Land O'Lakes picked Google to run the backend when it decided to launch a new application that connects a bunch of different cloud services to one another for the sake of improving farmers' decisions.It's something of a surprising choice for the decades-old company. Much of the company is built on Microsoft technology, said Teddy Bekele, the vice president of IT for Land O'Lakes's WinField division. While Microsoft's Azure cloud platform was in the running to host the new WinField Data Silo tool, Microsoft ended up losing out to Google Cloud Platform (GCP).It's a major win for Google, which has been trying to entice more large companies over to its cloud platform. And Land O'Lakes's decision is emblematic of the way that companies -- especially those with decades of technology history -- are approaching the public cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has changed the way developers build applications that understand human language -- and in the finest tradition of the Internet, has named the result after Boaty McBoatface. The company announced a new SyntaxNet open-source neural network framework that developers can use to build applications that understand human language. As part of that release, Google also introduced Parsey McParseface, a new English language parser that was trained using SyntaxNet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Anyone can get into the private beta of MIcrosoft's new GigJam productivity service, which is aimed at helping teams of people collaborate in real time over the Internet, the company announced Thursday. GigJam combines data from a variety of services including Microsoft's own Office 365, Trello, Dropbox, and Salesforce. Users can then bring that information into a shared workspace, allowing them to quickly work together.Users can easily redact part of the information they're sharing with other people, meaning they can selectively share only what needs to be seen in order to get a job done. There's no way around it: GigJam is a kind of wacky product Microsoft has built to help people get work done together. But what's interesting is that it's emblematic of the company's current approach to the productivity market -- focused on letting people quickly and independently collaborate across different services while maintaining a secure environment. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is revamping the email editor in Outlook for Mac, providing new options for working with images and adding new fonts.The biggest change is the ability to resize and rotate images. If you insert a very large image, for instance, you'll soon be able to make it more reasonably-sized for email recipients.Users are also getting access to a broader set of fonts, font colors, bulleted lists and other formatting options.The changes will roll out in mid-May, Microsoft says, starting with people who are part of the Office Insider early release program. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Sunrise Calendar app will be sunsetting on Aug. 31, the team behind it announced in a blog post Wednesday. In the next few days, the app will no longer be available from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.Users will have a few months to keep using it without support, before the company switches off the service at the end of August. This is happening because Microsoft acquired the company behind Sunrise last year and put its team to work on improving Outlook instead.According to the blog post, working on Outlook means the Sunrise team doesn't have time to support the app they created. They've been integrating popular features from Sunrise into different versions of Outlook, including a recently-released Calendar Apps feature on iOS and Android that lets users bring information from outside services into their Outlook calendar. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Android users can now get text translated in any app on their phone thanks to an update to Google Translate released Wednesday.The app now has a new Tap to Translate feature that lets people select text in one language, copy it, and with the tap of a button, see it in another language. It's designed to make it easier for folks to quickly get translations without having to go through a whole process of switching apps and pasting the text into Google Translate. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
WhatsApp is taking its popular messaging service to the desktop with a new Mac and Windows app released Tuesday. It's a pretty straightforward app: the millions of WhatsApp users can now continue conversations from their phone on a computer, and vice versa. That's a boon for people who want to chat with friends on WhatsApp without having to use their phones. The move should help WhatsApp better compete with other messaging services like Line, WeChat and Telegram, which already have desktop applications available for at least one platform. In order to set the app up, users have to scan a QR code inside the application with the Android or iPhone versions of WhatsApp, which will then allow them to log into the application and use it. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Slack is offering its users a new way to sign into other applications. The company announced Tuesday that it has launched a new "Sign in with Slack" feature that lets people use their login for the chat app to sign in to participating applications. Developers of applications like Quip can now enable their users to sign in with Slack credentials, which can make it easier for people to get started with applications -- and therefore more likely to try them out. The new feature makes it possible for independent developers and startups focused on workplace productivity to get an easier foothold with new users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Slack is offering its users a new way to sign into other applications. The company announced Tuesday that it has launched a new "Sign in with Slack" feature that lets people use their login for the chat app to sign in to participating applications. Developers of applications like Quip can now enable their users to sign in with Slack credentials, which can make it easier for people to get started with applications -- and therefore more likely to try them out. The new feature makes it possible for independent developers and startups focused on workplace productivity to get an easier foothold with new users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is expanding the global footprint of its cloud platform to South Korea, and it has officially launched its previously announced data center in Canada, the company announced Tuesday. In South Korea, Microsoft's cloud will be getting two new regions, including one in Seoul. They're aimed at serving both customers of the company's Azure cloud platform, and also its other services, including Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online. Customers also now have full use of two Microsoft Azure regions in Canada, located in Quebec City and Toronto. This announcement is part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to expand the geographic reach of its cloud computing platform. The expansion serves a pair of purposes: meeting the data sovereignty needs of customers, and making it faster for people to access Microsoft's cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dropbox launched a new service on Tuesday to help graduate students, college faculty and staff collaborate on files while they’re at school. Schools can now pay $50 per user, per year for Dropbox Education, a version of the cloud storage company’s premium offering for organizations that’s tailored to the cost-sensitive education market. Dropbox is trying to sell more paid services, but its offerings have been aimed primarily at businesses. Dropbox Education will cost much less than the company's business plans, which typically run from $150 to $300 per user, per month.It’s a move that could give the company a bigger foothold in the lucrative education market at a time when Dropbox is working hard to expand its business beyond a large base of free consumer users. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
App developers now have an easier way to sell their wares to businesses running Windows 10.
