Microsoft is discontinuing Skype, the once-dominant internet-based phone and video service that revolutionized digital communication in the mid-2000s.
Skype will “no longer be available” to use starting in May, the company confirmed on X, telling users that their log-in information can be used on Microsoft Teams’ free tier in the “coming days.”
Fourteen years after acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion in cash, Microsoft has officially shut down the once-popular communication platform. At the time of its purchase in 2011, Skype was Microsoft’s largest-ever acquisition, and the company integrated it into key products such as Office and the now-defunct Windows Phone.
Despite experiencing a brief resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic, Skype’s influence has steadily declined over the years. Competing services like Zoom, Google Meet, and Cisco WebEx surged in popularity, while Apple’s FaceTime and Meta’s WhatsApp also contributed to its waning relevance.
Additionally, Microsoft has focused its efforts on developing Teams, which offers many of the same features as Skype but is more tailored to modern business communication.
Skype originally launched in Estonia in 2003 and quickly gained traction as a revolutionary tool for free international calls, a significant advantage when traditional phone calls were costly. Its rapid success led to eBay purchasing the platform for $2.6 billion in 2005, but the acquisition proved unsuccessful. In 2009, eBay offloaded a 65% stake in Skype to an investor group for $1.9 billion before Microsoft took full ownership two years later.
Microsoft has yet to respond to CNN’s request for comment onSkype’s shutdown.
The New York Times, a prominent US news organization, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement in training the language model.
The lawsuit contends that ChatGPT, along with other large language models (LLMs), unlawfully used “millions” of articles from the New York Times without permission, resulting in damages amounting to “billions of dollars.”
The lawsuit argues that ChatGPT, by incorporating New York Times content without authorization, is now a direct competitor to the newspaper as a reliable source of information.
It claims that the language model sometimes generates “verbatim excerpts” from New York Times articles when queried about current events, offering access to subscription-based content for free.
Additionally, the lawsuit highlights instances where the Bing search engine, powered by ChatGPT, produced results sourced from a New York Times-owned website without proper attribution or referral links. This, according to the New York Times, not only deprives the newspaper of subscription revenue but also impacts advertising revenue from website visits.
The legal action, initiated in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, alleges that attempts for an “amicable resolution” were made in April when the New York Times approached Microsoft and OpenAI. The BBC has reached out to OpenAI and Microsoft for comments on the matter.
Multiple lawsuits
It comes a month after a period of chaos at OpenAI where co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was sacked – and then rehired – over the course of a few days.
His sacking shocked industry insiders and led to staff threatening mass resignations unless he was reinstated.
But as well as the internal issues, the firm is now facing multiple lawsuits filed in 2023.
In September a similar copyright infringement case was brought by a group of US authors including Game of Thrones novelist George RR Martin and John Grisham.
That followed legal action brought by comedian Sarah Silverman in July, as well as an open letter signed by authors Margaret Atwood and Philip Pullman that same month calling for AI companies to compensate them for using their work.
And OpenAI is also facing a lawsuit alongside Microsoft – and programming site GitHub – from a group of computing experts who argue their code was used without their permission to train an AI called Copilot.
As well as these actions, there have been many cases brought against developers of so-called generative AI – that is, artificial intelligence that can create media based on text prompts – with artists suing text-to-image generators Stability AI and Midjourney in January, claiming they only function by being trained on copyrighted artwork.
In a surprising move, Microsoft Corporation announced the recruitment of Sam Altman, the co-founder and former CEO of OpenAI, just three days after Altman’s departure from OpenAI.
Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, has revealed on X that Altman, along with Greg Brockman and other undisclosed colleagues, will lead a new advanced AI research team at Microsoft.
Nadella expressed anticipation of providing the necessary resources for their success.
Nadella wrote: “We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI and have confidence in our product roadmap, our ability to continue to innovate with everything we announced at Microsoft Ignite, and in continuing to support our customers and partners. We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them. And we’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team. We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.
“I’m super excited to have you join as CEO of this new group, Sam, setting a new pace for innovation. We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to give founders and innovators space to build independent identities and cultures within Microsoft, including GitHub, Mojang Studios, and LinkedIn, and I’m looking forward to having you do the same.”
Sam Altman, co-founder and former CEO of OpenAI, was dismissed from his position by the board of the company on Friday.
In response, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was appointed as the interim CEO to lead OpenAI while a search is underway to identify a permanent successor.
The board’s decision to remove Altman was based on a review process that found he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, impeding its ability to fulfill its responsibilities, leading to a loss of confidence in his leadership.
Murati, having been part of OpenAI’s leadership team for five years, is deemed uniquely qualified for the interim role.
In a statement, the board of directors said: “OpenAI was deliberately structured to advance our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all humanity. The board remains fully committed to serving this mission. We are grateful for Sam’s many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward. As the leader of the company’s research, product, and safety functions, Mira is exceptionally qualified to step into the role of interim CEO. We have the utmost confidence in her ability to lead OpenAI during this transition period.”
As part of the transition, Greg Brockman, who served as chairman of the board at OpenAI, will step down from that role and continue in his position at the company, reporting to the CEO.
OpenAI, originally founded as a non-profit in 2015 with the mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits humanity, underwent a restructuring in 2019 to enable it to raise capital while preserving its non-profit mission, governance, and oversight.
The board, which includes independent directors Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, maintains its responsibility to advance OpenAI’s mission and uphold the principles of its Charter.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s recent decision to rebrand Twitter as X may encounter legal complexities, as other companies, such as Meta (META.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), already hold intellectual property rights to the same letter.
The letter “X” is extensively utilized and referenced in various trademarks, making it susceptible to potential legal disputes. Consequently, the company formerly known as Twitter could encounter challenges in safeguarding its X brand in the future.
“There’s a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” said trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who said he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a wide range of industries.
On Monday, Elon Musk rebranded the social media network Twitter as “X” and revealed a new logo featuring a stylized black-and-white version of the letter.
Trademarks protect brand names, logos, and slogans that identify the sources of goods, and owners of such trademarks can claim infringement if other branding causes consumer confusion. Remedies for infringement can include monetary damages or blocking the use of the contested branding.
Since 2003, Microsoft has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms, which has its Threads platform as a Twitter rival, also owns a federal trademark registered in 2019 that covers a blue-and-white letter “X” for fields like software and social media.
While Meta and Microsoft might not sue immediately, they could take legal action if they perceive Twitter’s X branding to encroach on the brand equity they have built around the letter, according to trademark attorney Josh Gerben.
