Microsoft | The Asian Age

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In this file photo taken on June 2, 2020 A looted and boarded up Microsoft store is seen after a night of protest over the death of an African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis in Manhattan in New York City. Microsoft's physical stores, which sold Surface tablets, laptops and XBox gaming gear, never gained the momentum of rival Apple. Its retail team members will “serve customers from Microsoft corporate facilities and remotely provide sales, training, and support,” the company said. (Photo | AFP)

Microsoft products will now be sold solely online, all 80 retail stores shut

It will keep four locations as Microsoft Experience Centers in London, New York, Sydney and the company’s Redmond, Washington headquarters.

27 Jun 2020 5:36 PM

While Trump has argued the temporary freeze was aimed at helping US workers facing high unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic, critics said the move would backfire and hurt one of the key segments of the American economy. In this picture, a view of Tesla headquarters in Palo Alto, in the San Francisco Bay Area, considered part of 'Silicon Valley' in the United States. (Photo | Wikimedia Commons - Tumbenhaur)

Key segment of US economy, tech firms will be hit by Trump's ban on hiring H-1B workers

Google, Apple, Microsoft and other tech firms have long relied on skilled immigrants to fill key positions of engineers and data scientists.

24 Jun 2020 7:38 PM

Gamers will be encouraged to transition to Facebook Gaming, which has some 700 million people who play or watch games every month.

Can't keep up with Twitch, YouTube, Microsoft gives up livestreaming gaming, ties up with Facebook

Microsoft Mixer will be shuttered on July 22, the tech giant said in a statement.

24 Jun 2020 7:10 PM

A Black man who says he was unjustly arrested because facial recognition technology mistakenly identified him as a suspected shoplifter is calling for a public apology from Detroit police, and for the department to abandon its use of the controversial technology. Several cities, led by San Francisco last year, have banned the use of facial recognition. (Photo | bigbrotherwatch.org.uk)

Calls to abandon facial recognition use as wrongly identified Black man seeks Detroit police apology

The Detroit police has been challenged over face recognition flaws, bias, especially as it is prone to errors identifying people of colour.

24 Jun 2020 6:44 PM

$Facial recognition technology has a dark side, with it integrated into China’s massive public surveillance system and its social credit experiment where even minor infractions of public norms can result in sanctions.$

What's the deal with facial recognition software and how it's weaponised

Although firms like IBM have said it will no longer supply face scan software to police, several other players making the technology would.

18 Jun 2020 10:37 PM

Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the US and how police use technology to track people. In this picture, Mask-clad protesters gather for a demonstration in support of US protesters over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes, and against police violence outside the US embassy in the Israeli Mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv on June 12, 2020. (Photo | AFP)

Microsoft, Amazon, IBM decision to stop face scan tech for police use may not have impact

Companies that dominate the market in the US are less well known, including the Tokyo-based NEC and European companies Idemia and Gemalto.

12 Jun 2020 4:26 PM

Only 4.4% of Microsoft’s global workforce across all brands, and as for Amazon, while more than 60% of warehouse and delivery workers in most US cities are people of colour, only 8% of its managers in the US are black. In this picture, the beginnings of a Black Lives Matter mural begins to take shape on June 10, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo | AFP)

How diverse is the workforce in companies that are expressing solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter?

Associated Press reviewed the diversity reports of some of the biggest companies, including tech giants Microsoft and Amazon.

11 Jun 2020 4:30 PM

“I stand with the Black and African American community and we are committed to building on this work in our company and in our communities,” Nadella said

No place for hate: Satya Nadella speaks up for Black Americans, as he did for Muslim Indians

“There is no place for hate and racism in our society. Empathy and shared understanding are a start, but we must do more,” Nadella said.

02 Jun 2020 3:06 PM

Google said, "We have seen new activity from 'hack-for-hire' firms, many based in India, that have been creating Gmail accounts spoofing the WHO". "The accounts have largely targeted business leaders in financial services, consulting, and healthcare corporations within numerous countries including the US, Slovenia, Canada, India, Bahrain, Cyprus, and the UK," Google said in a recent blogpost.

