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Today, we are excited to announce that Microsoft has acquired Two Hat, a leading content moderation solution provider offering protection measures for online communities with a vision to build better experiences for everyone. Globally, growing amounts of harmful content shared online have increased the need for effective and proactive content moderation. For any online community to thrive, content moderation is a critical investment to ensure positive user experiences and maintain engagement over time. Microsoft and Two Hat share a vision for using advancements in moderation technology to nurture and protect diverse, global online communities. This acquisition is an important evolution of the longstanding relationship between Microsoft and Two Hat that will combine innovative technology, research capabilities, highly skilled teams and the most complete cloud infrastructure. This is a deep investment in assisting and serving Two Hat’s existing customers, prospective new customers and multiple product and service experiences here at Microsoft. Working with the diverse and experienced team at Two Hat over the years, it has become clear that we are fully aligned with the core values inspired by the vision of founder, Chris Priebe, to deliver a holistic approach for positive and thriving online communities. At Microsoft, we believe that gaming should be inclusive and welcoming for everyone. For the past few years, Microsoft and Two Hat have worked together to implement proactive moderation technology into gaming and non-gaming experiences to detect and remove harmful content before it ever reaches members of our communities. For example, Two Hat’s technology has helped to make global communities in Xbox, Minecraft and MSN safer for users. This is thanks to its highly configurable technology, which allows the user to decide what they are comfortable with and what they aren’t. I’ve witnessed the impact they’ve had within Xbox, and we are thrilled that this acquisition will further accelerate our first-party content moderation solutions across gaming, within a broad range of Microsoft consumer services, and to build greater opportunity for our third-party partners and Two Hat’s existing clients’ use of these solutions. We also recognize the trust Two Hat has built with customers who depend on its services and those relationships will continue as part of the transition. Microsoft has a principled approach to privacy and customers can trust that we will protect the privacy and confidentiality of their data. We understand the complex challenges organizations face today when striving to effectively moderate online communities. In our ever-changing digital world, there is an urgent need for moderation solutions that can manage online content in an effective and scalable way. With this acquisition, we will help global online communities to be safer and inclusive for everyone to participate, positively contribute and thrive. The post Microsoft acquires Two Hat to collaborate on online safety and digital wellness solutions for online communities appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Age of Empires IV is available now with Xbox Game Pass for PC and Ultimate, and available to buy at the Microsoft Store for Windows PC and Steam. To celebrate the launch, the World’s Edge team is taking over Times Square in New York City by spanning multiple city blocks with large digital screens, a living diorama and an AR experience. If you’re in New York City you’re invited to share your experiences there. Head over to Xbox Wire for all the launch news and tips on how to get started playing the new game. Continue reading...

The last year has brought unrelenting headlines about cybersecurity attacks. Foreign governments have tampered with the software supply chain, targeted on-premise servers, and hacked into sensitive government files. Criminal ransomware groups have attacked schools, penetrated hospitals and shut down a critical national pipeline. As we documented in the recent Microsoft Digital Defense Report, these attacks are growing and becoming more sophisticated. We’ve entered a new international era that falls short of war but with constant foreign cybersecurity attacks that threaten not only our businesses, but our students, healthcare and daily lives. We recognize that no one has a higher responsibility to address cybersecurity threats than leading tech companies. It’s why we’ve increased cybersecurity investments and broadened our efforts across Microsoft, working closely with government and business leaders across the country. Earlier this year we committed $20 billion over five years to advance our security solutions and protect customers, as well as $150 million to help US government agencies upgrade protections, and expand our cybersecurity training partnerships. And as we shared earlier this week, we continue to innovate and bring new solutions to customers and individuals around the globe like passwordless login, identity management, endpoint security and more. But this work has also brought an additional and daunting realization: the country’s cybersecurity challenges in part reflect a serious workforce shortage. Until we redress the cybersecurity workforce shortage, we will fall short in strengthening the country’s cybersecurity protection. That’s why today Microsoft is launching a national campaign with U.S. community colleges to help skill and recruit into the cybersecurity workforce 250,000 people by 2025, representing half of the country’s workforce shortage. While some of these individuals will work at Microsoft, the vast majority will work for tens of thousands of other employers across the country. But even with this effort, much more will needed to solve this problem. That’s why I’m writing this blog – to share what we’ve learned so far and encourage all of us to learn more from each other and do more together to address with urgency a problem we need to treat as a national crisis. * * * America’s critical cybersecurity workforce shortage Let me start with two personal experiences that illustrate the problems we need to solve. The first moment was in February as we looked back at Microsoft’s work to respond to the sophisticated Russian attacks that originated with tampering last year of a software update from SolarWinds. Early on we concluded that most customers could protect against the attacks by deploying cybersecurity best practices. It’s a phenomenon we’ve also seen repeatedly as we work with customers on ransomware attacks. We responded to the Solorigate incident in part by publishing more than 30 blogs so cybersecurity professionals could understand the technical issues and address them for their employers. But we found that a shortage of trained cybersecurity workers slowed our customers’ responses. In short, there were not enough people with the training needed to read everything we were writing. The second moment came this fall as I traveled the country. On a Monday morning in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a group of local business leaders talked about their hiring frustrations. As one person put it, “every small business and start-up I know is complaining they can’t find people with cybersecurity skills.” As I moved from state to state, the people and conference rooms changed but the conversation remained the same. We’ve worked to compare what we’ve been hearing with an assessment of broader data. We therefore asked one of our data analytics teams to bring together the best workforce data sets in the country, including from LinkedIn and cyberseek.org. And the conclusions are striking. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Cybersecurity-skilling_blog_GRAPHIC-2.jpg Consider this – for almost every two cybersecurity jobs in the United States today, a third job is sitting empty because of a shortage of skilled people. It’s like going into baseball’s World Series with only six players on the field when the other team has all nine. (And as we encounter every day at Microsoft, the nation’s cybersecurity adversaries are fielding complete and world-class teams.) https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/NEW-2a-graphic-Picture1-252x300.png Currently there are 464,200 open jobs in the United States that require cybersecurity skills. They account for 6% of all open jobs in the country. That’s right – more than one out of every 20 open jobs in America today is a job that requires cybersecurity skills. And every projection shows that the number of these jobs will grow even more in the years ahead. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Cybersecurity-skilling_blog_GRAPHIC-3.jpg And these are great jobs! They pay an average of $105,800 per year. Some are full-time cybersecurity jobs, like a chief information security officer, or CISO. Others involve a combination of cybersecurity and other IT functions. In our own (slightly biased) opinion, the work is fascinating and noble. And regardless of where you live in the United States, there are plenty of open cybersecurity jobs nearby. We’ve created the Power BI dashboard below so you can check out the details for each state in the nation. Click here to load media There is another piece of good news. Many of these open jobs don’t require a four-year college degree. You can qualify by earning an industry-recognized certificate or by getting a certificate or associate degree from a community college. In sum, we hope that people of all ages who are interested in the country’s cyber protection will consider the half-million open cybersecurity jobs as a personal invitation to a rewarding and exciting future. And we’re prepared to put Microsoft’s technology, financial resources, learning materials, connections and voice behind a new national campaign to help take the next step. Marshaling the nation’s resources For months we’ve been working to develop a plan to help expand and strengthen the cybersecurity workforce. Given the magnitude of the challenge, it was soon obvious that success will require that the country marshal its most important resources. This includes the efforts of nonprofit groups and companies across the tech sector. It will require expanded work by the country’s four-year colleges and universities. But more than all of this, one conclusion consistently rose to the top. It’s this: We need to mobilize America’s community colleges and enlist them in the cybersecurity battle. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Cybersecurity-skilling_blog_GRAPHIC-4.jpg Community colleges are the single greatest potential asset the United States has in expanding the cybersecurity workforce. They are one of the nation’s most remarkable and ubiquitous assets, and with some targeted assistance, they can move quickly to help address the cybersecurity workforce shortage. Consider the following: Community colleges are everywhere. There are 1,044 community colleges located in every state and territory, and in every setting – urban, suburban, rural and tribal. As one community college leader said to us recently, “there are three things that you can find everywhere in the United States, a bakery, a bank and a community college.” Community colleges serve students at all educational stages, from recent high school graduates to job seekers to people in the workforce. Currently 11.8 million Americans attend classes at a community college. Almost two-thirds (65%) attend classes part-time, while they hold jobs or help raise families (or both). This makes them ideal places for people who want to add to their current skill set by developing cybersecurity skills. Community colleges are flexible. Interestingly, 58% of community college students are enrolled in credit-earning courses, while the remaining 42% are enrolled in noncredit, workforce and skills training courses. They’re well-suited to help American workers earn the additional skills they want the way they want, from a little to a lot. Community colleges are effective. In 2018-2019, community colleges awarded 878,900 associate degrees, 619,711 certificates, and 20,700 baccalaureate degrees. Community colleges are more affordable. Community colleges average only $3,770 in annual tuition and fees, versus $10,560 for four-year public colleges. Moreover, 59% of community college students can access financial aid, including 33% who receive Pell Grants. Community colleges are diverse. Students at community colleges reflect the diversity of America, including 40% who are Black or African American or Hispanic. In addition, 29% are their family’s first generation to attend college, 20% are students with disabilities, and 5% are veterans. And 57% of students at community colleges are women. The last aspect is important for an additional reason. Currently the nation’s cybersecurity workforce is notably lacking in diversity. Today 82.4% of the country’s cybersecurity jobs are held by men and 80% are held by people who are white. We need to build a cybersecurity workforce that is both larger and more diverse. Community colleges are uniquely situated to help the country do both. A new partnership to help community colleges move faster Since January we’ve spent time working with and listening to administrators, faculty, and students at 14 community colleges in six states across the country, specifically: https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Cybersecurity-skilling_blog_GRAPHIC-5.jpg Our goal has been to learn more about their needs and how we can be most helpful. We’ve also spent valuable time with national leaders at the American Association of Community Colleges and at the National Cybersecurity Training & Education Center (NCyTE), which is located north of Seattle in Bellingham, Washington, at Whatcom Community College. One thing we heard repeatedly is that when community colleges invest and innovate with cybersecurity offerings, the payoff for students and the community comes quickly. For example, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Laramie County Community College has developed a new hardware lab it calls Cyber City and Cyber Range. Students use the two cyber environments to attack and defend a mock city as they learn about the various ways cybercrimes occur. Deployed utilizing a portion of resources provided to the school as a member of the Microsoft Datacenter Academy program, the students learn and progress at a rate that is impressive to even a hardened cybersecurity expert. Similarly, we’ve partnered with faculty at the Fox Valley Technical College in my own hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin to launch new cybersecurity initiatives. As they’ve reported, “cyber talent is in high demand.” Participants in these initiatives will quickly land jobs across a wide variety of industries. So, what are the barriers that community colleges face? This question is even more important, and the answer is three-fold. First, community colleges need access to state-of-the art curriculum materials they can deploy immediately and use broadly to expand their courses. Second, train more faculty to teach in cybersecurity programs as well as to teach courses they have not taught before to address emerging threats. Third, they need to expand financial aid and additional learning services to help more students pursue cybersecurity degrees and certificates, especially if we want to reach the more diverse population that is not well represented in the cybersecurity field today. If we can address these three barriers, we can harness the power of the nation’s community colleges to address the cybersecurity workforce shortage. Microsoft’s new cybersecurity jobs campaign Today, Microsoft is launching a four-year campaign to help fill 250,000 cybersecurity jobs in the United States by the middle of this decade. This will address half of the nation’s cybersecurity workforce shortage. Our initial commitment will: Make curriculum available free of charge to all of the nation’s public community colleges. Provide training for new and existing faculty at 150 community colleges. Provide scholarships and supplemental resources to 25,000 students. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Cybersecurity-skilling_blog_GRAPHIC-6.jpg Here are some of the specifics: Deliver ready-to-teach, industry-developed curriculum for community colleges Through the Microsoft Learn for Educators program, we will provide every community college in the country (and all higher education institutions) with access to free curriculum, educator training, and tools for teaching. This will include Microsoft Security, Compliance and Identity Fundamentals (AZ-900) and Microsoft Azure Security Technologies (AZ-500) certification aligned course materials. To further support delivery of Microsoft’s ready-to-teach curriculum, we will also provide faculty at all these institutions with access to additional resources including free practice and certification exams, curriculum integration support, course delivery prep sessions led by Microsoft Technical Trainers, and entry to our global community of educators committed to helping students succeed. We will also continue to develop and expand our work to provide educational institutions with easy access to courses through LinkedIn Learning. Build educator and administrative capacity in cybersecurity learning paths We will go even deeper with 150 community colleges to help these institutions train and retain cybersecurity faculty. We will partner with the National Cybersecurity Training & Education Center (NCyTE) to provide faculty with deeper professional development opportunities and to support these institutions in attaining the Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) designation. This support will build the foundation for cybersecurity training at nearly 15% of the community colleges across the United States. We will also work with the American Association of Community Colleges to launch a community of practice for institutions offering cybersecurity education. We will provide grants to fund and provide technical assistance to 42 community colleges that are accelerating their cybersecurity programs. Our goal is to learn from this effort and explore ways to scale promising practices to additional community colleges across the country. Announcing the Microsoft Cybersecurity Scholarship Program Finally, today we are launching a new national Microsoft Cybersecurity Scholarship Program. We will provide scholarships and additional resources that will reach at least 25,000 students during the next four years. This will provide funding to supplement existing federal, state and other financial aid that is already available but is not sufficient to meet student needs, especially at the lower end of the income spectrum. This funding will help address tuition costs as well as the other financial challenges that often stand in the way of course completion, including certification exam costs and childcare expenses. Our new program will also include support for critical tools for success, including mentorship from Microsoft employees