Both Meta and Microsoft, along with Twitter, have not responded to requests for comment.
Meta itself faced intellectual property challenges when it changed its name from Facebook, including trademark lawsuits filed by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX. Meta also settled another trademark dispute over its new infinity-symbol logo.
If Musk’s rebranding efforts succeed, other companies could potentially lay claim to the letter “X” for their own branding purposes.
“Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as ‘X’, Twitter’s protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo,” said Douglas Masters, a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb.
“The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow.”
Insider reported earlier that Meta had an X trademark, and lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted that Microsoft had one as well.
CEO of the business that created Tomb Raider, Sir Ian Livingstone, has indicated that the UK video game industry supported Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.
He also co-founder of Games Workshop, said it would be “odd” if the UK was the only place to object.
The blocking of the deal by the UK regulator provoked a furious response from Microsoft, with its president saying the move was “bad for Britain”.
The UK’s move means the multi-billion dollar deal cannot go ahead globally.
The planned $68.7bn (£55bn) deal would have been the gaming industry’s biggest ever takeover, and Microsoft would have taken ownership of popular games titles such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft.
US and EU regulators have yet to decide on whether to approve the deal, but on Wednesday the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked it, saying it was concerned the deal would offer reduced innovation and less choice for gamers in the fast-growing cloud gaming business.
Both Microsoft and Activision have said they will appeal against the CMA’s decision.
On Thursday, Microsoft president Brad Smith launched a fierce attack on the judgement, telling the BBC that it marked Microsoft’s “darkest day” in its four decades of working in the UK.
“People are shocked, people are disappointed, and people’s confidence in technology in the UK has been severely shaken,” he said, adding that the European Union was a better place to start a business.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Mr Smith’s claims were “not borne out by the facts”, adding that the UK games sector had doubled in size over the past 10 years.
Sir Ian, who is now co-founding partner of gaming investment group Hiro Capita, told the BBC’s Today programme: “I think the sentiment of the games industry itself in the UK is for it to go ahead.
Image caption,Sir Ian said the UK’s games industry was “a great British success story”
“It would be odd if the UK was the only region to object to this acquisition going forward,” he added.
“I would hope that they can sit down and perhaps negotiate a settlement which might be in everybody’s interest over time.”
Sir Ian said the UK’s games industry was “a great British success story”, having developed some of the biggest franchises in the world including Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto.
“It’s always been overdelivering in content but always underserved by capital and recognition,” he added.
“This is a highly competitive market and any negative sentiment is not good for the industry or indeed the UK economy.”
The CMA is the first regulator to announce its decision, but last year the US Federal Trade Commission began a legal challenge to block the takeover.
In March, EU regulators delayed their decision after Microsoft proposed concessions to get the deal over the line.
Sir Ian said “it’s somewhat come as a surprise that they [the CMA] said no at this time”.
However, Gareth Sutcliffe, senior games analyst at Enders Analysis, said the deal “has been in trouble for a while”.
He added that Microsoft “simply didn’t do the necessary regulator outreach to get this deal over the line”.
In a separate tweet, in the discussion about the social media platform’s data, Mr Musk said he was “open to ideas”.
“But ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution,” he added.
In February, Twitter started charging for the data it collects from “hundreds of millions” of users, with a basic plan starting at $100 a month.
The data allows users to “manage and track every aspect of your social media presence”, according to the platform.
Since buyingTwitter for $44bn (£35.4bn) in October, Mr Musk has cut its workforce by around 80% and moved to boost the company’s finances through measures including charging users for “blue tick” verification.
In recent months, major companies including iPhone maker Apple reportedly halted advertising on the platform over concerns about how content was moderated on the site.
In November, Mr Musk said Twitter had seen a “massive” drop in revenue and blamed activists for pressuring advertisers.
Speaking to the BBC last week, he said Twitter had just months left to live when he took over. He also said “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back” to Twitter.
Mr Musk added that Twitter could be profitable by the second quarter of 2023, and he would be willing to sell the company if the right person came along.
Today, Microsoft announced 2023’s first major batch of updates for Windows 11, part of the company’s plan to release new Windows features “when they are ready” instead of waiting for the big annual update in the fall.
The headliner, at least for people who have signed up for the AI-powered preview of “the new Bing,” is support for those AI-powered Bing features (including the infamous Bing chatbot) in the Windows taskbar. We’ve written more about those features separately. The other changes are more typical of a regular Windows 11 release, featuring a combination of things we’ve seen before and stuff Microsoft has been testing in its Insider Preview channels for the last few weeks or months.
The Notepad app has tabs now—welcome to 2003, buddy!Microsoft
Some of the additions enhance existing Windows 11 apps or features. The Notepad app, updated relatively recently with a Windows 11-style design and dark mode support, now supports tabs so you can view multiple notes in a single window. A redesigned Quick Assist app streamlines the process of remotely connecting to, viewing the screen of, and taking control of a PC you’re providing remote tech support for. And the Snipping Tool now supports recording onscreen video in addition to screenshots, making it more useful for recording quick app demos or other snippets.
Microsoft has added a handful of taskbar and Start menu features, too. New first- and third-party Widgets will seek to make Widgets more useful than they currently are—the screenshots show new widgets for Facebook Messenger and Spotify, as well as Microsoft‘s Phone Link app and Xbox Game Pass. A “collapsed,” icon-free version of the taskbar will now appear on convertible PCs when the keyboard is detached or folded away, allowing more room for websites and apps.
A collapsed Touch Taskbar leaves more room for apps and webpages on convertibles with detached keyboards.
There’s also an “energy recommendations” section in the Settings app that will recommend tweaks to your sleep and power settings to optimize your battery life—these mostly appear to amount to things like “let your PC sleep faster” and “keep automatic screen brightness enabled,” handy tips for casual PC users but nothing ground-breaking for experts.
One potentially exciting addition for iPhone users is the addition of iOS support to the Phone Link app, which should be available now (or soon) via the Windows Store for anyone enrolled in any of the Windows Insider Preview channels. As with Android phones, you’ll be able to make and receive phone calls, view and send text messages (no photos or videos allowed, whether sending or receiving), and view your phone’s contacts. Microsoft’s blog post doesn’t mention iMessage by name, but The Verge reports that users will be able to send and receive iMessages using the Your Phone app. But unlike on Macs or iPads, you won’t be able to view your message history, and you won’t be able to tell whether you’re sending SMS messages or iMessages until you return to your phone.
