BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Microsoft Monday: Digital Geneva Convention Idea, Project Scorpio Update, Outlook.com Premium Launch

This article is more than 7 years old.

“Microsoft Monday” takes a look back at the past week of news related to Microsoft. This week, “Microsoft Monday” includes details about a Digital Geneva Convention idea, the new Smart Email Insights app, the launch of Outlook.com Premium, a Project Scorpio update and more!

Microsoft Calls For Tech Companies And Governments To Agree On A “Digital Geneva Convention”

Microsoft is calling upon tech companies and governments to work together in order to protect people against hacks. Recently at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith essentially said he wants companies and governments to agree to a “Digital Geneva Convention.”

By signing the “Digital Geneva Convention,” this would make sure that the tech companies would not launch offensive cyberattacks and users will be protected against nation-state attacks. “The past year has witnessed not just the growth of cybercrime, but a proliferation in cyberattacks that is both new and disconcerting,” said Smith in a blog post. “As engineers and other employees across the tech sector meet in San Francisco, we need to ask ourselves what our response should be.”

The actual Geneva Convention was an agreement signed in 1949 following World War II with rules about armed conflict. Even though there has been an increase in nation-state attacks, there are very few agreements in place about the acceptable uses.

Back in 2015, the U.S. and China signed a pledge to avoid hacking companies in order to gain intellectual property. The Group of 20 nations signed a similar deal several months later. Smith pointed out that President Trump should make this type of agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Two of the biggest nation-state attacks include the 2014 Sony hack believed to have originated from North Korea and the 2016 election hacks from Russia. Microsoft pointed out that 74% of businesses across the world expect to be hacked each year. Plus financial losses due to cyberattacks are believed to hit $3 trillion by 2020.

Since it is unclear what President Trump’s stance is on cyberattacks, Smith said it is up to technology companies to step up. “We will assist and protect customers everywhere—that is what we do. We will not aid in attacking customers anywhere, regardless of what government asks us to do so.”

Bill Gates Expresses Concern For Foreign Aid Under President Trump

Speaking of President Trump, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has been expressing concern for foreign aid under the new administration. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently published its annual letter for 2017 where it discussed its philanthropic efforts. The letter highlighted a decline in the child mortality rate with 122 million lives saved. And more than 300 million women in the developing world now use contraception.

Gates suggested that inwards-looking nationalism could negatively affect the $30 billion that America has budgeted for aid contributions. “If you interpret America First (the stated doctrine of President Trump) in certain ways, it would suggest not prioritizing the stability of Africa and American leadership,” said Gates via USA Today.

Bill and Melinda Gates also said that there is a major concern for girls and women across the world. For example, the “global gag rule” would prevent funding to go towards abortion-related organizations. "We're concerned that this shift could impact millions of women and girls around the world ... It's likely to have a negative effect on a broad range of health programs that provide lifesaving treatment and prevention options to those most in need," said Melinda Gates.

Along with Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates created The Giving Pledge — which is an organization that asks wealthy individuals to offer half of their wealth for philanthropy. Bill and Melinda Gates plan to donate 99.96% of their wealth to philanthropy and charitable causes. “Warren has had more of a positive effect on my life than any non-relative,” said Gates in an interview with Forbes. “His advice, his example, his humor, his wisdom.”

Bill Gates Signs Up For China-Based WeChat

According to The Verge, Bill Gates recently decided to join the China-based microblogging application WeChat. WeChat is one of the largest messaging apps in the world with over 800 million users. Gates introduced himself to the service by saying “Hello” in Chinese followed by “Welcome to my official WeChat account.”

Gates plans to use the account to publish a Chinese version of his blog with the username “gatesnotes.” This is a great way for Gates to increase the distribution of his message especially since Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China.

Microsoft Releases Smart Email Insights App

Last week, Microsoft launched a new Email Insights app to make it easier to find email messages in Outlook.com and Gmail. The Email Insights app was created by the Microsoft Garage team, which is a skunkworks team focused on building unique applications.

Email Insights supports auto-complete functionality and spelling is auto-corrected. The results are sorted based on relevance. And the app also has tabs so you can set up multiple searches.

Microsoft Unveils Outlook.com Premium

Microsoft has released a new Outlook.com Premium tier for $19.95 per year. The service is ad-free and it offers a few premium features.

The paid service offers the ability to access custom email domains such as “john@thisismydomainname.com." About five of these types of domain names are supported. This feature is available for free for the first year, but it will cost $10 per year after that unless you already own a domain name.

Outlook.com Premium users that share a custom name can also set up shared documents, calendars and contacts. The relationships can be shared automatically between people with email addresses on the domain name.

