Microsoft held the first session of its Build 2019 conference in Seattle on Monday. There were some key announcements made by the company’s CEO Satya Nadella from expanding the AI application to improvements in Microsoft Edge browser.
Here’s a run through of the highlights below:
Despite all its technological advancements, the US elections invariably throw up accusations of invalid votes and other issues. Microsoft claims it has developed certain tools to bring in more transparency in the voting system. The company says it will be ready with the programme in time for the US Presidential elections in 2020.
The Microsoft Edge browser on Windows 10 will now be based on Google Chromium and some new features are being added to make the browser more secure and provide privacy controls. In addition, developers may get a helping hand if they intend to work on legacy apps with an Internet Explorer mode in the Edge browser.
The Blockchain technology is being given a leg up with Microsoft teaming with Starbucks. There is already an arrangement with JP Morgan earlier.
Another interesting announcement at the Build 2019 conference is on the expansion of application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in proprietary programmes like Microsoft 365 and Office 365.
This is what you will find on the Microsoft website with regard to this new development: “Ideas in Word for Word Online, which can help you easily design and present polished documents, and Microsoft Search, a new enterprise search experience that applies AI technology from Bing and deep personalized insights surfaced by the Microsoft Graph”.
Now, amateur users of Office 365 may want to know what this means. They may have to wait till Microsoft sends the updates and publishes a tutorial so that the new features can be used by everyone.
Azure Speech Service is yet another area that Microsoft has brought in a lot of improvements in. The technology now can understand local dialects and will be able to transcribe them correctly.