The Phone Link app picks up basic iPhone integration, which reportedly includes iMessage support. You can only send texts, and not images or videos.Microsoft
The Your Phone app supports more features when paired with Android phones, particularly those from Samsung; this update will also allow Samsung phone users to take advantage of easy hotspot pairing from Windows’ Wi-Fi menu and to send browser tabs from phone to PC.
It’s worth reading the full post to learn more about all of the changes, which include support for braille displays and additional voice control options, easier access to Windows 365 PCs in the cloud, and new ways to control the AI-powered webcam Studio Effects settings for the few PCs that support them.
Facebook Messenger, Spotify, Xbox Game Pass, and Phone Link widgets add a bit of functionality to the Microsoft Start-dominated Widgets screen.Microsoft
All of these updates require the Windows 11 2022 Update (aka 22H2) to be installed first. If you’re running Windows 11 22H2, most of the new changes are available to download today by checking Windows Update and manually installing the available update preview. Barring major issues, the update will automatically roll out to all Windows 11 22H2 PCs starting next month.
We’re likely to get a few more big Windows 11 feature drops throughout this year, including the 23H2 update in the fall. We’re still waiting for that update to take shape, but between leaks and bits and pieces discovered in the preview builds, it seems like Microsoft is testing a redesigned File Explorer with a more modernized codebase and a possible replacement for obnoxious RGB lighting controller apps. The 22H2 release was finalized in May 2022, several months before its release in September, so we’ll hopefully know more about 23H2’s additions this spring.
A look at which nations and industries have the most economic influence may be gained from the list of the most profitable corporations in the world.
All ten of the most profitable corporations have their headquarters in the two economies with the greatest global markets, the United States and China.
The fact that financial services companies make up the majority of the list is also significant, while energy and technology industries also perform well.
This list only include companies that are directly or via ADRs listed on U.S. or Canadian exchanges. For instance, Saudi Aramco, the nation’s state-owned oil firm, debuted on the Saudi Stock Exchange in December 2019.
It would have been among the world’s 10 most profitable companies, and would have even topped the list in previous years.
Notably, the three most profitable companies in the world are technology firms. As opposed to prior years, all technology firms in the top 10 are from the U.S. The technology sector is comprised of companies that manufacture computers and electronics, develop software, and provide services relating to information technology, such as cloud computing and e-commerce.
Four out of the five financial companies on the list are based in China, most of them receiving major financial support from China’s central government. The financial sector is comprised of banks, investment companies, insurance companies, and real estate firms. These companies offer a range of financial services, including deposits, loans, investment and wealth management, insurance, and brokerage services.
These are the 10 most profitable companies by 12-month trailing (TTM) net income. Some companies outside the U.S. report profits semi-annually instead of quarterly, so the 12-month trailing data may be older than it is for companies that report quarterly. Data is courtesy of YCharts.com.2 All figures are as of January 11, 2023.
1 Apple Inc. (AAPL)
Net Income (TTM): $99.8 billion
Revenue (TTM): $394.33 billion
Market Cap: $2.08 trillion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -23.64%
Exchange: NASDAQ
Apple designs and manufactures mobile communication and media devices, personal computers, and portable digital music players.
The company also sells a range of related software, services, accessories, networking solutions, music and video streaming, as well as third-party digital content and applications. Apple is best known for its series of iPhones, iPads, and Mac personal computers.
2 Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
Net Income (TTM): $69.79 billion
Revenue (TTM): $203.08 billion
Market Cap: $1.71 trillion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -26.49%
Exchange: NASDAQ
Microsoft develops, licenses, and supports a range of software products, services, and devices. The company’s products include operating systems, server applications, business applications, software development tools, video games, and more.
The company also manufactures personal computers, tablets, gaming and entertainment consoles, phones, other intelligent devices, and related accessories. Microsoft also offers cloud-based solutions, its fastest-growing business, through its Azure cloud-computing platform.
3 Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)
Net Income (TTM): $66.99 billion
Revenue (TTM): $282.11 billion
Market Cap: $1.14 trillion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -36.24%
Exchange: NASDAQ
Alphabet is a holding company and the parent of Google Inc., its primary business. Google offers a range of Internet products, including Search, Ads, Commerce, Maps, YouTube, Google Cloud, Android, Chrome, and Google Play.
It engages in advertising, sale of digital content, applications, cloud computing services, and sale of hardware products. Alphabet also offers smart-home products through Nest and is developing autonomous-driving technology through its Waymo project.
4 Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Ltd. (IDCBY)
Net Income (TTM): $55.34 billion
Revenue (TTM): $143.32 billion
Market Cap: $188.72 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -3.28%
Exchange: OTC
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China provides commercial banking and financial services.
Those services include corporate and personal loans, trade financing, deposit-taking, corporate and personal wealth management, and custodial services.
The company also engages in investment activities for its own account or on behalf of customers, including money market transactions, investment securities, foreign exchange transactions, and the holding of derivative positions.
5 ExxonMobil Corp (XOM)
Net Income (TTM): $51.86 billion
Revenue (TTM): $386.82 billion
Market Cap: $453.38 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: 67.12%
Exchange: New York Stock Exchange
The world’s largest refiner of petroleum products, ExxonMobil is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
The company distributes fuel, lubricants, and chemicals around the world under its four brands: Esso, Exxon, Mobil, and ExxonMobil.
The company’s upstream oil and gas production division includes various production chains including deep water, unconventional, heavy oil, and liquefied natural gas chains.
6 China Construction Bank Corp. (CICHY)
Net Income (TTM): $48.49 billion
Revenue (TTM): $126.78 billion
Market Cap: $159.38 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -6.31%
Exchange: OTC
China Construction Bank provides a wide range of financial services to corporate and individual customers, including corporate and personal loans, deposit-taking, wealth management, trade financing, financial consulting and advisory services, and remittance services.
The bank also engages in investment activities such as inter-bank money market transactions, investments in debt securities, equities, as well as trading of derivatives and foreign currency.
7 Shell PLC (SHEL)
Net Income (TTM): $43.36 billion
Revenue (TTM): $365.29 billion
Market Cap: $204.03 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: 27.58%
Exchange: New York Stock Exchange
Shell is an international energy company that operates refining and petrochemical complexes around the world.
The company’s primary line of business is the exploration, production, processing, transportation, and marketing of oil and gas. Headquartered in London, England, the company’s product line also includes lubricants and petrochemical products used in plastics, coatings, or detergents.
8 Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. (ACGBY)
Net Income (TTM): $38.45 billion
Revenue (TTM): $113.04 billion
Market Cap: $122.94 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: 6.58%
Exchange: OTC
Agricultural Bank of China provides provides international commercial banking and financial services.
