According to Bloomberg, Mike Filippo will work within Microsoft’s cloud computing service, Azure, to produce custom processors. Filippo will bring plenty of chip design experience to this new role since he previously worked at Apple, Intel Corp, and Arm Ltd. Over the past decade, Filippo has led the development of various Arm chips and was initially brought onto Apple’s team to work on its M1 chip in 2020. The new hire suggests that Microsoft is prioritizing its plans to make its own chips to power Azure, which was initially announced two years ago....

Update: Here’s the acknowledgement of what’s in the email from a Microsoft customer support article. The reason for the decision to drop Money for Excel next year is explained this way: “We’ve learned a lot from Money in Excel and appreciate the many needs people have for their families and their money. We believe there are other areas where we can have a greater impact and will be focusing on those going forward....

There’s a lot packed into this download: Window 11 Enterprise (evaluation)Windows 10 SDK, version 2004 (10.0.19041.0)Visual Studio 2019 (latest as of 10/09/21) with the UWP, .NET desktop, and Azure workflows enabled and includes the Windows Template Studio extension.Visual Studio Code (latest as of 10/09/21)Windows Subsystem for Linux enabled with Ubuntu installedDeveloper mode enabledWindows Terminal installed According to Microsoft, these virtual machines will expire on 01/09/22. Microsoft has made downloads available for VMWare, Hyper-V, VirtualBox and Parallels versions of the virtual machine, and they can all be downloaded directly from Microsoft....

Also: Microsoft announces Canva competitor with new ‘Designer’ app powered by AI The pitch: Instead of having to email colleagues links or send them to them in chats, users can simply share an Edge Workspace that’s already populated and ready to use. As of today, Edge Workspaces is in public preview for enterprise customers (not consumers). Even though the current preview is for businesses, Microsoft is committing to make it available to consumers, as well, allowing people to plan trips, organize activities, and more....

If you’re the greatest toilet brush maker in the world, it’s surely not easy to launch, say, a soap dispenser or a showerhead. So I welled up with sympathy on hearing that Microsoft is desperate for you to take one of its dullest, most successful products, and actually enjoy using it. Also: How to add a drop down list in Google Sheets I received an email, you see, from the company, with a hearty New Year’s twist....

As is often the case with first-generation devices, the Duo wasn’t all that impressive. I purchased one and returned it within 30 days (Microsoft offers a 60-day return policy). There was clear potential with the phone, but I felt the concept was a better fit for a tablet (or even a laptop). Fast forward and Microsoft is ready to ship the Surface Duo 2. There are some modest changes to the second generation device, including a speedier processor, better cameras and it runs Android 11....

The service issues, which started on the evening of Wednesday July 20 and continued into Thursday morning, slowed down or prevented access to several Microsoft services, including Microsoft Teams, Exchange Server, Microsoft 365 admin center, Yammer, Microsoft Word and other Office applications. The issue also prevented autopatching within Microsoft Managed Desktop and other services. SEE: Microsoft Teams is getting all these new hybrid work features Microsoft said most service availability was up and running as of this morning (July 21), although some services are still suffering from issues, meaning users may struggle to access some Microsoft 365 services for the time being....

Microsoft is one of 18 cybersecurity companies that was selected to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop Zero Trust designs that federal agencies can implement under Executive Order 14028. Instead of focusing on hardening the network perimeter, Zero Trust assumes that an organisation has already been breached and includes a design that acknowledges data needs to be protected both within and outside the network, across managed and unmanaged devices....

Rajesh Jha, who is the Executive Vice President of Experiences and Devices and Panay’s boss, has been on the SLT for several years. But since former Windows chief Terry Myerson left the company in 2018, the Windows business has not had a leading figurehead with a lot of internal power and external visibility. Microsoft’s Senior Leaders website, which up until recently had listed all the Senior Leadership Team members, has been redone....

It was reported Friday morning that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) gave the private details of the woman and her children to the perpetrator who was recently released from jail. As detailed during Senate Estimates, the information included the location of the children’s school and the names of professionals working with one of the children. “The first thing I’d say is I unreservedly apologise for that, it should not have happened,” Reynolds said....

“I regret most sincerely that this error has occurred, and that any trauma or distress that has been caused to the person whose information has been incorrectly uploaded, I believe those sentiments were passed on to the person directly by the officer who contacted her, but yes, I deeply regret what’s happened,” Ruston told Senate Estimates on Thursday morning. The National Redress Scheme provides support to people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse....

The so-called intelligent carpet could have applications in personalized healthcare, smart homes, and gaming. It also might offer a more privacy-friendly way of delivering healthcare to people who need to be remotely monitored by healthcare professionals. As MIT CSAIL notes, other research in this field has relied on devices like wearable cameras, and webcams. SEE: Building the bionic brain (free PDF) (TechRepublic) MIT’s system only uses cameras to create a dataset that was used to train the AI model....

The study queried 300 CIOs, CTOs, and “other VP-level and above executives” at global enterprises with annual revenues over $250 million. It found that the vast majority have already begun looking into quantum computing, with a larger 74% noting that companies will “fall behind” if they fail to tap into it. The driving force behind this positive sentiment is the belief that quantum technology could offer a competitive edge; 41% of respondents expect it to have a positive impact on their company’s performance within two years....

On Monday, Mozilla released the findings of a new study into these types of apps, which often deal with sensitive topics including depression, mental health awareness, anxiety, domestic violence, PTSD, and more, alongside religion-themed services. According to Mozilla’s latest *Privacy Not Included guide, despite the deeply personal information these apps manage, they “routinely share data, allow weak passwords, target vulnerable users with personalized ads, and feature vague and poorly written privacy policies....

At MWC, Lenovo has unveiled an impressive portfolio of new ThinkPads, IdeaPads, Chromebooks, ThinkBooks, a portable monitor, and an updated tablet. Tab M10 Plus (3rd Gen) The third generation of Lenovo’s Tab M10 Plus features an improved 10.6-inch 2K IPS display (2000 x 1200, 220ppi) with 400 nits brightness and narrow bezels resulting in a claimed screen to body ratio of 85%. Powered by an octa-core processor with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and featuring quad speakers with Dolby Atmos, the Tab M10 Plus G3, which weighs 465g and is 7....

The contract, valued at AU$2.1 million, is for Chamonix IT to build a new mobile app that gives My Health Record account holders the ability to view their patient, clinical, and lab records. As part of the deal, the ADHA has also acquired Chamonix’s IP rights for the health record app Healthi, which is what the My Health Record app will be based on. Healthi provides health record services and was the first third-party app to be connected to the My Health Record....

This release of kernel has contributions from about 1,650 developers. There were 11,859 file changes, nearly 82,000 insertions and 285,485 deletions. Torvalds expects this to be a “pretty regular release” compared to the larger 4.13 stable release in late June, which brought early support for Apple’s M1 Arm-based processor. “Last release was big, but it was all fairly calm despite that, so size isn’t always the determining factor here,” he warned in the Linux Kernel Mailing List....

Camera aside, the microphone uses ambient noise canceling to capture your voice, so when there’s outside noise, be it kids or a lawn mower, the microphone automatically filters out the noise and leaves your voice sounding crisp and clear. 

In a media statement released on Saturday evening, the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) blamed “the increased volume of people using the iVote system”. “Almost triple the number of voters have used iVote at these elections than any previous election,” NSWEC said. “At the 2019 NSW State elections 234,401 votes were cast using iVote. At close of applications at 1pm today [Saturday] 652,983 votes had been cast using the system since it opened on 22 November....