Tag Archives: Microsoft

MNA International Desk: Calling India’s controversial new citizenship law ‘sad’, Microsoft boss Satya Nadella said he would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant succeed in the country’s technology industry. The India-born executive’s comments come amid ongoing, sometimes violent, protests against the law. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has been criticised as it is seen as discriminating against Muslims. Speaking at a Microsoft event for editors in New York, Mr Nadella said: “I think what is happening is sad, primarily as sort of someone who grew up there… I think it’s just bad,” according to BuzzFeed. “I would love to see ...

MNA Sports Desk: After high-profile flops, Microsoft is getting back into smartphones with a dual-screen Android device that won’t be out for another year. Microsoft unveiled the Surface Duo as part of a new lineup of Surface computers. It marks a reversal for a company that abandoned smartphones following lackluster demand for its own operating system and an ill-fated purchase of smartphone maker Nokia. “I believe the third time’s a charm for Microsoft and smartphones,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with moor Insights & Strategy. He said Microsoft has had a good track record with Surface devices, while the Duo’s ...

MNA Business Desk: India’s Reliance Industries Ltd Monday announced a partnership with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, in a move that deepens the offerings of its Jio telecoms unit while posing a direct challenge to rival cloud services providers such as Amazon.com and Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O), reports Reuters. As part of the 10-year alliance, Jio will build data centers across India that will be hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders at the company annual shareholders’ meeting. “We now have the capability to develop truly India-native solutions, including speech recognition and natural language understanding for all major ...

MNA Science & Technology Desk: Microsoft has discreetly pulled a facial recognition database from its site that contained 10 million images of some 100,000 people. The internet giant took down the database after a Financial Times investigation revealed that the database has been used by companies and military researchers to train facial recognition systems around the world. The public dataset, called ‘MS Celeb,’ included images of ‘celebrities’ pulled from the internet, but also contained photos of ‘arguably private individuals,’ often without their knowledge or consent, the FT found. Microsoft, which referred to MS Celeb as the largest publicly available facial ...

MNA Science & Tech Desk: Marking the International Mother Language Day, Microsoft has introduced the Bangla version of ‘Microsoft Kaizala’, a mobile application designed for large group communication, work management, reporting and analytics. Kaizala is designed to optimise productivity in a world with intelligent cloud and intelligent edge, particularly in the emerging markets, said a press release on Tuesday. The app, which has a simple chat user interface, allows up to five million people to join one group, and users to communicate in a structured way. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in Bangladesh has already started using Microsoft Kaizala in ...

MNA Science & Tech Desk: Microsoft has announced the appointment of Sonia Bashir Kabir as managing director for Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Laos. In her new role, Sonia will lead Microsoft’s business in developing and driving strategies for all product lines, services, and support offerings in the four countries, while working closely with partners and local governments to help accelerate the digital transformation across these markets by bringing people, data, and processes together to reinvent business values, provide personalised experience to customers, and transform education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. ‘Digital Transformation in emerging markets is an important priority for ...

MNA Technology Desk: Microsoft wins battle with US on an order to hand over a customer’s email that was stored in Ireland, dealing the US government the latest hindrance in its fight with the tech industry over the reach of law enforcement and the limits of personal data privacy. A US appeals court ruled that the country’s courts could not issue warrants forcing data stored abroad to be turned over, refusing an earlier ruling from a New York court that found Microsoft in contempt for not helping in a tranquilizers case. Microsoft had campaigned hard against the warrant as a ...

MNA Technology Desk: Microsoft has finally joined the ranks of technology giants committed to fight against terrorism online. The company admitted that ‘terrorist content’ has been posted to its consumer services, which include Xbox Live and Outlook web mail. “Terrorism is one of the truly urgent issues of our time,” said Microsoft. “We are committed to doing our part to help address the use of technology to promote it or to recruit to its causes.” It is not exactly clear what Microsoft’s anti-terrorism strategy involves, but the company stressed that it would not censor results on its search engine Bing. ...

MNA Technology Desk: One of its least popular and most controversial features from Windows 10 has been removed by Microsoft, which automatically shared Wi-Fi passwords with your contacts. The feature, known as Wi-Fi Sense, also enabled users to automatically connect to networks shared by Outlook, Facebook and Skype contacts, as well as others using Windows 10, and was switched on by default. It was designed to prevent people having to ask for Wi-Fi passwords in homes or offices, and enable them to connect securely. Microsoft announced it was removing the feature due to low demand and low usage, alongside the ...