It offers financial products and services to individuals, corporations, government agencies, and financial institutions. The bank also engages in money market or repurchases transactions, debt instrument investments, and holding of derivative positions.
9 JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
Net Income (TTM): $37.07 billion
Revenue (TTM): $123.42 billion
Market Cap: $406.54 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: -14.41%
Exchange: New York Stock Exchange
JPMorgan is a global financial holding company that provides banking and financial services.
The bank is involved in a broad range of businesses such as corporate lending, investment banking, market-making, prime brokerage, and treasury and securities products and services to corporations, investors, financial institutions, and government and municipal entities. It also offers consumer banking and asset management services.
10 Bank Of China Ltd. (BACHY)
Net Income (TTM): $34.54 billion
Revenue (TTM): $94.13 billion
Market Cap: $108.92 billion
1-Year Trailing Total Return: 6.02%
Exchange: OTC
Bank of China provides a broad range of banking and financial services to individuals, corporations, government authorities, and financial institutions.
Its services include savings, deposits, lending, mortgages, credit and debit cards, trade-related products, and credit facilities. The bank also offers insurance, underwriting, stock brokerage, investment research, and asset management services.
Paintings and sculptures owned by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allenfetched a record $1.5 billion (£1.3 billion).
According to Christie’s, it was the largest art auction in history.
Works by Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and Gustav Klimt each sold for more than $100 million (£88 million), according to the auction house, breaking individual records for those artists.
The sale proceeds will be donated to charities that Allen supported before his death in 2018.
The most expensive piece of art bought was Seurat’s 1888 work Les Poseuses, Ensemble (small version), a renowned work of pointillism, which fetched $149.2m (£131m), including fees, Christie’s said.
IMAGE SOURCE,CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD 2022 Image caption, Paul Cezanne’s La Montagne Sainte-Victoire fetched $138m
Experts say the super wealthy are viewing art as a safe investment amid a tumultuous global economy and Russia’s warin Ukraine.
Other record-breaking works included Van Gogh’s Orchard with Cypresses, which fetched $117.2m (£103m); Gauguin’s Maternity II, which sold for $105.7m (£93m); and Klimt’s Birch Forest, which went under the hammer for $104.6m (£92m).
Paintings from Georgia O’Keefe, Claude Monet, David Hockney, Andrew Wyeth and Pablo Picasso were also sold, along with sculptures by Alexander Calder and Max Ernst.
IMAGE SOURCE,CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD 2022 Image caption, Gauguin’s Maternity II was sold for $106m
The total value of the collection has already beaten the record set earlier this year, for the Macklowe collection, owned by a wealthy New York couple – which sold for $922m (£810m).
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Paul Allen set up a foundation while he was alive, donating hundreds of millions
Mr Allen co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Bill Gates.
He was treated for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009, but it returned, and in 2018 he died from complications of the disease.
In 2010, he pledged to leave the majority of his fortune to charity after his death. At the time he was the 37th richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated $13.5bn (then £8.8bn).
Nigeria’s government has signed an agreement with US technology giant Microsoft to train five million people in digital technology.
Minister of Communication and Digital Economy Isa Ali Pantami said the agreement would boost “job creation and economic development”.
Prof Pantami described the initiative as “amazing and also very huge”.
He told the BBC it would start immediately, and run for five years.
The deal was signed on the sidelines of an IT exhibition in Dubai on Wednesday, with a Microsoft representative saying the company was willing to work with the Nigerian government to provide “economic opportunities” for young people.
Microsoft and the government have been in talks for more than a year about the project.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy.
It has a largely young population of more than 200 million. But unemployment is high and the education sector is struggling. The government says it is trying to make the economy digitally oriented.
Prof Pantami also said that Nigeria would continue to provide an “enabling environment” for Microsoft and other companies to operate in the country by ensuring that regulatory measures were “developmental and flexible”.
Microsoft has established a partnership with Liquid Cloud through its Africa Transformation Office (ATO) to supply cloud services to businesses throughout the continent as the need for cloud-based services develops owing to the acceptance of hybrid work.
In order to meet legal and data residency requirements, handle low latency workloads, boost resilience, and enable business continuity, Liquid Cloud and the ATO will work together to supply resilient cloud in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
“We witnessed an accelerated adoption of cloud technologies in Africa, and businesses are now reaping the benefits of their investment. Our customers are increasingly moving to hybrid work culture, meaning the demand for cloud-based services will only grow. Our partnership will enable us to build comprehensive and edge-based cloud capabilities that meet customer regulatory requirements and ensure that they deliver value to their customers,” said David Behr, CEO of Liquid Cloud and Cyber Security.
The hybrid cloud environment extends Azure capabilities enabling customers to create cloud-native applications faster with Azure platform and data services such as App Service, Functions, Logic Apps, Azure SQL Managed Instance, PostgreSQL database, and Azure machine learning. As a result, customers will be able to innovate anywhere and use the Azure platform to bring new solutions to life that solves today’s challenges, while creating the future.
On his part, Wael Elkabbany, General Manager Africa Regional Cluster, Microsoft said: “Critical infrastructure enablers are neededto provide access to the cloud to accelerate digital
transformation and the adoption of digital technologies. Working with Liquid Cloud, access to the local cloud will be available to more organizations and highly regulated industries across the continent. In addition, hybrid cloud provides in-country resources that address data-residency, latency, and storage requirements,”
Microsoft has commenced the process of expanding its partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to support youth entrepreneurs on the continent.
The partnership forms part of the bank’s Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB) Initiative, a unique value proposition set up by the African Development Bank that anchors and integrates efforts to develop entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa.
It seeks to bring together all relevant financial and non-financial parties and partners to play their respective roles in supporting youth entrepreneurs through mentorship, coaching, knowledge and experience sharing and more.
Partnership
The partnership also forms an important part of Microsoft African Transformation Office’s ATO’s mission to empower 10 million Small and Medium Enterprise SMEs through access to skilling initiatives and investments and to generate the capacity needed to scale and provide digital skills to 30 million Africans.
Under the partnership, Microsoft will work with the bank to develop youth entrepreneurship ecosystems, creating jobs and dramatically scaling impact in Africa through digital inclusion.
The partnership seeks to support the establishment of national-level institutions through a public-private collaboration model to scale up technical and financial support for youth entrepreneurs and build their capacity.