and student supports, as well as free LinkedIn Premium accounts to help close the networking gap and connect them to jobs. Students will also receive access to GitHub education benefits, including student developer packs and access to local GitHub sponsored events. This new program will partner in part with the Last Mile Education Fund, through which we will provide Microsoft Cybersecurity Scholarships to 10,000 low-income students – including veterans – at community colleges pursuing cybersecurity career pathways and certifications. Not just a program, but a campaign We believe the steps we’re taking today can make an important contribution to addressing America’s cybersecurity workforce shortage. But we also know that much more is needed. That’s why we are thinking about this effort as not just a program, but a campaign. Building on our Microsoft Skills for Jobs global initiative, this new campaign can grow quickly to involve more companies, more nonprofits, and governments at the federal, state, and local levels. With additional volunteers from other companies and added financial resources, we can scale even farther to reach our full national needs. We also recognize the importance of reaching additional educational institutions as well. We’re preparing already to support other institutions, including four-year colleges including the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Stay tuned as we take more steps in the months ahead. Ultimately this is also about getting out and making the case to people across the country to consider the opportunity to pursue a cybersecurity career. That’s something we’ll do as well – speaking on campuses, to chambers of commerce, and reaching people both in person and through social media and virtual meetings. We want to give people across the country the opportunity to see more clearly something we see directly at Microsoft every day. If we’re going to protect the nation’s future, we need to strengthen cybersecurity protection. And we need a larger and more diverse cybersecurity workforce to succeed. Great jobs are waiting to be filled. Now we need to recruit the talent and provide the skills that people need. On many days and on many issues, disagreements can divide our country. But we need a cybersecurity jobs campaign that protects the nation and brings us all together. We’re committed to its success. The post America faces a cybersecurity skills crisis: Microsoft launches national campaign to help community colleges expand the cybersecurity workforce appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Are you an IT pro planning to attend the virtual Microsoft Ignite event Nov. 2-4? If so, be sure to check out the core sessions, interactive experiences and deep dives that will help you deploy Windows 11, optimize device management and keep users protected and productive. You’ll find it all listed here, but here are key sessions to catch: Agile, collaborative, secure: Why adopt Windows 11 today Tuesday, Nov. 2: 11:30 a.m. PT Aidan Marcuss, Wangui McKelvey Join Windows CVP Aidan Marcuss and Microsoft 365 GM Wangui McKelvey for a tour of the value Windows 11 offers commercial organizations today—and a discussion of upcoming investments. From signature experiences tuned for hybrid work to industry-leading security from core to cloud, learn how you can offer innovative form factors, easily personalized and persistent desktops, and seamless integration with collaboration tools. Have questions? RSVP for Ask the Experts, Nov. 2 at 12:30 p.m. PT. Windows 11: The 11 things every organization should know On demand John Cable and engineers from the Windows, Windows 365, Universal Print and Microsoft Endpoint Manager teams Take an energetic, fast-paced run through the critical elements in Windows 11 for IT pros and the commercial organizations they support. This is an engineer-to-engineer session focused on the features and services developed based on your feedback. Let's keep building the next generation of Windows together. Panos Panay talks Windows 11 accessibility and support for hybrid work “Between all the keynotes and breakouts, see if you can catch two very special segments featuring Chief Product Officer Panos Panay,” says Heather Poulsen in the post. “One is a fun, fast-paced conversation on Windows 11 and hybrid work with Wangui McKelvey. The other is a thoughtful, enthusiastic discussion about designing an inclusive Windows 11 for a hybrid world with Chief Accessibility Officer Jennie Lay-Flurrie. These are a great way to hear directly from important leaders at Microsoft.” Continue reading...

What can you do while waiting for the Oct. 28 launch of Age of Empires IV? Join the pre-launch hijinks of course. The World’s Edge team behind the game has booked a castle and built a giant fully functional trebuchet, which it will use to fling a load of assorted items including armor, a sheep (plushie-form only; no animals will be harmed) and other ammunition. Joining the fun is former World’s Strongest Man and star of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, a.k.a. The Mountain. Head over to Xbox Wire to read all about it and find out how to watch the festivities on the Xbox YouTube channel. Continue reading...

https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/JMJ_9590-1.jpg Attendees at a recent National Association of Black Journalists event. Photo courtesy of Jason M. Johnson/NABJ In our jobs as storytellers for Microsoft, we’re called to improve our storytelling every day, and the best way I’ve found to do this is to look at great stories – whatever the form – and learn from them. That’s why I’m especially excited to team up with the National Association of Black Journalists on the NABJ-Microsoft Storytelling Fellowship Program designed to develop emerging storytellers, offer a platform to amplify their voices and share learnings along the way. Starting today, the NABJ-Microsoft Storytelling Fellowship Program is accepting applications for two fellowship positions. Apply here. Fellows will receive professional training, networking opportunities and experience working with Microsoft writers and editors, as well as the chance to create content for Microsoft websites. This six-month fellowship will run from January to June 2022, and fellows will receive a $25,000 stipend. Prospective candidates can apply through the application on the NABJ website. Current NABJ members are encouraged to apply, however the application is open to all regardless of NABJ membership status. Should a candidate be selected as a finalist for the fellowship program, Microsoft will sponsor their NABJ membership dues. Deadline to submit is midnight P.T. on Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. For more than 45 years, NABJ has been dedicated to advocating for, uplifting and supporting the ever-growing community of Black and African American journalists and media professionals through annual conferences, career fairs, scholarships, internships and fellowship programs. This nonprofit is committed to providing job opportunities for aspiring Black and African American journalists and media professionals, and with over 4,000 members, is actively fostering an environment for Black and African American students and professionals to succeed in communications and media. At Microsoft, we believe in the importance of diverse and inclusive media, and we’re committed to increasing the number of Black and African American professionals who succeed in journalism. Through this fellowship, we plan to use our platform and resources to help develop, nurture and support the careers of up-and-coming storytellers from this community. Organizations like NABJ are doing the hard but necessary work needed to create a more inclusive journalism and media industry, and I’m grateful we can play a small role in this important effort. The post Applications open for new National Association of Black Journalists and Microsoft Storytelling Fellowship Program appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

If you’re looking for technology to pursue your creative passions, you have a new option to consider: the Dell XPS Desktop. Powered by Windows 11, this PC ushers in an expansive suite of next-gen performance technologies and a more robust cooling architecture, making it the most powerful XPS Desktop ever made [1]. Designed to bring you closer to what you love, Windows 11 empowers your productivity and inspires your creativity. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/New-XPS-Desktop-internal-airflow_2000-1024x819.jpg Digital content creators – such as photographers, graphic designers, music producers and many others – can tap into a “Creator Edition” that comes with pre-selected configurations ready to withstand creative workloads. But this PC is also customizable, so the system can grow to meet increased performance demands over time. Using the toolless entry chassis, you can easily upgrade the CPU, GPU, memory, storage and more to keep pace with new technology as it becomes available. Dell is also announcing a redesign of its flagship Alienware desktop: the new Alienware Aurora R13 and Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R14, now available in the U.S. and Canada on Alienware.com. Be sure to check out the Dell Technologies Blog if you want to learn more about the new XPS Desktop and Alienware Aurora. [1] Based on Dell internal analysis, October 2021. [2] Based on Dell internal testing conducted October 2021. These results are true when testing all three cooling options. Continue reading...

