This morning Microsoft Build kicks off in San Francisco at 8.30am (4.30am NZ time). I’m in San Francisco and will be sharing some of my impressions here on my blog.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella started his keynote asking many questions – such as whether technology helps our hinders our values, whether technology is helping or hindering privacy. And he answered those questions positively highlighting Microsofts mission to “Empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more”.
“We live in a mobile first and cloud first world” states Satya – it’s about the mobility of people across all their devices. Cloud is a new form of computing that enables this mobility.”
Nadella highlighted numbers – such as Microsoft Azure Active Directory being used by over 5-million businesses and Windows 10 now being installed on over 270-million users.
Terry Myerson showed off numerous improvements in ‘inking’ (drawing and writing on a tablet with a stylus) that are coming with the upcoming ‘Anniversary Update’ coming to Windows 10 as a free update in Winter (Summer in the US). Demonstrations should improved inking in Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Illustrator.
Other areas that have so far attracted attention:
- Linux components such as the Bash shell is coming to Windows 10 (via Ubuntu) – and more shells coming soon
- A converter to bring existing Windows applications and their installers to world of Universal Windows apps
- The Universal Windows Platform means developers writing games can have the same code run on both Windows and Xbox One
- Developers can convert their retail Xbox to a dev machine so they can test and run Universal Windows apps they are developing on their Xbox
- Cortana and background music are amongst features coming to Xbox One in the upcoming Anniversary Update
- Bots are becoming the new apps – and chat bots like the new browser
- Cortana is the personal digital assist that is focussed on the user – not about a device – so it will work any device (Windows, iOS, Android)
- The Windows 10 Anniversary Update improves Cortana – for instance developers can produce proactive ’Experts for Cortana’
- Skype now has 300-million users and over 3-billions minutes of calls per month – and integration with external services and bots is now coming up – including integrations with Cortana, Slack, video text transcription (using the tech from Skype Translator), and things such as automated proactive suggestions (offer to add an event you’ve discussed into your calendar, offer to book you a hotel for a trip and automating the process, and offer to connect you with a close friend in a city you’re visiting).
- Skype video bots will be coming with the new Skype Bot Software Developers Kit (SDK)
- Skype for Hololens has been announced
- Microsoft is launching ‘Cortana Intelligence Suite’ – a bot framework offering cognitives services and machine learning – to integrate with Cortana, Skype, Slack, Line
- Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Bot framework – setup to integrate with integrate with systems such as Slack and Skype – and with Node.js or C#
- Microsoft are making Cognitive Services available to developers – for instance advanced image recognition and voice recognition capabilities
(This blog will update – please refresh for further updates and also follow me on Twitter: @paulspain)