Under the partnership, Microsoft is expected to leverage its partner ecosystem which covers 54 countries across the continent to act on key technology solutions across four key areas including skilling, connectivity, small-to-medium enterprise (SME) digitisation and hardware.
Skilling
In the area of skills, the partnership seeks to connect youth to economic opportunity and employability skills, the partnership will provide them with career pathway and learning content.
This includes the use of existing e-learning platforms such as coding for employment.
The initiative also aims to build the capacity of enterprise services organisations benefitting youth through the training of trainers.
Connectivity
In the area of connectivity, the partnership seeks to leverage successful connectivity solutions such as Microsoft Airband, the partnership will develop effective infrastructure models to help bridge the digital divide.
At the same time, it will support other innovative solutions on the market either through direct or indirect investment.
The partnership also aims to improve (SME) digital literacy and business skills by creating access to curated learning content, certifications, business solutions, business skills and specialised digital skills. This will be driven in partnership with LinkedIn and through skilling programmes such as MS Learn and the Cloud Academy.
SME access to bundled hardware solutions will be created by Microsoft and its partners.
SMEs will also be able to purchase Microsoft technology at discounted prices.
Youth
The General Manager of Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster Wael Elkabbany, explained that his outfit believed much could be done to help foster youth entrepreneurship by collaborating with the African Development Bank, driving greater economic inclusion for this key segment of the population, and ultimately building a more prosperous society.
Development
The African Development Bank Vice-President for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialisation, Solomon Quaynor, said the strengthening of the partnership with Microsoft on the YEIB was an important development in the journey towards harnessing Africa’s demographic dividend and facilitating the creation of millions of jobs for young Africans by 2025.
The Strategic Partnerships Lead, Microsoft ATO, Angela Kyerematen-Jimoh, said “We are excited about the potential of this collaboration to magnify the work Microsoft is doing around digital inclusion in Africa.”
Employees think they’re being just as productive as ever. Bosses aren’t buying it.
New data from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, which surveyed 20,000 employees across 11 countries, finds that despite early signs of a productivity boom during the pandemic—when many workers traded commuting time for more hours of working from home—there’s a steep divide between how workers and their employers see productivity two years later.
Eighty seven percent of employees who responded to the survey said they are productive at work, and Microsoft reported earlier this year that many signs of productivity are up. This spring, the tech giant found that the number of meetings per week among users of its Teams platform had increased by 153% since the start of the pandemic.
Overlapping meetings increased by 46%. At least 42% of people multi-task, actively sending an email or pinging a colleague during a scheduled meeting.
Yet as many as 85% of leaders in the survey said hybrid work has made it challenging to be confident employees are being productive. This “productivity paranoia,” as Microsoft calls it in its report, has resulted from the paradox of leaders fearing productivity is being lost, even while hours worked, numbers of meeting and metrics showing actual activity have increased.
“You end up with workers saying ‘I’m doing just great’ and leaders saying, ‘I’m not sure you are,’” Microsoft corporate Vice President Jared Spataro told Forbesin an interview. “There’s real tension that is developing. Every company is working through that.”
Microsoft, of course, is a behemoth maker of productivity software; the research is being released as the software behemoth rolls out new features designed to help address related issues. The company announced a suite of new product updates for Viva, its employee management platform, which will include more integrations of workers “goals” between Viva and Microsoft Teams, for instance, as well as a new app called Viva Pulse for getting worker feedback and a new capability that uses artificial intelligence to match questions from employees with company experts. Two years ago, the company made changes to productivity measures in its tools amid some questions about privacy.
The report comes as macroeconomic figures have shown steep declines in productivity, potentially fueling employers’ fears about how much work their employees are getting done, especially when out of sight. After surging amid the pandemic, U.S. nonfarm labor productivity, which measures goods and services produced per hour worked, fell at the highest rate in 74 years during the first quarter, and also declined in the second quarter.
But many have argued the productivity declines are not really a sign of lazy young workers “quiet quitting” or hybrid workers folding their laundry at home instead of answering email.
Rather, inexperienced workers taking on new jobs following the Great Resignation, seasoned workers having to train so many new hires and the burnout of those who worked overtime during the pandemic’s early years appear to be what’s really having the greatest impact on productivity declines.
Microsoft’sreport says differences show up in the data: Managers of hybrid workers, for instance, are more likely to say they struggle with trusting their employees to do their best work than onsite managers do (49% vs. 36%).
Spataro says he thinks managers’ lack of confidence comes not only from not being able to see their workers in hybrid environments, but the relentless pressures and high expectations managers face for business performance. When he speaks with executives one on one, he says, and reminds them of how productive workers were when the pandemic began, “they’ll say something that really has caught my attention. They’ll say … I wonder if it was just kind of an 18 months to two year surge of adrenaline. We were all pulling together as well as we could. But if this is going to become the new normal, can we continue to be as productive?”
The latest Work Trends Index also found that the offers of free food, rock concerts—or threats of punishment—may not do much to draw people back to the office. What could really get people to return is simply their coworkers: 84% say employees would be motivated to go back to the office by the promise of socializing, and 85% by the opportunity to rebuild team bonds.
Survey takers also said they’d be apt to go to the office more often if they knew their team members (73%) or work friends (74%) would be there.
Nearly one year after Microsoft launched its flagship Windows 11, the tech giant has officially rolled out its first major update to the operating system.
The update, which is available for free for current Windows 11 users, was released in more than 190 countries on Tuesday. Many of the new features hone in on Microsoft’s vision for the future of hybrid work.
“We have formed new habits; and they stuck,” Panos Panay, the EVP and chief product officer of Windows and Devices at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post announcing the update. “Our work is never done to ensure Windows evolves and adapts to you.”
Panay, who said Windows 11 is the most used version of Windows in its history, detailed how the latest update aims to make remote work on the PC even easier and more secure. For example, a new tool called Smart App control uses AI to block malicious or untrusted apps from running on devices. Microsoft calls Windows 11 the most secure version of the operating system yet.
Other changes include enhancements to the Snap layouts program which helps people optimize their view when they need to have multiple apps or documents in front of them at the same time. It is also introducing a “Focus sessions” and “Do Not Disturb” feature to help minimize distractions that pull you away from the task at hand.
When you start a new focus session, it will activate the Do Not Disturb feature which silences all notifications and turns off taskbar badges.
The Start menu is also getting some refreshing, including a faster and more accurate search function and new ways to customize the menu. There are also now tabs available in the File Explorer, which Panay said was the most requested ask from Windows users.