Demand for data and digital services is expected to continue its exponential growth over the coming years, with global internet traffic projected to double by 2022. The Microsoft cloud is the trusted cloud for everyday digital experiences at work and at home – from critical applications for life and safety services, education institutions and governments to advancing scientific research surrounding the world’s most pressing challenges – like climate change. Underpinning the cloud are physical datacenters, networking and fiber connected to the world’s energy grids. Customers already benefit from the cloud’s ability to provide massive efficiency that reduces the collective carbon footprint required to support the world’s compute needs. Even so, the increasing demand for cloud leads to increasing demand for datacenters, which require power, land and water to operate. We – and the cloud industry – face an important challenge as a result: scaling our computing power to progress digital economies, research and inclusive economic opportunities – . Microsoft’s commitment is to be carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted, either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975. To reach this, datacenters must be part of the solution for broad decarbonization. The climate challenges we face won’t be solved by one company or industry alone. Today, we’re sharing more about our approach to not only reach our goals, but also have a wider impact by empowering customers and partners through tools to measure progress, and through our own datacenter operations and supply chain on which our customers rely. Further, we’re pursuing breakthrough technologies to inspire multidimensional thinking about how we incorporate sustainability into future datacenter design and operations. Advancing our sustainable datacenters toward a carbon negative future As we continue to grow to support the increased demand for cloud across public and private sectors, it’s critical that we devote resources to finding creative, innovative solutions to today’s datacenter operational and engineering challenges to help us meet our ambitious sustainability targets. Our investment in datacenter research and development is helping us address important challenges to reduce carbon emissions across our construction and operations, significantly reduce and eliminate water use for cooling, reduce e-waste by giving server parts new life and sustain local ecosystems where our datacenters reside. Our mission is to not only find ways to improve our datacenter operations, but also share these learnings with the broader cloud and built environment industry. Today, we’re announcing progress on several key advanced development initiatives which will provide additional learnings and insights we can take into our existing operations and help shape the future of the datacenter: Reducing water use in datacenter operations by 95% by 2024: Microsoft’s commitment to be water positive by 2030 requires that we look across every aspect of our operations to reduce and eliminate water use. Today, we’re announcing a new approach to datacenter temperature management, which will further reduce the amount of water used in our evaporative cooled datacenters globally by 95% by 2024 – or an estimated 5.7 billion liters annually. Through our extensive global research on server performance in warmer temperatures, we’re able to create higher set points for a variety of different climates for when water-based, evaporative cooling is necessary to preserve server performance and reliability. We expect this project to be fully implemented by 2024, and it has the potential to eliminate water use for cooling in regions like Amsterdam, Dublin, Virginia and Chicago, while reducing water use in desert regions like Arizona by as much as 60 percent. Continued research in liquid immersion cooling, toward waterless cooling options: This year we achieved a major milestone in liquid cooling R&D, making Microsoft the first cloud provider that is running two-phase liquid immersion cooling in a production environment, demonstrating viability for broader use in our datacenters. Our latest research in liquid cooling addresses the concept of overclocking, which is to operate chip components beyond their pre-defined voltage, thermal and power design limits to further improve performance. Based on our tests, we’ve found that for some chipsets, the performance can increase by 20% through the use of liquid cooling. This demonstrates how liquid cooling can be used not only to support our sustainability goals to reduce and eventually eliminate water used for cooling in datacenters, but also generate more performant chips operating at warmer coolant temperatures for advanced AI and machine learning workloads. Because of the efficiencies in both power and cooling that liquid cooling affords us, it unlocks new potential for datacenter rack design. In short, liquid cooling paves the way for more densely packed servers in smaller spaces, meaning increased capacity per square foot in a datacenter – or the ability to create smaller datacenters in more strategic locations in the future. This adds to the benefits of waterless cooling design. Datacenter design to support local ecosystems: We operate datacenters all over the globe, each with different native species, temperatures and weather patterns. Understanding how we can design datacenters to support local ecosystems starts with understanding how an ecosystem performs on its own. Microsoft has been benchmarking the ecosystem performance in 12 datacenter regions, to be completed by end of calendar year. Through this research, we are quantifying ecosystem performance in terms of water quantity and quality, air, carbon, climate, soil quality, health and well-being and biodiversity. Our goal is to renew and revitalize the surrounding area so that we can restore and create a pathway to provide regenerative value for the local community and environment. The findings of this research are helping to inform one of our first projects in northern Holland, part of our Amsterdam datacenter region. To start, we will construct a lowland forested area around the datacenter as well as forested wetlands, which are highly saturated with water and vegetation suited for water filtration to naturally process storm water and runoff. Results from these different approaches suggest that ecosystem performance can be restored by as much as 75%. We have more to go with this, but we are encouraged and inspired by what we have seen so far. Cutting carbon footprint in datacenter design and construction: Embodied carbon accounts for at least 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the latest data from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction. These are the emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure. Much of embodied carbon is attributed to concrete and steel, and by choosing lower-carbon options, we can have a significant impact on reducing the carbon emissions associated with every new building. We’re on track to build between 50 and 100 new datacenters every year in response to customer demand. To reduce embodied carbon in the design and construction of these datacenters, we’re using a tool called the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) developed by the nonprofit Building Transparency.As a key initial step for all new datacenters, we now require our construction teams to use the EC3 tool to identify building materials that reduce embodied carbon. Through EC3, we have found opportunities to reduce concrete and steel embodied carbon by 30-60%. Our goal is to help accelerate adoption of carbon-storing materials not only at Microsoft but industry-wide, and we’re investing in research to find sustainable materials in building foundations, structures and enclosures that can contribute to a carbon-positive architecture. One such example is our work with Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), a nonprofit, industry-academic organization at the University of Washington. Together, we published a study that explores six low-carbon materials: earthen slabs, non-Portland cement concrete slabs, algae-grown bricks/panels, mycelium (mushroom) structural tubes, purpose-grown fiber and agricultural waste panels – that can help reduce carbon emissions and change the climate profile of building constructions. Our testing will run through the winter to validate the durability for datacenters and other building types, and we’ll share our learnings for others in the industry to implement. Lastly, we are collaborating with our colleagues in Microsoft Research who recently introduced Project Zerix, which aims to achieve net-zero embodied carbon and net-zero waste in our datacenters and beyond through biodegradable plastics, sustainable printed circuit boards and bio-concrete materials. Progress on our journey Our progress today is possible because of earlier investments we made in advanced datacenter development and co-development with partners on cloud-based solutions and tools that we can use in our direct operations that the broader market can use too. Some of our most recent milestones include: Renewable energy and grid decarbonization: In July, we expanded on our pledge to have 100% renewable energy supply by 2025, committing to have 100% of our electricity consumption, 100% of the time, matched by zero carbon energy purchases by 2030. We refer to this as our 100/100/0 commitment. Over the last 12 months, Microsoft has signed new power purchase agreements for approximately 5.8 gigawatts of renewable energy across 10 countries around the globe. This includes over 35 individual deals, including over 15 in Europe spanning Denmark, Sweden, Spain, U.K. and Ireland. This procurement brings our operating and contracted renewable energy projects to 7.8 gigawatts globally. According to strategic research provider BloombergNEF, this progress makes Microsoft currently the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in 2021. But we’re not stopping there. Microsoft Circular Centers: We’ve created first-of-their-kind that will help us extend the life cycle of servers and reuse them to reduce waste. We also recently launched our Amsterdam Circular Center with plans to bring new Circular Centers to Boydton, Dublin, Chicago and Singapore in the coming fiscal year. In 2020, as reported to us by Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP),our top suppliers reduced their collective carbon footprint by 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e). Over the next year, we will extend this model to all our cloud computing assets and are on track to achieve 90 percent reuse. LEED certification: We’ve committed to certifying all our owned datacenters to LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental) Gold status – demonstrating that our buildings are energy- and resource-efficient. Our Arizona datacenter region, which launched in June, is now LEED Gold certified. 