Outlook.com Premium is currently only available for U.S. based Outlook.com accounts. BetaNews also pointed out that the Outlook.com Premium account temporarily costs $19.95. The original price was $49.99 per year.

The Build Conference Sold Out In 8 Hours

Every year, Microsoft hosts a developer conference called Build. This year, tickets for the developer conference sold out in 8 hours, according to VentureBeat. The Build developer conference is happening between May 10 and May 12. 

However, this is not the fastest time that the Build developer conference sold out. Build 2015 sold out in about 45 minutes. And the Build 2016 developer conference sold out in under 5 minutes.

VentureBeat pointed out that a number of people on Twitter complained about seeing a “too many requests” error when trying to buy tickets through the Build website — which likely affected the speed of tickets being sold.

Another reason why the event did not sell out right away is because of the change in location. This year, the Build developer conference is taking place in Seattle instead of San Francisco.

There is a waiting list available for the event and the tickets cost $2,195 each. Plus you will be able watch the event in a livestream. At the Build developer conference, Microsoft will likely focus on Windows 10, HoloLens, Azure, Xbox, Visual Studio, bots, artificial intelligence and more.

Microsoft Is Delaying The February Patches To Mid-March

Microsoft has decided to postpone its Patch Tuesday updates and other patches for around a month. According to ZDNet, Microsoft officials said that the patches expected to be released on the February 15 Patch Tuesday and would be released on Tuesday March 14 instead.

Microsoft did not specify the reason for the delay. But ZDNet’s sources said that Microsoft was having issues with the patch build system.

"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," said Microsoft in a blog post. "After considering all options, we made the decision to delay this month's updates. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this change to the existing plan."

Report: Microsoft To Reveal Xbox Project Scorpio On June 11th

Last year, Microsoft announced a new project called Project Scorpio at E3. Specifically, Microsoft is expected to discuss Project Scorpio at the E3 gaming event during a press conference at 2pm Pacific Time on June 11th in Los Angeles. Details about the announcement were revealed on the Xbox Twitter pageThe tweet says “Brace for big news” and a photo was posted.

How can you tell from the tweet that the announcement is about the Project Scorpio? The photo showcases a ultra-high-def 4K chip, which is not built into the current generation of the Xbox.

Project Scorpio has 4.5 times the power of the original Xbox One. And Project Scorpio will be able to run Xbox One games at ultra-high-def 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. The current Xbox One allows users to play games at 1080p.

Microsoft Allows You To Test Drones In A Real World Simulator

Microsoft has released a new simulator tool that lets you test and train drones and robots within a virtual environment so you can get a feel for them before using it in the real world. A beta version of the simulator is available for free on GitHub through an open source license.

Microsoft said that its open source tool is more advanced than other simulators. The simulator also uses the latest photorealistic technologies to make the drones and bots simulations even more accurate. And the tool also allows you to test artificial intelligence creations in Minecraft.

“You can do a lot of experiments, and even if those experiments fail they have very little cost in real life,” said Microsoft researcher Ashish Kapoor via The Verge. “In the real world it's extremely hard to explore all possible things, however in simulation we have the luxury of trying out many different things.”

The Microsoft Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform supports DJI and MavLink drones so developers do not have to write separate code for those types of drones.

Microsoft Spectator View: What HoloLens Feels Like Without Using One

Microsoft has released a new service called Spectator View, which allows people to see what it feels like using the HoloLens. By using instructions provided by Microsoft, developers can set up camera mounts and software to film the HoloLens experience. And you can live-stream the holographic content live.

To set it up, you would need to connect a DSLR camera to a PC with a video capture card such as the Blackmagic 4K Card, according to Tom’s Guide. And several software applications have to be installed such as Blackmagic Capture Card SDK and Desktop Video Runtime, OpenVC 3.1, Unity, Visual Studio 2015 and a Spectator View application from GitHub.

The camera films the people wearing the HoloLens headset and a holograph app utilizes a shared environment.

Microsoft And Tata Motors Collaborate On Technology Deal

Microsoft India and Tata Motors announced a new technology partnership to personalize experiences for vehicles. The first vehicle that will be unveiled through the collaboration with an enhanced driving experience is going to appear at the Geneva International Motor show on March 7.

“Using IoT (internet of things), AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning technologies, we will provide vehicle owners in India and across the world a safe, productive and fun driving experience,” said Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari.

Microsoft Monday includes seven days worth of updates from the Redmond-based software giant. What are your thoughts about the “Microsoft Monday” news from this week? Please leave a comment!