Meanwhile, a new tool called Windows Studio Effects helps to improve video and audio calls using AI technology that filters out background noise, such as lawnmowers and baby cries, and blurs out background objects. It also subtly lifts a speaker’s eyes to make it appear as though they’re directly looking into the camera on video calls.
Microsoft is also rolling out some of its previously announced accessibility features, including system-wide live captions that automatically generate captions from any form of audio content on Windows 11, and an update to Natural Voices for Narrator, which more closely mirrors natural speech patterns and helps assist in reading documents or browsing the web.
Microsoft previously told CNN that many of its new inclusivity features were developed in part by Microsoft employees who have disabilities.
The update is being offered via a “measured and phased rollout” approach, Microsoft said in a separate blog post. Users with eligible devices can simply get the update by opening “Windows Update” in their settings.
In a significant new Microsoft survey,managers and employees have fundamentally different opinions on productivity when working from home, a new survey reveals.
Bosses question whether remote work is equally productive as being in the office.
While 87% of workers felt they worked as, or more, efficiently from home, 80% of managers disagreed.
The survey questioned more than 20,000 staff across 11 countries.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella told the BBC this tension needed to be resolved as workplaces were unlikely to ever return to pre-pandemic work habits.
“We have to get past what we describe as ‘productivity paranoia’ because all of the data we have shows that 80% plus of the individual people feel they’re very productive – except their management thinks that they’re not productive.
“That means there is a real disconnect in terms of the expectations and what they feel.”
Remote working peaked?
Both Mr Nadella and Ryan Roslansky, the boss of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, said employers were grappling with perhaps the biggest shift in working patterns in history.
The number of fully-remote jobs advertised on LinkedIn soared during the pandemic but Mr Roslansky said data suggested that type of role might have peaked.
He told the BBC that of some 14 or 15 million job listings that are typically live on LinkedIn, about 2% of those involved remote working before the pandemic. Some months ago, that stood at 20%, and it has since come down to 15% this month.
At a time of acute labour shortages, employers are having to work harder to recruit, enthuse and retain staff. That even includes Microsoft itself, according to Mr Nadella.
“We had 70,000 people who joined Microsoft during the pandemic, they sort of saw Microsoft through the lens of the pandemic. And now when we think about the next phase, you need to re-energize them, re-recruit them, help them form social connections.”
Microsoft employees can work from home up to 50% of the time as standard. More than that requires management approval or a move to part-time work.
Some companies have struggled to impose new working arrangements and expectations.
There has been resistance to calls at Apple to return to the office three days a week from September, while Tesla boss Elon Musk has demanded 40 hours a week in the office sending an email saying: “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”
An unprecedented number of people have also changed jobs since the start of the pandemic.A phenomenon Microsoft has dubbed “the great reshuffle”, sees workers born after 1997 (so-called Generation Z) nearly twice as likely to switch jobs.
“At the peak of our ‘great reshuffle,’ we saw a year-on-year increase of 50% of LinkedIn members changing jobs. Gen Z was at 90%,” the report said.
By 2030, Generation Z will make up about 30% of the entire workforce so managers need to understand them, according to LinkedIn’s boss.
As you might expect, alongside its new observations Microsoft has new products aimed at easing this potential mismatch in expectations. It is focusing on helping companies’ younger workers feel a sense of belonging, and an ability to learn in, an organization in the way staff did in the past.
Its new Viva software, for example, allows direct contact to senior managers, online teaching, and a channel to share personal photos – somewhat like a company intranet site with bells on to ring in a new world of work, which employers, in particular, are struggling to navigate.
A study of 39,000 video gamers has found “little to no evidence” time spent playing effects their well-being.
The average player would have to play for 10 hours more than usual per day to notice anydifference, it found. And the reasons for playing were far more likely to have an impact.
Well-being was measured by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, and frustration.
The results contradict a 2020 study.
Conducted by the same department at the Oxford Internet Institute – but with a much smaller group of players – the 2020 study suggested that those who played for longer were happier.
“Common sense says if you have more free time to play video games, you’re probably a happier person,” said Prof Andrew Przybylski, who worked on both studies.
“But contrary to what we might think about games being good or bad for us, we found [in this latest study] pretty conclusive evidence that how much you play doesn’t really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in well-being.
“If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better.”
This time, technology companies, including Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, provided six weeks’ data – with the players’ consent – from:
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Apex Legends
Eve Online
Forza Horizon 4
Gran Turismo Sport
The Crew 2
During that time, only one player dropped out of the study – published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
Mental health
In China, children are allowed to play for only one hour per day, on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
But many gamers around the world say that their playing helps their mental health.
Mike Dailly, who created Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, said the benefits were varied.
“I’m not sure it’s something that’s measurable with a single ‘well-being’ state,” he said.
“As is everything in life, it’s a balance.
“Spend 24 hours a day playing, that’s not good – but spend 24 hours a day eating or working out, that is also not good.”
Microsoft has spent decades building goodwill with Beijing, and that could help its bid to buy TikTok’s operations in the United States and a few other countries. That is, unless deteriorating US-China relations get in the way.
Microsoft (MSFT) has emerged as the leading candidate to save TikTok from President Donald Trump’s threat to ban the app unless it finds an American buyer. The app is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. A deal would give Microsoft ownership and operation of TikTok services in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Unlike other big US tech companies, Microsoft has some major clout in China, and its products have a significant presence there.
It has been in China since 1992, and employs 6,000 people in the country. Microsoft software is used by the Chinese government and companies, LinkedIn is a popular social media platform for Chinese professionals, and Bing is the only foreign search engine with any amount of market share in the country. The Washington State-based company also boasts an A-list alumni network in China, thanks to the hugely influential Microsoft Research Lab Asia, or MSRA.
Microsoft’s clout
The Beijing-based lab — a world-class computer science research hub — is widely viewed as a boot camp for China’s technology sector. Many founders and senior executives at companies such as Alibaba (BABA), smartphone maker Xiaomi, and e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo (PDD) got their start at Microsoft and were trained at MSRA. Even Zhang Yiming, the founder and CEO of ByteDance, briefly worked at Microsoft before reportedly leaving out of boredoma
Microsoft “is really well respected” in China’s tech community, according to Edith Yeung, who spent years investing in Chinese companies with venture capital firm 500 Startups. She is a partner with Race Capital, investing mostly in US firms.
That respect is especially true when it comes to artificial intelligence, Yeung said. One of the best-known AI experts in the world, former head of Google China Kai-Fu Lee, helped establish MSRA.
ByteDance has a slew of addictive apps that all rely on AI algorithms. The apps learn from users’ behavior, and continuously feed them content that they want to see.