24/7 energy matching in action: We’re building one of our most sustainable cloud regions in Sweden set to launch later this year, which will use the first hourly energy monitoring solution we created with our partner Vattenfall, enabling us to use 100 percent renewable energy for each hour of consumption. This solution is available to Vattenfall customers today. Working with our cloud supply chain to reduce scope 3 emissions: In support of reducing our scope 3 emissions – or all the indirect emissions of operations – our top suppliers reported reducing their collective footprint by 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), according to the 2020 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reporting cycle. In FY21, we have expanded the number of suppliers in the program and deepened our engagement level to ensure our emissions reductions are achieved. This builds on the work mentioned above to address scope 3 emissions in our datacenter design and construction by cutting embedded carbon. Introducing the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability in public preview In addition to these investments in our cloud infrastructure, today we’re pleased to announce the public preview of Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which will allow organizations to more effectively record, report and reduce their carbon emissions on a path to net zero. It’s hard to improve or change what you can’t measure. The world needs global standards – a common foundation to ensure carbon emissions are measured in an accurate, consistent and reliable manner globally – and innovative technology solutions to reduce carbon emissions and our environmental impact. Together with our partners and customers, we can reach net zero and create the path to carbon negative. To get there, we need to share our learnings and progress, and create new tools and solutions to benchmark where we are today, measure our progress and make them widely available. If you’d like to learn more about our datacenter operations and commitments in action today, you can visit microsoft.com/sustainability, as well as take a virtual tour of our datacenters here. Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks – Analysis – IEA The post Supporting our customers on the path to Net Zero: The Microsoft cloud and decarbonization appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. 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Today, we are announcing the availability of the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability public preview. It is an important moment. The work to reduce carbon emissions has become a global priority that requires focused and urgent action by all of us individually and collectively. We believe this new offering can make an important contribution to this effort, helping customers move toward more sustainable operations. Around the world, governments and companies – Microsoft included – have stepped forward the past two years with important carbon reduction pledges. But as the world heads to the 26th Conference of the Parties in Glasgow – or COP26 – to share net zero ambitions, it’s become clear that the world needs even more than pledges. We need progress. A central question in Glasgow will focus on what it will take to achieve real and sustainable results. We believe the answer comes in three parts. First, we can’t manage carbon unless we can measure it. We all must speak the same language and measure carbon emissions and removal in a consistent and accurate manner. In short, we must adopt a standardized approach to carbon accounting. Second, every enterprise will need to adopt new carbon accounting standards and use them to record and report their carbon emissions. Third, we can’t measure anything at scale unless we can automate it. We need new digital technology to create the tools and build a new ecosystem to connect emissions sources and enable a new generation of accurate and inexpensive carbon reporting. Microsoft is focused on each of these steps. As a principal partner at COP26, we’ll use our voice to encourage new carbon accounting standards, and we’ll implement these to achieve our own commitments. And we’re moving forward with technology innovations and investments, including the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. Real progress starts with the recognition that, despite our best intentions, the ability to measure and account for carbon emissions is still remarkably nascent. That’s why we are sharing below recommendations on how we all can work together — and where Microsoft hopes to contribute as a company. We need to speak the same carbon language While many of us use the same words to describe the carbon problem and possible solutions, these words currently hold different meanings. We need everyone around the world to start speaking the same carbon language. This starts by defining what “net zero” really means. Right now, some companies are declaring a “quick victory” in achieving “net zero” results, but it’s far from clear that all these “victories” are real. This creates the risk that we’ll collectively create more confusion than clarity and even undermine the credibility of the big efforts that enterprises must advance. We believe that “net zero” starts by accounting for all scopes – one, two and three – of an enterprise’s emissions. The failure to include all these emissions may create a better-looking report card, but the results will fall short of what the world needs to meet our climate needs. In addition, “net zero” means that these emissions are offset not by just “avoiding” them — for instance, by paying someone not to do something, like cutting down trees. It means removing carbon from the environment in an effective and sustainable manner. While this begins with nature-based removal techniques, it clearly also will require technology that is yet to be invented. That’s why we’ve made direct investments in several companies through our $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund and our $100 million donation to Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst initiative to help accelerate and scale new solutions. We need accurate and standardized carbon accounting More than 1,500 companies with a combined revenue of more than $11.4 trillion have published net zero commitments. That’s good news. But the world will need improved common carbon measurement and accounting standards if enterprises are going to meet these goals and be held accountable. This requires that we bring the same kind of rigor to carbon accounting that the world has insisted upon for financial controls. Today, businesses and increasingly other organizations, are subject to strong auditing, recording and reporting of financial results. If you’re a public company, for example, you publish your financial results and regulatory agencies ensure their accuracy. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that the world will insist upon similar rigor for carbon accounting. And while we’re not there yet, a key principle for business planning should be to go where the puck is headed, not where it is today. This will require a standardized carbon accounting system with input from industry, but which is adopted by regulators. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability delivers new digital tools to automate carbon accounting Our customers tell us daily that managing data is one of the biggest pain points in their sustainability journey. There is a torrent of data from all areas of the value chain, and unfortunately much of it currently is often poor quality, siloed and difficult to share. The very real risk is that even with the best of intentions, carbon emissions data is meaningless if it cannot be properly ingested for analysis and action. We experienced this across Microsoft as we work toward our own commitments to become carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030. We soon realized that we needed to bring our world-class data and environmental science teams together with our engineering and product teams to build new and better digital technology not just for ourselves, but for our customers. This was the origin for the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability leverages the breadth of the Microsoft Cloud. It is a packaged Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that connects to data sources, accelerates data integration and reporting, provides accurate carbon accounting, measures performance against goals, and enables intelligent insights so organizations can take more effective action on sustainability. While the solution primarily supports emissions management today, there are plans to support water and waste in the future. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability helps organizations advance the three critical processes that need to come together to achieve their sustainability goals. The first is recording carbon emissions. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability automates data collection through connectors that can eliminate manual uploads through near real-time connections to emissions sources. You can set up your data connections from a catalog of prebuilt connectors and operational data providers, such as business solutions, energy providers, travel tools, trading partners, IoT and systems telemetry. And it leverages a common data model to break down data silos across emissions sources, accelerating data integration and reporting. The second is carbon reporting. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability provides the capability to analyze, visualize and report your resource consumption, environmental impact and sustainability progress, including to stakeholders, regulators and the public. It provides data visualizations and dashboards to create a baseline, track your consumption, and measure performance against your goals. And it can easily export your data for public reporting. The third is carbon reduction. The Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability is designed to provide actionable insights and recommendations to help reduce emissions and improve business processes. You can set and track incremental and long-term goals directly tied to your data. Scorecards and insights help you stay on track and ensure you’re on a path to hitting targets. The common data model enables you to compare your progress with peers that are also using Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. And it helps identify potential gaps in meeting regulatory requirements. The work to measure carbon is not a separate or complete end goal. It’s instead a critical foundation for effective carbon reduction strategies and a step toward a sustainable future. It is part of what we offer more broadly through the Microsoft Cloud, creating the ability for customers to develop better data assets and use better digital tools to connect across an entire organization – from the frontlines to the boardroom – to predict trends and proactively make changes to hit sustainability targets together with other business objectives. We need to build a new carbon technology ecosystem As we’ve progressed with our work, we’ve concluded that the world needs not just new digital technology, but a new digital ecosystem that can better support recording, reporting and reductions in carbon emissions. The state of carbon accounting today is remarkably nascent. Organizations today typically must assess their spending records and then look up tables that estimate the average emissions associated with them. This falls far short of what the world really needs, which is the ability to pull accurate and near real-time data directly from the emissions sources themselves. This has inspired us to develop not only the digital technology and common data model that underlies the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, but to lean in to help create a new and broad ecosystem that will bring together the wide variety of companies and industries that need to work together. We are advancing this by working with partners to create and deliver data connectors and industry-specific solutions to automate reporting from the complete range of emissions sources. This will help open up to every industry new horizontal and industry solutions that can use advanced analytics, AI, machine learning, IoT and digital twins to help capture and understand data across siloed systems. Not just a new product, but a new and broad solution As all this reflects, we are combining our technology development work with a broader commitment to help advance every aspect of the world’s carbon challenges. New products will be critical, but they won’t go far enough by themselves. That’s why we’re committed to doing everything we can to foster a common carbon language, develop effective carbon accounting, help customers reduce their carbon emissions and build the broad technology ecosystem needed to support all of this. You can sign up here to stay informed about Microsoft sustainability innovations, news and initiatives. COP26 will provide an important moment for the world to take stock of where we all collectively stand. More important, it’s a moment that should inspire us to take new steps together. If one thing is clear, it’s this – we have a long and critical journey ahead! The post Advancing a net zero future: Ahead of COP26, new carbon accounting tools available with the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, now in public preview appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Millions of real-time strategy fans around the world have enjoyed playing the Age of Empires series for nearly 25 years. With a focus on real historical events dating all the way back to the Stone Age, the series tasks players with determining how those events played out, allowing them to experience history as it was or create a new history of their own. Now with Min Spec Mode, players on older and lower-powered machines can experience the latest in the series: Age of Empires IV. “When looking to bring this new game to the franchise, we knew we needed to support a diverse set of PC configuration,” said Michael Mann, executive producer at World’s Edge. “Even looking forward to the next few years, we expect 50% or more of our player base will be playing on machines that use the low spec renderer.” Read more about it on Xbox Wire. Continue reading...

https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Hero-art-Oct-25GettyImages-993313430-1024x683.jpg Photo credit: Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images As countries have begun to ease travel restrictions, I’ve had increasing opportunities to meet customers face to face. During my visits, customers shared how they are bringing to life digital optimism to overcome business challenges, especially during the pandemic. Customers are increasingly capitalizing on the value of the Microsoft Cloud to enable continuous innovation. What’s more, they are recognizing the advantages of digital transformation go well beyond a simple cost-benefit analysis. With the Microsoft Cloud, customers are getting integrated solutions that meet their unique needs, including powerful collaboration tools for secure hybrid work and better employee engagement for enhancing efficient operations. Data is also being utilized to strengthen supply chains and increase resiliency through predictive analytics, machine learning and the implementation of digital twins. Plus, as more and more companies make net-zero carbon commitments, they are turning to our cloud to measure, understand and reduce their carbon emissions footprint. This past quarter we saw the power technology can have in unlocking an organization’s potential – for employees, customers, industries and even society more broadly. Wells Fargo announced it’s working with Microsoft as its strategic partner and primary cloud provider to advance key transformation priorities across the entirety of its business, including managing risk and control, personalized banking and the digital branch of the future. AT&T shared how we are collaborating in areas like 5G, AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) to support its ambitions to reduce one billion metric tons of greenhouse emissions globally through the delivery of broadband-enabled climate solutions. Verizon debuted an on-premises, private edge compute solution with Microsoft Azure to enable the ultra-low latency needed to deploy real-time enterprise applications. We also announced a partnership with Truveta to globally scale the first health provider-led clinical data platform using Microsoft Azure and AI capabilities, and we are continuing to deepen our partnership with the NBA as the league rolls out a new direct-to-consumer platform built on Azure to deliver personalized sports fan experiences. We also expanded our collaboration with EY to support our customers’ cloud strategies through new solutions and platforms that help organizations address business and societal challenges at scale through digital transformation. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Reduced-size_ThyssenKrupp-Steel-Europe-.png ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe bids farewell to datacenters, gaining faster system deployment with SAP on Azure. Manufacturers are turning to the Microsoft Cloud for supply chain innovation To support data-driven manufacturing across more than 100 factories, global manufacturer SKF implemented hybrid cloud solutions to reduce cost, improve effectiveness and streamline management. ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe moved its entire SAP landscape to Azure to gain new insights into its own systems, scale service capacity and ensure availability. Belgium-based lime and minerals producer Lhoist is renewing its focus on industrial cybersecurity in a global initiative to increase operational efficiency using Azure Defender for IoT. New Zealand’s largest rural supply cooperative, Farmlands, is using Dynamics 365 to support automation innovation and boost efficiency across the rural supply chain. To help farmers become more sustainable, Lindsay is leveraging IoT to enable data insights for agricultural irrigation, while Netherlands-based Nutreco is keeping employees connected with cloud productivity tools that provide insights for sustainable food production. Focused on power-management technologies that are efficient, safe and sustainable, Eaton deployed mixed-reality technologies to increase collaboration and speed to market, while U.K.-based medical technology leader Smith + Nephew created a highly secure environment to support its business strategies using cloud productivity tools from Microsoft 365 that empower employees with modern, mobile ways of working. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Gibson-1024x485.png Gibson Brands streamlines its business and creates an immersive customer experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Retailers are better serving customers through intelligent insights and productivity tools Serving 100 million customers globally, Edible Arrangements built a new data warehouse and analytics platform using Azure Synapse Analytics to scale and become more agile. Procter & Gamble is driving a data-enabled culture and operationalizing algorithms into every major business decision to better understand and serve its customers using AI, machine learning and advanced analytics. Walgreens is empowering its pharmacists with an intelligent prescription data platform on Azure to better serve customers. In Brazil, Natura developed a centralized and scalable customer service system with Dynamics 365 to give a comprehensive view of customers and reinforce its culture of customer care. The world’s most iconic guitar brand, Gibson, transitioned to Dynamics 365 during the pandemic to shift its online sales strategy. Across Europe, customers are seeing the benefit of our productivity tools, including LVMH and Metro Digital, which are using Teams and Teams Phone for collaboration to enable hybrid work. Multinational retailer H&M also set up a Power Platform Center of Excellence to encourage continued citizen development while maintaining security and governance. Multinational retailer H&M also set up a Power Platform Center of Excellence to encourage continued citizen development while maintaining security and governance. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Nunavut-1024x518.jpg The Government of Nunavut strengthens IT connections with remote communities and helps secure hybrid workplaces with Microsoft 365. From cars to neurosurgery, our cloud is fueling transformation across every industry British electric-vehicle company Arrival is using Azure, machine learning and edge computing to accelerate development of its open data platform for vehicles and fleets, while Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Corporation adopted Surface Go 2 to enable traceability of inspection data for workers on the factory floor. Thai petroleum company PTTEP introduced Surface devices to bridge digital platforms and physical distances to achieve its vision of a work-anywhere culture, and bp is using AI and digital twin technology as a key enabler to transition to an integrated energy company. In financial services, IOL invertironline is using advanced analytics tools to personalize customer experiences and aid in realtime decision-making for its operations across Latin America, while in Denmark BEC transformed internal workflows and communications to ease hybrid work for employees using Surface Hub. During the pandemic, the Government of Nunavut maintained core community services with a secure and reliable hybrid staffing model using Microsoft 365. The City of Laval in Canada is infusing AI and machine learning into its non-emergency hotline to further develop smart city initiatives, and CSIRO is using AI and a space technology-powered digital twin to create the world’s largest remote herd management system to protect ecological and economic systems across Australia. Doctors in Singapore’s National University Health System are removing brain tumors with 3D precision thanks to mixed reality and neurosurgery, and HCA Healthcare is simplifying and improving the patient onboarding experience and cutting down on administrative time with Azure Applied AI Services. South Korean company Gamepub is hosting its database infrastructure on Azure to ensure global service availability for gamers while multinational video game publisher Bandai Namco is empowering people with disabilities to take part in a greater variety of work using HoloLens 2 and Dynamics 365 Guides. Telkom Indonesia is accelerating digital transformation to enable the country’s digital sovereignty, and NEC chose Azure as its preferred cloud platform to boost business resiliency and growth across Japan. In travel and transportation, London Heathrow Airport is using data governance and analytics tools to optimize operations, support continued growth and improve air travel experiences. https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/10/Intelligent-buildings-1024x683.jpg Climate change demands intelligent buildings — Nomad Go and Sony Semiconductor Solutions are helping make them smarter. Fueling our customers’ transformation with a robust partner network Peruvian pastry shop María Almenara is using AI and machine learning to produce daily and weekly sales forecasts store by store with the help of SP Peru. We are working with partner AIS to equip Thai startups with the necessary tools, guidance, insights and customer and partner connections to boost business growth and make crucial contributions toward rehabilitation of the country’s economy. Turkish energy distribution company Opet, with support from KoçSistem, is using Arc-enabled data services to comply with a new privacy law quickly and securely. In Sri Lanka, ZILLIONe helped Durdans Hospital adopt Dynamics 365 for its CRM solution to improve patient-care processes and experiences. Be-Cloud is helping small- to medium-sized businesses enhance their security environments through a unified portal with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse that delivers standardized services. Nomad Go, with help from Microsoft’s and Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ Co-Innovation Lab, is using computer vision to create a solution that helps its commercial real estate customers know precisely when to warm, cool and ventilate a room based on occupancy and significantly cut energy usage and greenhouse emissions. In South Africa, Old Mutual, with the help of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is using Microsoft Viva to gain visibility into workplace behavior, understand how their employees work now and will work in the future. Digital transformation represents an opportunity for customers to achieve ongoing innovation that benefits their organization and industries in which they operate, from how employees work and stay productive, to managing the complexity, resiliency and sustainability of supply chains. I’m incredibly inspired by the success our customers are realizing through Microsoft technology and look forward to enabling every company to achieve their bold ambitions as their trusted digital advisors and strategic cloud partner. The post Embracing continuous innovation: How Microsoft is helping customers overcome challenges to transform business and industries appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

On Thursday Xbox Wire shared how 343 Industries and Xbox took everything they learned from bringing Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PC to making Halo Infinite a game that looks, feels and plays like a PC shooter should, all the while honoring the legacy of what makes Halo, Halo. Head over to the post to read all about it and watch the video to hear directly from both the PC team and the Sandbox team at 343 Industries about how they built Halo Infinite to be a great PC experience in-game, out-of-game and off the screen. Continue reading...

Today, I am sharing Microsoft’s 2021 Diversity and Inclusion report, our third annual report and our eighth year of releasing our global workforce demographic data publicly. This past year was a challenging time for so many people, communities and organizations. Ongoing acts of hate and violence in the U.S. and around the world have continued to move racial injustice to the forefront of social consciousness, while the global pandemic has exacerbated inequities and upended our lives. In the face of these realities, the sense of urgency to solve some of the biggest systemic problems of equality and inclusion is palpable. This report is an opportunity for us to quantify the impact of our work. Measurement and data are important to us, not only because they allow us to recognizing progress, but also because it enables us to identify avenues and opportunities to do better. And while numbers provide an important and necessary snapshot, we also prioritize the perspectives and experiences of the more than 180,000 employees who bring their unique talents to our family of Microsoft companies. In addition to the data and progress you see in the document, we are also sharing five videos that explore the strategy and the intent behind the work we do, and the people who bring it to life. YouTube Video Click here to load media I am energized by the momentum we have seen in our neuroscience-based Allyship at Microsoft learning path, which we launched in 2019. As of June 2021, at least 96% of employees have completed D&I learning courses on allyship, covering, privilege and unconscious bias in the workplace. This gives our full employee base the awareness necessary to show up as allies at scale. I am encouraged by the call-to-action from the many industry-leading academics, behavioral scientists, and social change experts who joined us at our Include 2021 event and allowed us to share their perspectives on our Inclusion Journey site. These external experts provided a clarity of purpose for employees and our ecosystem. The data show steady progress The following data reflect Microsoft’s core business which does not include LinkedIn, GitHub, and our minimally integrated gaming studios. For data on the broader Microsoft family of companies, please visit pages 9-11 of the report. Representation of most groups in our core Microsoft business has increased year over year. For representation of a group to increase, employee population of that group needs to grow at an equal or greater rate than the general employee population. Since 2017 our core Microsoft workforce grew 41.6% globally, and 35.4% in the U.S. Over the same period, the population growth for certain groups exceeded those rates in our core Microsoft business, continuing a years-long trend toward greater diversity: Women now represent 29.7% of our global workforce, an increase of 1.1 percentage points since 2020. Black and African American employees now represent 5.7% of our U.S. workforce, up 0.9 percentage points since 2020. This is the strongest year-over-year representation increase in five reporting periods. Hispanic and Latinx employees now represent 7.0% of our U.S. workforce, up 0.5 percentage points since 2020. This is the strongest year-over-year increase in five reporting periods. Asian employees, a category that includes more than a dozen different ethnic groups, now represent 35.4% of our U.S. workforce, an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared to 2020. Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander employees represent 0.7% of our U.S. workforce, and this number has remained flat over the last five reporting periods. Employees identifying as multiracial now represent 2.5% of the U.S. workforce, up 0.2 percentage points from last year. By June 2021, 7.1% of our core Microsoft employees in the U.S. chose to self-identify as having a disability. This is one whole percentage point higher than in June 2020. We have achieved some gains year over year at the leadership level, especially among women globally, and among Asian and Black and African American leaders in the U.S.: Black and African American employees in our U.S. workforce comprise 3.9% of managers, 3.2% of directors, and 3.8% of partners + executives. At the executive level, representation increased by 1.9 percentage points over the past year to reach 5.6%. Hispanic and Latinx employees in our U.S. workforce are 6.0% of managers, 5.2% of directors, and 5.2% of partners + executives. At the executive level, representation increased by 0.4 percentage points over last year to reach 3.7%. Employees who identified with an Asian ethnic group make up 31.0% of managers, 31.3% of directors, and 26.2% of partners + executives. At the executive level, Asian representation reached 23.3%, up 1.8 percentage points over last year. Women in our global workforce are 27.1% of managers, 22.0% of directors, and 21.1% of partners + executives. While representation of women executives went down 0.6 percentage points from 2019 to 2020, it increased by 1.0 percentage points in 2021, resulting in executive representation of 25.0%. As part of our Racial Equity Initiative we committed to double the number of Black and African American and Hispanic and Latinx people managers, senior individual contributors, and senior leaders in the U.S by 2025, and as the report conveys we’re well on our way to meeting our goal, with leadership levels increasing year over year. I would be remiss to close without recognizing the critical shift in the diversity and inclusion space, especially with the particularly acute challenges of the past two years. Diversity and inclusion is becoming even more urgent and multifaceted; in addition to the moral and social implications, it spans enterprise and business priorities. Industries the world over no longer question if diversity and inclusion is important but are instead questioning how best to support such a critical undertaking. Organizations are appropriately being asked to move beyond fleeting pledges toward sustainable commitments. This past year at Microsoft has been about rising to that challenge, leveraging the power of our company to propel this work forward, first inside of Microsoft, but also in the communities where we live and work. Our mission is inherently inclusive, our commitment is consistent, and our focus is on the work we still need to do to make the progress we envision. The post Microsoft’s 2021 Diversity & Inclusion report: Demonstrating progress and remaining accountable to our commitments appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Eternal Return launched on Oct. 19 as a free-to-play title on Windows PC, with Perks for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. The game, a mix of popular genres combined into a multiplayer online survival arena, has a solid esports and competitive scene. Head over to Xbox Wire to read all about it. Continue reading...

