebook in a statement.
The initiative comes at a time when data-sharing is making headlines — be it the massive Cambridge Analytica data scandal or third-party apps accessing users’ data at various platforms — amid countries announcing new data-protection laws like the European General Data Regulation Protection (GDPR).
Moving data between any two services can be complicated because every service is built differently and uses different types of data that may require unique privacy controls and settings.
“For example, you might use an app where you share photos publicly, a social networking app where you share updates with friends, and a fitness app for tracking your workouts,” said Satterfield.
“These are the kinds of issues the Data Transfer Project will tackle. The Project is in its early stages, and we hope more organisations and experts will get involved,” he added.
The Data Transfer Project uses services’ existing APIs and authorisation mechanisms to access data. It then uses service specific adapters to transfer that data into a common format, and then back into the new service’s API.
According to Google, the project will let users “transfer data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it”.
The tech giants also released a white paper on this project.
“The future of portability will need to be more inclusive, flexible, and open. Our hope for this project is that it will enable a connection between any two public-facing product interfaces for importing and exporting data directly,” read the white paper.
According to Damien Kieran, Data Protection Officer at Twitter, right now, much of the online products and services we use do not interact with each other in a coherent and intuitive fashion.
“Information that is housed on one platform cannot be easily and securely transferred to other services. This is not a positive collective experience for the people who use our services and we are keen to work through some of the challenges as an industry,” Twitter said.
The Data Transfer Project was formed in 2017 to create an open-source, service-to-service data portability platform so that all individuals across the web could easily move their data between online service providers whenever they want.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Large Enterprise, Markets, Technology
San Francisco : Microsoft on Friday introduced new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered capabilities in Microsoft 365 that will allow people in an organisation create live and on-demand events.
Events can now be viewed in real-time or on-demand, with high-definition video and interactive discussion, the company said in a statement.
Launched one year back, the adoption of Microsoft 365 has grown by more than 100 per cent — building on over 135 million commercial monthly Office 365 users, 200 million Windows 10 commercial devices in use, and over 65 million seats of Enterprise Mobility + Security.
“Today, we are introducing new ways Microsoft 365 connects people across their organisation and improves collaboration habits, including new AI-infused capabilities,” said Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft.
AI-powered services will include speech-to-text transcription, timecoding, transcript search and closed captions to make the event more accessible to all.
Microsoft rolled out the preview of a new Workplace Analytics solution, which uses collaboration insights from the Microsoft Graph, to help teams run efficient meetings, create time for focused work, and respect work/life boundaries.
“Organisations can use aggregate data in Workplace Analytics to identify opportunities for improving collaboration, then share insights and suggest habits to specific teams using MyAnalytics,” Markezich said.
Microsoft Whiteboard is now generally available for Windows 10, coming soon to iOS, and preview on the web, the company announced.
“The new Whiteboard application enables people to ideate, iterate, and work together both in person and remotely, across multiple devices,” Microsoft said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Emerging Businesses, Entrepreneurship, Marketing Basics, Markets, Startup Basics, Technology
Redmond (Washington) : In a bid to help marketers strengthen their advertising and marketing strategies in a mobile-first world, India-based mobile advertising and discovery platform InMobi on Tuesday formed a strategic partnership with Microsoft.
InMobi will move to Microsoft Azure as its preferred Cloud provider to combine the power of the Cloud with cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data to provide actionable insights for marketers, Microsoft said in a statement.
“The combination of Microsoft Azure with InMobi’s marketing platforms will deliver new intelligent customer experiences and business insights to organisations around the world,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Touted as the first Indian startup to achieve the unicorn status, InMobi reaches over 1.5 billion unique mobile devices worldwide.
InMobi is expanding its platform for marketers via its Marketing Cloud, adding to its decade-long market leadership through its Advertising Cloud.
With this partnership, InMobi will move in a phased manner to Microsoft Azure and tap into the power of its intelligent capabilities.
“InMobi is building one of the most advanced enterprise platforms for marketers, and we’re extremely excited to partner with Microsoft as we dive into the next frontier of connected devices,” said Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, InMobi.
“With Microsoft’s global reach and advanced security, privacy and compliance, alongside InMobi’s scale and decade-long experience in mobile-first technology, we can truly disrupt the marketing ecosystem,” Tewari added.
The InMobi Marketing Cloud will be sequentially launched market-wise worldwide over the next six months.
“Our cross-platform technology leadership, Azure’s hyper scale and distinctive worldwide go-to-market capabilities will enable rapid scaling of new growth pivots to fuel InMobi’s global ambitions,” noted Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.
The two companies are also aiming to combine the power of InMobi’s Advertising and Marketing Cloud capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
InMobi has recently been recognised as a “2018 CNBC Disruptor 50” company and as Fast Company’s “2018 Most Innovative Companies”.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Entrepreneurship, Markets, News, Startup Basics, Technology
New Delhi : Three IT majors – Microsoft, Tech Avant-Garde and Efee Online – have come together to help Kashmiri students to make up for their academic losses due to frequent shutdowns and curfews in the insurgency-ravaged state.
The three firms have partnered with the Private Schools Association of Kashmir (PSAK) in starting an online education system in Jammu and Kashmir.
“PSAK is partnering with ‘Tech Avant-Garde, Microsoft and Efee online companies to bring Information Technology (IT) which is going to permit solutions to the education system especially during the frequent closure of education institutes of Kashmir,” PSAK head G.N. Var said in a statement.
Microsoft’s Aspire School Program Suite (MASP Pro) will be used to equip schools with innovative learning solutions and technology. This programme combines the benefits of Microsoft’s technology and e-payment solutions from Efee Online to empower teachers and students to be future-ready.
“This is an integrated learning online system in which a student will be given a software, ‘Lycee’ worth Rs 25,000 free with MASP Pro,” said Ali Sait, CEO, Tech Avant-Garde.
“The teachers will be given a device by which they will remain connected with the students especially during the closure of internet and education institutes.”
He said the service was started in the Kashmir Valley first because “we want Kashmir to become a headquarters of the system” that will transform the education in India.
The PSAK has urged the government not to snap the internet services and appealed for special internet service for the education system.
Var said restrictions, curfews, violent situations had become part of day to day life in the valley.
“We are unable to provide quality education to students as our schools get shut even at a small pretext. At times, we cannot even operate buses due to fear of violence. We are living in a conflict zone that we cannot help. But what we are trying to do is to isolate the education sector in a way that it remains largely unaffected.”
—IANS