Many in China’s tech industry believe Microsoft is “the best choice,” to buy TikTok, because at least Microsoft has “the AI chops to understand what ByteDance is doing,” said Yeung.
A forced sale of TikTok to Microsoft would be “a win-win-win, in a pretty horrible situation,” said Tony Verb, co-founder of GreaterBay Ventures & Advisors, which works with Chinese entrepreneurs.
It will likely be a victory for Trump, it’s good for Microsoft to get a fast-growing product like TikTok, and for ByteDance, “it’s the less horrible outcome,” according to Verb.
Microsoft and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Challenges in China
Like other multinationals, Microsoft has had its fair share of challenges in China.
Rampant piracy prevents the company from making significant inroads in the market. Microsoft president Brad Smith said in January that even though Microsoft software is widely used in China, the country accounts for less than 2% of the company’s global revenue.
Last year, Microsoft’s search engine Bing, was briefly blocked in China. It wasn’t clear what sparked the suspension, but it came as tensions between the United States and China were spilling over into the tech sector, with Washington stepping up its campaign against Chinese tech firm Huawei.
Microsoft is also facing scrutiny from China’s State Agency for Market Regulation, which is investigating whether it has violated the country’s anti-monopoly laws. The probe is focused on Windows and Office software.
And at a time of escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, Microsoft’s business in China could prove to be a liability, as the world’s two largest economies shun cooperation and inch closer to a technological decoupling.
Some Trump administration officials are suspicious that Microsoft is too cozy with Beijing.
Microsoft-owned products such as Bing and Skype have enabled Chinese surveillance and censorship, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview on CNN on Monday.
Bing is able to operate its Chinese site, cn.bing.com, because it censors its search results. During a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year, Smith said Microsoft has “days when there are either difficult negotiations or even disagreements” with Chinese authorities.
“There’s some fishy stuff going on there,” Navarro said. If people use Skype in China, the Chinese Communist Party “is listening in,” he added.
“The question is, is Microsoft going to be compromised?” Navarro said. He also questioned whether Microsoft should be forced to “divest its Chinese holdings” if it buys TikTok.
China could still claim ‘a pretty good win’
Meanwhile, Trump has touted the forced sale of TikTok as a win, and said that the US Treasury should get a cut of the deal if it goes through. Industry experts say the TikTok deal could cost Microsoft between $40 billion and $50 billion.
Trump’s comments sparked an outcry in China. State-run newspaper China Daily likened the sale of TikTok to a “smash and grab” raid orchestrated by the US government.
But the sale of TikTok should also be viewed as a huge win for China’s tech industry and the innovation coming out of Beijing, according to Rich Robinson, a professor at Peking University and founding partner of Whip Wham, an investment practice focused on China and Asian markets.
“Last time I checked, $50 billion is a pretty good win,” Robinson said.
ByteDance was able to get hundreds of millions of users around the world hooked on TikTok, the app brought in tens of billions of dollars in revenue last year and it was the first Chinese social media platform to breakthrough in international markets, he points out.
“That’s all winning,” said Robinson. “Too bad it got politicized.”
ShareBill Gates, the former CEO and founder of Microsoft, believes Coronavirus tests are a ‘complete waste.’
According to the Billionaire, the amount of time it takes for test results to come back means they don’t achieve the purpose for which they were carried out, which is a timely isolation of the patient before spread of the disease begins.
According to Bill Gates, whose foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to treatment and vaccine research for Covid-19, people need to get results back sooner so that they’re able to “change their behavior so they’re not infecting other people.”
“The simplest thing, which has to do with such insanity, is you should not reimburse somebody for getting a test that it takes more than 48 hours to get the result back,” Gates said in an interview with CNBC.
“That test is a complete waste. And to all these numbers about how much we test, the majority is just complete waste,” he added, calling it “insane” to have to pay for test results that could take more than three days and up to a full week.
Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, agrees with Bill Gates that testing needs to be improved.
Giroir speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” said;
“I started out by saying that we are never going to be happy with testing until we get turnaround times within 24 hours, and I would be happy with point-of-care testing everywhere. We are not there yet. We are doing everything we can to do that,”
Microsoft and Zoom have said they will not process data requests made by the Hong Kong authorities while they take stock of a new security law.
They follow Facebook, Google, Twitter and the chat app Telegram, which had already announced similar “pauses” in compliance over the past two days.
China passed the law on 30 June, criminalising acts that support independence, making it easier to punish protesters.
Apple says it is “assessing” the rules.
If the tech firms make their non-compliance policies permanent, they could face restrictions or a ban on their services in the semi-autonomous region.
And while Facebook, Google, Twitter and Telegram’s services are blocked in mainland China, the same is not true of Microsoft, Zoom and Apple.
In a related development, TikTok – which is owned by the Chinese firm Bytedance – has said it plans to exit Hong Kong within days.
The business had previously said it would not comply with Chinese government requests to access TikTok users’ data. It operates a similar service called Douyin in its home market, which could theoretically become a substitute. However, Bytedance has indicated it does not have plans to do so at this time.
‘Seeking guidance’
Microsoft directly offers its Office 365 work app and LinkedIn social networks to both Hong Kong residents and citizens in mainland China.
But while Office 365 is provided directly by the firm to Hong Kong residents, the service is run by a local firm 21Vianet on the other side of the border, allowing Microsoft to remain one step removed.
In the case of LinkedIn, law enforcement data requests have to go via the US government, although the division says it does sometimes “make an exception in an emergency”.
According to Microsoft’s latest transparency report, it received requests for data linked to 81 accounts from Hong Kong’s government between July and December 2019, and provided “non-content data” in most cases.
“As we would with any new legislation, we are reviewing the new law to understand its implications,” said a spokesman for the American firm.
“In the past, we’ve typically received only a relatively small number of requests from Hong Kong authorities, but we are pausing our responses to these requests as we conduct our review.”
The video chat provider Zoom is based in the US, but has ties to China.
Its founder and chief executive Eric Yuan was born in Tai’an before emigrating to Silicon Valley 23 years ago.
Most of its product development workers are based in mainland China.
And it recently made headlines for:
suspending the account of a group of US-based activists, who had held a meeting on the platform to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Zoom acknowledged it did this at the behest of Beijing routing some non-China-based users’ video calls via computer servers based in the country, which it said had happened by mistake “Zoom supports the free and open exchange of thoughts and ideas,” a spokeswoman said in response to the latest development.
“We are proud to facilitate meaningful conversations and professional collaboration around the world.
