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Bill Gates Starts $1 Billion “Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund” on Climate Change

13Dec By AnkitaNo Comments

FUNDING, News

Bill Gates Starts $1 Billion “Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund” on Climate Change

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and a group of high-profile executives are investing USD 1 billion in a fund to spur clean energy technology and address global climate change a year after the Paris climate agreement. Gates launched the Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund on Monday along with billionaire entrepreneurs such as Facebook Inc head Mark Zuckerberg, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Chairman Jack Ma and Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos. The fund seeks to increase financing of emerging energy research and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to help meet goals set in Paris, according to a statement by the investor group known as the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. It marked the first major investment of the coalition formed in December 2015 to spur research, development and deployment of c...

Nadella Congratulates Trump; Looks Forward to Work With Him

11Nov By NitishNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Nadella Congratulates Trump; Looks Forward to Work With Him

Tech giant Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella has congratulated US President- elect Donald Trump and said he looks forward to working with all those elected in the general election. "Yesterday, we witnessed the democratic process in action here in the US. The results are of importance around the world, and I know that interest is shared among Microsoft employees," Nadella, 49, wrote on Microsoft-owned professional networking site LinkedIn yesterday. "We congratulate the president-elect, and look forward to working with all those elected yesterday. Our commitment to our mission and values are steadfast, and in particular fostering a diverse and inclusive culture," he said. In a stunning result, Trump yesterday beat seasoned politician and Hillary Clinton in the knife-edge ...

Renault-Nissan and Microsoft Partner to Deliver the Future of Connected Driving

27Sep By NitishNo Comments

News

Renault-Nissan and Microsoft Partner to Deliver the Future of Connected Driving

Companies sign global, multiyear contract to work on next-generation connected car technologies and driving experiences The Renault-Nissan Alliance and Microsoft Corp. have signed a global, multiyear agreement to partner on next-generation technologies to advance connected driving experiences worldwide. The companies will work together to develop next-generation connected services for cars powered by Microsoft Azure, one of the company's intelligent cloud offerings. These new services will improve customer experience via advanced navigation, predictive maintenance and vehicle centric services, remote monitoring of car features, external mobile experiences and over-the-air updates. "A car is becoming increasingly connected, intelligent and personal," said Ogi Redzic, Renault-Nissan...

Skype Will Use Aadhaar-based ID Authentication: Microsoft

23Sep By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

News

Skype Will Use Aadhaar-based ID Authentication: Microsoft

Microsoft today said it has presented to central authorities various “case scenarios” on how its Skype service can be used for identity authentication using the Aadhaar database. “We have presented various case scenarios on how Skype can be used. We already support iris authentication (on Windows 10). Now it depends on them how they want to proceed,” Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said. Citing an example, he said Skype can be used by people to authenticate themselves for accessing government services that require Aadhaar-based authentication. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is in discussions with handset makers and operating system providers for embedding the identification technology onto mobile devices. This will help people authenticate their Aadhaa...

Microsoft to Layoff Skype Employees in London

20Sep By NitishNo Comments

News

Microsoft to Layoff Skype Employees in London

IANS- Technology giant Microsoft is planning to close its London office of Skype and to lay-off most of the nearly 400 people employed there, a media report here said. "Microsoft made the decision to unify some engineering positions, potentially putting at risk a number of globally focused Skype and Yammer roles," the Financial Times quoted Microsoft as saying. Skype will still maintain offices throughout the world, including in Redmond, Palo Alto, Vancouver, and several locations in Europe. But the layoffs indicate a shift in priorities, with anonymous former employees telling media that Microsoft has increasingly been taking control of Skype, replacing Skype's employees with its own. Skype was one of the first big voice chatting apps, but it's increasingly come under threat f...

LinkedIn Launched Mobile Lite Version For Indian Users

12Sep By NitishNo Comments

News

LinkedIn Launched Mobile Lite Version For Indian Users

Professional networking site LinkedIn today launched a lighter version of its mobile website and other products as part of its efforts to tap into students and young professionals beyond the metros in India. The company has followed the footsteps of Facebook, which picked up India as a testbed for the lighter version of its app. The lighter versions are designed to work on slow and often patchy telecom networks in the country. India, which has 37 million LinkedIn members, is the second largest userbase for the US-based company after its home market. "We are deeply focused on localising our products and services to create much value for Indian members and customers," LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner told reporters here. Lite version loads four times faster and provides a better experience t...

