by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
Washington : Is it incumbent on an American company to turn over data to law enforcement agencies when demanded even if such data are stored overseas? This issue is at the core of a case involving Microsoft that the the US Supreme Court is set to hear on Tuesday.
The case could have far reaching implications with regard to privacy concerns of international customers of American technology companies on the one hand and law enforcement access to digital data on the other.
The litigation turns on a 1986 law, the Stored Communications Act, passed long before American companies began storing massive amounts of data outside US borders, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The case began in 2013 when federal agents conducting a drug investigation obtained a warrant for a suspect’s emails.
But the emails that they were stored in Dublin, Ireland, and Microsoft argued that the warrant could not reach beyond US borders.
Microsoft says it stores emails close to their owner in order to make retrieval faster and, according to the tech giant, the Government did not suggested that the concerned individual resided in the US.
Microsoft has framed the case as one of digital privacy.
E. Joshua Rosenkranz, who will argue Microsoft’s case, called the government’s position “a recipe for global chaos,” the Post reported.
“If ever there were a step that is sure to stoke international tension, it is sidestepping the treaties that were negotiated by countries precisely to protect their sovereignty, and instead unilaterally obtaining reams of personal letters….If another country did this to us, we would be outraged at the most basic level,” Rosenkranz was quoted as saying.
Microsoft reportedly has the backing of major US technology giants including Google and IBM.
The case centres on the Stored Communications Act’s (SCA) territorial reach, and the government argues that the SCA focuses on the emails’ “disclosure” and that Microsoft employees could retrieve them “without leaving their desks in the United States,” the Post reported.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Branding, Markets, Technology
San Francisco : Taking on Apple and Google, Microsoft and Chinese electronics major Xiaomi have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered budget speakers and smartphones.
The companies would work closely in Cloud computing, AI and hardware. Since they have chosen to sign a memorandum, their partnership is not legally binding and it is unclear if any financials are involved, the Verge reported late on Friday.
Microsoft is planning to allow Xiaomi to use its Cloud computing products, including Azure, to develop upgraded phones, laptops and smart devices.
At the same time, the partnership will also give Microsoft more reach and access to the Chinese market.
According to the Chinese player, it stands to benefit from “Microsoft’s globally leading technologies in Cloud computing and AI.”
Xiaomi might also integrate Microsoft Cortana with the Mi AI speaker — a budget speaker with a modern look.
So far, Microsoft has only developed one Cortana smart speaker “Harman Kardon Invoke” that has struggled to compete with other popular digital assistant speakers from Amazon, Google and Apple.
Microsoft and Xiaomi are also in talks about projects that will use several Microsoft AI technology, including conversational AI and speech and services like Bing, Edge and Skype, the report said.
Microsoft and Xiaomi have ties that date back to 2015, when they signed a deal to test Windows 10 on Xiaomi devices.
Last year, Xiaomi was the world’s fifth most popular smartphone company, shipping 92.4 million phones, trailing the likes of Apple, Samsung and Huawei, according to numbers released by market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, World
Bill Gates
New York : Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates has said that he should paymore in taxes and that the government should require other super-wealthy people like him to contribute “significantly higher” amounts.
“I need to pay higher taxes,” Gates, who is worth over $90 billion, said in a CNN interview on Sunday.
“I’ve paid more taxes, over $10 billion, than anyone else, but the government should require the people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes,” he said.
Gates, the second richest man in the world after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, did not mince his words when it came to the Republican tax law, which cut taxes for corporations.
“It was not a progressive tax bill. It was a regressive tax bill,” Gates said, arguing that the biggest benefits will be felt by the super-rich, despite the Republicans’ insistence that the tax cuts will help America’s working and middle classes.
“People who are wealthier tended to get dramatically more benefits than the middle class or those who are poor, and so it runs counter to the general trend you’d like to see, where the safety net is getting stronger and those at the top are paying higher taxes,” he told CNN.
Asked of how he felt about “rising inequality” in the US, Gates, who has given away more than $40 billion of his personal wealth to charitable causes, said: “All advanced democracies have to think about that.
“You still have about a sixth of the population living in conditions that should be very disappointing to us, and government policies need to really think, ‘Why aren’t we doing a better job for those people?'”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Following Google’s removal of the “view image” button from its image search results last week, several users will move to other browsers like Microsoft’s Bing and Startpage that allow download of high-resolution images with a right click, media reported.
Google, after signing a multi-year global licensing deal with Getty Images, removed the “view image” button — a move set to curb the lifting of copyrighted images from its platform.
According to a BBC report, critics said the changes were “awful”, “user-unfriendly” and “degraded the product”.
“This is a terrible idea… you find an image on Google Images only for the image to be nowhere in sight. Talk about destroying your own successful service,” one user tweeted.
Several users suggested people should try rival image search engines such as Bing which still has a “view image” button.
“Others pointed out that right-clicking an image in Google’s Chrome browser, and clicking ‘open image in new tab’ replicated the missing function,” the report added.
According to lifehacker.com, if you were a frequent user of the feature, you can still get a similar experience through another search engine called Startpage.
“The browser is focused on privacy and provides Google’s search results but with no targeted ads and more privacy,” the report said on Monday.
According to media reports, Google will make copyright attribution and disclaimers more prominent in image search results.
“The change is essentially meant to frustrate users. Google has long been under fire from photographers and publishers who felt that image search allowed people to steal their pictures, and the removal of the view image button is one of many changes being made in response,” said The Verge.
Websites sometimes disable the ability to right click, too, which would make it even harder for someone to grab a photo they’re looking for.
In addition to removing the ‘view image’ button, Google has also removed the ‘search by image’ button that appeared when people opened up an image.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Markets, Startup Basics, Technology
San Francisco : Microsoft has committed $500 million for a new programme to help nurture start-ups, offering resources such as Azure credits and sales support.
“Microsoft for Startups” will deliver access to technology, go-to-market and community benefits to help startups grow their customer and revenue base.
“We are committing $500 million over the next two years to offer joint sales engagements with startups, along with access to our technology and new community spaces,” Charlotte Yarkoni, Corporate Vice President, Growth and Ecosystems at Microsoft, said in a blog post late on Wednesday.
Microsoft has over 40,000 sales representatives and hundreds of thousands of partners.
The programme provides dedicated resources to prepare startup marketing and sales teams to effectively sell their Cloud solutions to enterprise organisations in partnership with Microsoft’s global sales organisation and partner ecosystem.
The programme provides startups with up to $120,000 in free Azure credits, enterprise grade technical support and development tools – supporting the languages of their choice.
“In addition, qualified startups also get access to productivity and business applications, including Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365,” the post said.
Microsoft “Reactorsa are physical spaces where entrepreneurs, developers, investors and the business community can come together to interact, learn and share.
“Over the next month (March), we will open the doors on new Microsoft Reactor spaces in London, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Shanghai and Beijing,” Yarkoni said.
—IANS