“We’re actively monitoring the developments in Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region], including any potential guidance from the US government. We have paused processing any data requests from, and related to, Hong Kong SAR.”
US treaty
Apple uses end-to-end encryption to protect Messages and Facetime conversations carried out by Hong Kong residents, meaning only the device owners can unscramble the messages transmitted.
However, the firm does hold encryption keys to data stored in users’ iCloud accounts, which can include back-ups of their text-based chats.
In theory, this means it could pass this information to the authorities if demanded.
However, since both the keys and the data are stored in the States, it says the US government has the power to intervene.
“Apple has always required that all content requests from local law enforcement authorities be submitted through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in place between the United States and Hong Kong,” it said.
“As a result, Apple doesn’t receive content requests directly from the Hong Kong government. Under the MLAT process, the US Department of Justice reviews Hong Kong authorities’ requests for legal conformance.
“We’re assessing the new law, which went into effect less than a week ago, and we have not received any content requests since the law went into effect.”
Apple has, however, complied with requests in the past.
Its latest transparency report indicates it received requests for data concerning 358 devices from Hong Kong’s government between January and June, and that it provided data in 91% of the cases.
In mainland China, users’ iCloud files are stored in a data centre controlled by a local firm, so the government does not need to involve the US authorities when seeking access.
Microsoft has become the latest US company to limit the use of its facial recognition technology by police.
The firm said it would not start sales to US police departments until the country approves national regulation of the technology, which critics say is racially biased and easy to abuse.
Amazon and IBM have already made similar moves.
These followed widespread protests over police brutality and racial discrimination.
Amazon on Wednesday banned police from using its tech for one year, while IBM earlier said it would stop offering the technology for “mass surveillance or racial profiling”.
The American Civil Liberties Union has campaigned against such software for years, warning there is a danger it will be used for widespread “suspicionless” surveillance.
“Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM have finally started to take action. But we still have a long way to go to forever end the over-policing and surveillance of black and brown communities,” the organisation said in a statement.
It called on US lawmakers to order an immediate “pause” on law enforcement use of the technology.
Federal vs local
Firms have been under pressure in recent weeks to respond to the protests triggered by George Floyd’s death in police custody.
George Floyd: Why are companies speaking up this time? Microsoft president Brad Smith said at an event that the firm had not sold to police departments and would not start “until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology”.
Microsoft first called for national regulation more than two years ago, warning that inaction could lead such services to “spread in ways that exacerbate societal issues”.
Companies tend to favour national rules, rather than be forced to deal with a patchwork of local laws.
However, there are some concerns that a national law could be a way to override stricter local regulation.
San Francisco, for example, has already banned facial recognition technology by its police and public agencies.
Microsoft is replacing journalists with artificial intelligence (AI) software that will generate the news stories available in the homepages of the Edge browser and the news website MSN.
According to The Guardian‘s previous report, the decision of Microsoft will replace dozens of journalists with robots. The Press Association (PA) Media told its staff, who maintain the news homepages on Microsoft’s Edge browser and the MSN website, that they will no longer be required to generate news stories since AI can do their jobs.
After Microsoft decided to stop employing humans to edit, select, and curate news articles on its homepages, PA Media told its 27 employees that they would lose their jobs in a month’s time. The decision of Microsoft to ending the contract with PA Media is part of a global shift away from humans in favor of automated updates for news stories. The action was taken at short notice as explained by the company to its employees.
“I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI are going to take all our jobs, and here I am – AI has taken my job,” said one of the staff working on the team.
The staff member added that since they were careful to stick to “very strict editorial guidelines” to ensure that the users were not presented with inappropriate or violent content when opening their browser. The decision to replace humans with software is a risky one because robots cannot manually curate news articles.
According to The Guardian, although the journalists working in the team did not report original stories, they are still exercising editorial control by selecting news content generated by other news organizations such as The Guardian. The team also edits the headlines and content of the stories to properly fit the format appropriate for the audience.
(Photo : Franck on Unsplash) Microsoft Ended Its Contract With PA Media; AI Will Now Create News Stories, Replacing Dozens of MSN Website and Edge Browser Journalists
The news articles posted on the website of Microsoft allow the company to share advertising revenue with the original publishers of the news content. Clear headlines that are appropriate for the format are ensured by the manual curation of news stories while avoiding untrustworthy stories and encouraging a spread of political opinions. Manual curation also highlights interesting articles from smaller media outlets, helping them grow.
Since the industry is looking to cut costs, the journalists who will be replaced will now face a tough challenge to get jobs elsewhere. The decision of Microsoft to automate the manual curation of its news site is expected to affect other teams of journalists across the globe. Artificial Intelligence in journalism is also being considered by many tech companies such as Google.
Ghana-based Information Technology (IT) professional, Mr Abou Conde has won the 2020-2021 Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award.
The award by the American multinational technology company – Microsoft was in recognition of his exceptional technical community leadership on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform in Ghana.
“We recognize and value your contributions and commitment to technical communities worldwide,” a citation signed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft, Satya Nadella said.
“By sharing your real-world expertise and technical skills, you demonstrated outstanding technical community leadership. Thank you”.
By this feat, Mr Conde, 34, becomes the first Ghana-based Microsoft MVP and joins a select group of only 32 MVPs in all of Africa.
Download Graphic NewsPlus.
An elated Mr Conde said he dedicated himself to providing online support about Microsoft to persons in Ghana and his activities over the past one-year caught the eye of a 10-year Microsoft MVP who nominated him for the award.
“I realised that in Ghana here, people are not into Microsoft cloud computing but I was providing online support to people in other countries and I decided to create a tech community called Microsoft User Group Ghana The Place which supports and organises events in Ghana.
IT veteran Microsoft Regional Director and MVP, Patrick Guimonet noticed my activities and nominated me for the award. Microsoft Community Program Manager, Martine Thiphaine later contacted me for more information about my activities and 2 months later I received the award.
Touching on the importance of cloud computing in business operations, Mr Conde said the traditional ways of computing was becoming increasingly expensive.
“In the IT world, you can build your own data centre and take care of power, cooling system, machines and other infrastructure but that is costly because of maintenance but IT providers such as Microsoft have built data centres and made it available for rent. “You get the service of IT without the pain of IT”.
Who are Microsoft MVPs?
Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community.
They are always on the “bleeding edge” and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies.
They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products and solutions, to solve real-world problems.
MVPs make up a global community of over 2714 in October 2019 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and the quest for knowledge.
Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others – that’s what sets them apart.
