Microsoft staffers oppose the TikTok deal as ‘Unethical’

The US is currently forcing TikTok to be sold to an American company, saying that the would-be transaction must be completed by 15 September or otherwise the popular video-sharing app used by around 100 million users in the US will be banned in the country; reports Russian news agency Sputnik. Microsoft staffers don't want their employer to buy out the short video app TikTok, the brainchild of the Chinese firm ByteDance, as revealed by internal message exchanges cited by the Daily Mail. Writing on a corporate social network called Yammer, they explicitly stated that it feels like a deal and participation in negotiations to this end are not the right thing to do in terms of ethics. "Especially since Satya [Nadella] became CEO, I've felt nothing but pride to be part of this company", one user posted in a comment thread, adding this is the first time that he has had "doubt gnawing at the pit of my stomach that maybe we're not doing the right thing". Another portrayed the talks as "unethical from pretty much any perspective". "That Microsoft would even be considering stepping into this situation is unthinkable", the user asserted. Separately, in a survey on Yammer, seen by Business Insider, 63 percent of staff said "no" when asked whether they were for Microsoft's potential buyout of TikTok. Another 19 percent...

Read More........→August 14, 2020

Scientists trying to give AI storytelling capabilities

Thinkstock photoNew York, June 5  Scientists at Microsoft Research and their colleagues are developing an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can tell stories based on photos. The aim is not just to explain what items are in the picture, but also what appears to be happening and how it might potentially make a person feel, US-based website livescience.com quoted the researchers as saying. For example, if a person is shown a picture of a man in a tuxedo and a woman in a long, white dress, instead of saying, “This is a bride and groom,” he or she might say, “My friends got married. They look really happy; it was a beautiful wedding.” “The goal is to help give AIs more human-like intelligence, to help it understand things on a more abstract level and what it means to be fun or creepy or weird or interesting,” Margaret Mitchell, study senior author said in a “With our focus on storytelling, we hope to help AIs understand human concepts in a way that is very safe and beneficial for mankind, rather than teaching it how to beat mankind,” Mitchell, who is also a computer scientist at Microsoft Research, added. To build a visual storytelling system, the researchers used deep neural networks, computer systems that learn by example. The researchers said although everything worked fine, the computerised storyteller needs...

Read More........→July 08, 2016

Windows 10 may be selling well, how Microsoft are still not satisfied?

Strong demand for Windows 10 surface (also to be the ultimate test of the market) is more the result of its error correction again in the traditional PC market and the value of compromise, rather than a manifestation of the true value, while the market and users for its functionin the mobile space indifference, but also seems to presage Windows 10 in the mobile market than previous Windows 8 will not have too much outstanding performance. Microsoft has been hailed as the mobile market to reverse the decline and transition heavyweight upcoming Windows 10 operating system market. So Windwos 10 can receive favorable for the market, the relationship with Microsoft's future prospects in the mobile market, and "Mobile led the cloud-first" strategy proposed CEO can be implemented. Recently, the results of a recent survey of IT professionals for research institutions Spiceworks released, Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system abnormalities strong potential demand. That plan to install Windows 10 system users in two years the ratio reached 73%, of which about 40% of users plan to install Windows 10 systems within a year. From that perspective, the demand for Windows 10 system is indeed strong, at least compared with its predecessor Windows 8 system is this. It stands to reason such a high market and customer needs, for Microsoft, should...

Read More........→July 13, 2015

The Internet is losing its baby teeth

In 2010, Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, wrote “The Web Is Dead.” He argued that the future of the Internet and connectivity wasn’t in the World Wide Web, but in a fragmented collection of many different platforms — people consuming content via mobile devices, native apps and other means outside of a traditional web browser. While Anderson’s sensational claim raised a lot of eyebrows, and sparked enormous debate, I wasn’t sure what to make of his prediction at the time. But four years later, we have a little more perspective. In 2014, ‘the web’ — the means by which we access the Internet using a web browser — is hardly dead, although there certainly has been a significant shift our relationship with the Internet. In its infant stages, going online meant using AOL or Earthlinkto dial up a connection to the web. Today, we use the Internet for different reasons, and our connectivity is better, faster and stronger than ever. The disruptive technology that is the Internet is no longer a baby, it’s more like a toddler learning to walk. When your babies learn to walk, you breathe a sigh of relief at their newfound mobility. But that relief quickly turns to frustration as you realize you’ve only traded one set of problems for another. Your newly mobile child can now get into everything, climb and break everything. The same...

Read More........→March 12, 2015

Bracelet transforms wrist into a touchscreen

A bracelet that turns skin into a smartphone style interface is on the cusp of mass development after its developers promised a prototype in a matter of weeks. The Cicret bracelet incorporates a pico-projector and eight proximity sensors to display an interface on the back or the front of the user's wrist and support touch interaction. The video in this story shows multiple consumer applications but the bracelet could also be used to access control interfaces or presentation materials in the professional environment. Cicret says the product will be available in 16 and 32 GB versions and is durable and waterproof. It is a similar concept to Microsoft’s Sikinput system but demonstrates a product that can be deployed in a small and ergonomic format. Source: InAVat...

Read More........→December 13, 2014