On Thursday, Microsoft said developers can submit paid apps for inclusion in the Windows Store for Business, a version of the online store for Windows 10 that companies can use to distribute software to their employees over the web. (The store previously offered only free applications.)
The move means independent app developers have an easier way to get their wares in front of large enterprise customers, and businesses have an easier way to purchase apps for their users and distribute them across a large population of Windows 10 PCs and tablets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Box is launching a new offering aimed squarely at government customers in an attempt to get more public agencies to use its file storage and collaboration service.On Thursday, the company launched Box for Government, designed to make it easier for government organizations to deploy Box for their employees. That announcement was timed with Box receiving provisional authority to operate under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management program (better known as FedRAMP), a sign that the company meets key requirements for handling government data.The government push is an important move for Box, which has been positioning itself as a cloud storage and content services provider focused on serving large organizations like public agencies and enterprises. Its FedRAMP Moderate certification meets a bar set to protect types of data that include personally identifiable information. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google is trying to save presentation audiences from having to sit through long rambling questions with a new feature it added to its Slides software on Wednesday. Slides Q&A will let audiences send text questions through the Web when listening to a presentation using Google's software. As a presenter is talking, she can see the questions and respond to them, without waiting for someone to speak into a microphone. Google
Google Slides Q&A's presenter view lets presenters see what people in their audience want to know. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
SharePoint is going mobile in a big way. Microsoft announced a new app for its content management and collaboration platform on Tuesday, which will give workers a way to access content from their smartphones and tablets on the go. The app, called SharePoint Mobile, will be coming to iOS by the end of June, and is one of dozens of new features for the platform that Microsoft announced alongside the general availability of SharePoint Server 2016. Other capabilities include redesigned team sites that make it easier to see relevant files that people are working on and a hybrid search functionality that works across cloud and on-premises versions of SharePoint. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft dove deeper into Internet of Things technology on Tuesday with the acquisition of Solair, an Italian company that operates a cloud-based IoT platform. According to a Microsoft blog post, Solair's technology will be used to upgrade the company's Azure IoT Suite, a collection of cloud services meant to help companies use the Internet of Things. Microsoft and Solair didn't disclose the financial terms of their deal. Solair's technology, which already uses Microsoft's Azure cloud services, offers IoT services focused on a variety of markets, including home automation, smart metering, remote maintenance and inventory management. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft surprised the world last month when it filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that the frequent practice of attaching gag orders to search warrants for customer data violates the U.S. Constitution.On Monday, CEO Satya Nadella told a group of tech luminaries why the company did so: Microsoft has a strong view on its privacy promises to users, and the company will fight to prevent government overreach that, in its view, compromises the principles of privacy. Governments have a compelling need to help preserve public safety, but Microsoft wants to make sure that users' privacy is also preserved, Nadella said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft surprised the world last month when it filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that the frequent practice of attaching gag orders to search warrants for customer data violates the U.S. Constitution.On Monday, CEO Satya Nadella told a group of tech luminaries why the company did so: Microsoft has a strong view on its privacy promises to users, and the company will fight to prevent government overreach that, in its view, compromises the principles of privacy. Governments have a compelling need to help preserve public safety, but Microsoft wants to make sure that users' privacy is also preserved, Nadella said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google Apps is getting a new set of tutorials. The tech giant announced Monday that it has acquired Synergyse, a startup that offered businesses a guided tutorial for Google Apps.Synergyse's technology allowed businesses to give their users step-by-step interactive guides to doing things inside Google Apps like sending emails in Gmail, setting up appointments in Calendar and getting started with Docs. The tutorials are frequently updated with new features that Google releases, so users can stay current with new functionality that gets added to the different services. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Database fans, start your clocks: Microsoft announced Monday that its new version of SQL Server will be out of beta and ready for commercial release on June 1. The news means that companies waiting to pick up SQL Server 2016 until its general availability can start planning their adoption.SQL Server 2016 comes with a suite of new features over its predecessor, including a new Stretch Database function that allows users to store some of their data in a database on-premises and send infrequently used data to Microsoft's Azure cloud. An application connected to a database using that feature can still see all the data from different sources, though. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Blair Hanley Frank