Google detects coronavirus-themed phishing attacks by firms in India posing as WHO, banks

The sites typically feature fake login pages that prompt potential victims to give up their Google account credentials and phone numbers

31 May 2020 7:11 PM

IBM has struggled to compete with top cloud rivals Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

IBM's new CEO Arvind Krishna, on a path to sharpen focus of company, cuts US jobs likely in thousands

The company will eliminate software and services that don’t align with its top two focus areas: cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

23 May 2020 7:35 PM

Google said it will honour all existing contracts with its customers, but didn’t specify what companies. Greenpeace’s report says Microsoft appears to be leading the way with the most oil and contracts, offering AI capabilities in all phases of oil production. Amazon’s contracts are more focused on pipelines, shipping and fuel storage, according to the report. (Photo | Flicker)

Reminded of its climate change pledge, Google says it will stop building AI tools for oil extraction

Greenpeace report said Amazon, Microsoft, Google undermining their own climate pledges by partnering with Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil.

20 May 2020 7:45 PM

More than 200 million copies of the building and exploration game Minecraft have been sold as online play surges during the coronavirus pandemic.

11-year-old Minecraft one of the most popular games amid pandemic, has 26 million players monthly

Video games and online viewing of matches on platforms such as Twitch, YouTube and Facebook have been seeing huge growth during the pandemic

19 May 2020 6:36 PM

Technology will play a stronger role than ever before - enabling economic recovery and helping each one of us achieve more, Microsoft India President Anant Maheshwari says.

Investments in cloud, AI and cybersecurity being accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic

Technology is playing a key role in education, health and public distribution as movement restrictions become the norm.

16 May 2020 4:29 PM

China-based Huawei and Europe-based Nokia and Ericsson are major 5G equipment suppliers. (Photo | Flickr - Christoph Scholz)

With Huawei ostracised in US, alliance of 30 firms including Google, Samsung call for open 5G systems

The group, including telecom operators Vodafone, AT&T and Verizon, says it wants to avoid depending on any single technology supplier.

06 May 2020 10:07 PM

The report alleged that major US-based technology firms, including Microsoft, that hire H-1B workers directly had significant shares of their certified H-1B positions assigned as Level 1 or Level 2, the two lowest wage levels in fiscal 2019, both of which are below the local median wage.

Thought H-1B workers had made it? Turns out Google, Microsoft, other tech firms pay them below par

Report says 500,000 migrant workers in firms like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Walmart, Qualcomm and Uber are paid salaries in lowest wage slabs

06 May 2020 3:52 PM

Quarterly updates are due this week from Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, all of which will see an impact from the pandemic.

Big Tech firms try to highlight covid efforts to burnish image as they grow amid the pandemic

Quarterly results looming, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft do not want to be seen as having cashed in on the coronavirus crisis

26 Apr 2020 10:22 PM

New-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles along with games tailored for the hardware are expected to launch by the end of this year. Microsoft has unveiled a name and look for its new gaming console, the Xbox Series X. Meanwhile, Sony is readying a powerful PlayStation 5 for market. Consoles face a potential threat from the advent of cloud gaming, however.

Video game sales in March surged to USD 10 billion as lockdown stoked enthusiasm for gaming

Console and PC games are popular in Europe and North America where curbs on going out were ramped up in March due to the pandemic

23 Apr 2020 5:58 PM

In this representative image, commuters walk through ticket gates equipped with facial recognition systems at a metro station in Moscow on January 27, 2020. (Photo | AFP)

Microsoft to stop funding facial recognition startups, divests from firm whose tech is used by Israeli military

As a minority investor, Microsoft does not have enough oversight to ensure that the startup’s tech is not used for mass surveillance

28 Mar 2020 2:27 PM

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Photo: PTI)

Microsoft will get out of COVID-19 crisis 'pretty strong': Nadella

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been working from home since the coronavirus outbreak in the United States

25 Mar 2020 3:14 PM

Unlike this IBM Supercomputer, the Folding@Home project is powered by people's desktops, laptops and even PlayStation consoles, as well as more powerful business computers and servers. (Photo | Wikimedia Commons)

Want to aid coronavirus research? Tag on to this crowdsourced virtual supercomputer

Anyone with a recent computer can contribute by installing an app called Folding@Home which downloads a small amount of data for analysis

22 Mar 2020 1:13 PM

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Shobhaa De