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Faces Flak Over Twitter To Rope in Pvt Cloud Firms

6Sep By AdityaNo Comments

INDIA

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Faces Flak Over Twitter To Rope in Pvt Cloud Firms

IT Ministry reported plan to rope in private companies like Microsoft and IBM for providing cloud computing services to government departments has come under flak from cyber security experts. "I think by using cloud services of foreign companies like Microsoft and IBM, IT Ministry has decided to throw all Data and National Security concerns into a dustbin. What has happened to the National Cloud Project of government? We appeal the Prime Minister to intervene and stop this else this will send a wrong message," Indian Infosec Consortium (IIC) CEO Jiten Jain said. IIC is Indias cyber security group which has around 4,000 members. "If the worlds software super power (India) does not have the capacity to even build its own Indigenous cloud infrastructure then where is Make in India," Jain s...

Microsoft Buys AI Scheduling Service Genee to Bolster Office 365

24Aug By Press Trust of IndiaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Microsoft Buys AI Scheduling Service Genee to Bolster Office 365

Software giant Microsoft has bought a smart scheduling app Genee, as part of its effort to embed artificial intelligence (AI) to compete with the likes of Google Now and Apple. The start-up, which was founded in 2014, will shut down its service on September 1. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Genee founders Ben Cheung and Charles Lee, who will join Microsoft. Genee specializes in using machine smarts to handle the time-sucking task of scheduling meetings. It is likely that Microsoft will be using this acquisition to bolster its Office 365 suite. "As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I'm confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience...

Apple Started Bounty Bug Program For Developers

7Aug By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Apple Started Bounty Bug Program For Developers

Apple Inc said it plans to offer rewards of up to $200,000 (£152,433) to researchers who find critical security bugs in its products, joining dozens of firms that already offer payments for help uncovering flaws in their products. Such rewards are already offered by dozens of firms, including Facebook Inc, Google, Microsoft Corp, Tesla Motors Inc and Yahoo Inc. The program will initially be limited to about two dozen researchers who Apple will invite to help identify hard-to-uncover security bugs in five specific categories. Those researchers have been chosen from the group of experts who have previously helped Apple identify bugs, but have not been compensated for that work, the company said. The most lucrative category, which offers rewards of up to $200,000, is for bugs in Apple's ...

Microsoft Posts $3.1 Billion in Profit, a Year After Big Loss

21Jul By NitishNo Comments

BUSINESS

Microsoft Posts $3.1 Billion in Profit, a Year After Big Loss

AFP, SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft said Tuesday it posted a profit of $3.1 billion in the just-ended quarter, swinging into the black a year after hefty charges from writing off mobile phone assets. "This past year was pivotal in both our own transformation and in partnering with our customers who are navigating their own digital transformations," said chief executive Satya Nadella. The profit in the tech giant's fourth fiscal quarter was nearly identical to the loss from a year earlier, when it took charges of more than $7 billion to reflect the lower value of the Nokia mobile phone division it had acquired. Revenue dipped to $20.6 billion from $22.2 billion in the same period a year ago. Overall, the results were better than most forecasts and sparked an after-hours gain of more than 3% f...

Monsanto, Microsoft to Invest in Agricultural Technology in Brazil

5Jul By reutersNo Comments

FUNDING

Monsanto, Microsoft to Invest in Agricultural Technology in Brazil

U.S. biotech company Monsanto Co and Microsoft Corp announced on Monday a partnership to invest in agricultural technology startups in Brazil. Monsanto will join a Brazilian investment fund with up to 300 million reais ($92 million), managed by Microsoft, evaluating ideas for new digital tools to be applied to agricultural production in the country, executives said. Selected ideas will receive initial funding of up to 1.5 million reais ($459,000) for early development. Project owners will have the option to pay back the investment after three years or convert the money into equity. "We want to foster new startups in the agricultural sector. There is a vast area for research and development," Rodrigo Santos, head of Monsanto in Latin America, told reporters on the sidelines of the ...

Microsoft Will Use Linkedin As a Facebook For Professionals: Bill Gates

18Jun By NitishNo Comments

Entrepreneurs Talk

Microsoft Will Use Linkedin As a Facebook For Professionals: Bill Gates

San Francisco: Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s said, "he’s enthusiastic about the company’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp., viewing it as an opportunity to build a business network for the working world like Facebook Inc. has created for social communities." Gates said in an interview with . “If we can make that as valuable as the Facebook feed in the social world, that’s huge value creation and that’ll happen over a period of years.” Users should be compelled to say: “This professional feed in LinkedIn, that is how I want to learn about my career, my company, my industry, and I’m going back there,”. The purchase is a way for Microsoft, which largely missed out on the consumer web boom dominated by the likes of Google and Face...