Football Manager 2022 with Xbox Game Pass for PC and Football Manager 2022 Xbox Edition with Xbox Game Pass will be available with Xbox Game Pass day one on Nov. 9. A new post on Xbox Wire details new features and game upgrades to give you an idea of what you can expect in both versions as you work your way to becoming a managerial great. Continue reading...

For many companies, hybrid work has become much more common, especially in the past year. HP Presence Meeting Space Solutions is a new portfolio of conferencing and collaboration solutions that aims to connect people who don’t work together in the same physical space. HP Presence is a suite of scalable, bundled options with hardware and services for meeting spaces of any size – from huddle rooms to large meeting spaces. It will work with Microsoft Teams Rooms, pending certification, interacting intuitively with users to provide an intelligent meeting experience and deliver useful real-time analytics back to IT. HP Presence curates its solutions by size (small, medium and large spaces) with hardware that includes a Mini Conferencing PC, intelligent room controls, a 4K camera, a device that combines intelligent cinematic video experiences with privacy, and embedded audio processing and plug-and-play satellite microphones. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/HP-Presence-Meeting-Space-Solutions_Workspace-4-1024x683.jpg Start a meeting in seconds with one touch to launch a Microsoft Teams meeting. Guest Mode makes it easy to launch meetings with any another unified communications (UC) device. Upon entering a meeting room, HP Meeting Ready automatically wakes up the center of room control, turns on the screen and turns on the camera. There are other ways HP Presence empowers people to feel connected as they or their co-workers come back to the office part-time. With HP Speaker Frame, a picture-in-picture mode, speakers in-room are spotlighted. For a better conferencing experience for remote attendees, HP Auto Frame puts meeting room attendees into perspective by framing out white space. Move around the room without disrupting the meeting flow with HP Speaker Tracking, which allows speakers to move around the room while keeping them in frame. And when the in-room crowd gets loud, HP Auto Volume adjusts the volume for remote attendee speakers so they don’t get drowned out and can still contribute to the discussion. IT teams looking for solutions to manageability and security challenges can turn to HP Presence to easily set up and deploy HP Presence regardless of room size or configurations. They can configure and test the solution and share custom settings remotely. They can improve the employee experience on an ongoing basis with intelligent analytics from HP Presence Insights* to consider modifications such as revising room configurations and device settings or relocating underutilized speakers or cameras. They can also keep track of room assistant reporting trends and how often equipment is cleaned. Head over to HP for more information. *HP Presence Insights is included through December 31, 2022 and functionality will then revert to HP Presence Manager. Purchase of 1–5-year license is required thereafter. HP Presence Manager and HP Presence Insights are licensed by the terms of the HP Presence Insights Terms of Service at www.hp.com/hp-presence-insightstos. HP Presence Manager and HP Presence Insights use HP Cloud Endpoint Manager and HP TechPulse, a telemetry and analytics platform that provides critical data around devices and applications. HP Cloud Endpoint Manager and HP TechPulse follow stringent GDPR privacy regulations. HP TechPulse is ISO27001, ISO27701, ISO27017 and SOC2 Type2 certified for Information Security. Internet access with connection to TechPulse portal is required. For full system requirements, please visit HP TechPulse. HP Presence Manager and HP Presence Insights are licensed by the terms of the HP Presence Terms of Service at www.hp.com/hppresence-insights-tos. Continue reading...

Microsoft Flight Simulator, which first launched on PC, gained a new audience of PC gamers with Xbox Game Pass. In July 2021, millions of console players were introduced to the flight simulation experience through the game’s launch on Xbox Series X|S. Now, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition arrives Nov. 18. This “Thank You” to fans – new and old – includes new aircraft (such as its first military jet and a legendary short takeoff and landing (STOL) utility plane), new airports, new missions and much more. To celebrate the launch of Windows 11, 11 landmarks across the globe will be lit up in Windows blue within Microsoft Flight Simulator. There will also be a special Windows 11 themed livery for simmers to add to their collection. Head over to Xbox Wire for all the details on this edition. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/MSFS_RENO_full_NoSnipe_NoLogo_NoText-1024x576.jpg Reno Air Races: Expansion Pack and Reno Air Races: Full Collection will also be available to buy in the Microsoft Flight Simulator marketplace starting Nov. 18. The Microsoft Flight Simulator team worked closely with the Reno Air Racing Association (RARA) and dozens of pilots and owners to develop highly authentic recreations of many of the world’s most famous racing aircraft, such as North American P-51 Mustangs and Aero L-39 Albatros. Find out more about Reno Air Races on Xbox Wire. Continue reading...

As the Xbox 20th anniversary approaches in November, blockbuster games for PCs and consoles will be available through Xbox Game Pass, including the Oct. 28 launch of Age of Empires IV (bringing the evolved real-time strategy game to a new generation on Steam and Game Pass for PC on day one), Minecraft on Nov. 2 and Forza Horizon 5 on Nov. 9. “We've been hard at work to deliver three months of back-to-back game launches,” writes Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, in an Xbox Wire post. “And while we hope you'll join us in celebrating 20 years of Xbox history, know that we're hard at work on the road ahead and what's to come in the next 20 years.” Other games launching are Microsoft Flight Simulator: Game of the Year Edition (Nov. 18) and Halo: Infinite (Dec. 8). Find out more on Xbox Wire. Continue reading...

In the past year, you’ve probably had to create workarounds and discover new ways to get things done from home (or homes away from home): your job, homework and connecting with loved ones far and near. And in the center of all that is your PC. In this era of distance and disorganization, communicating and collaborating isn’t always simple or straightforward. Windows 11 strives to solve that. We’re here to help you with 10 tips that will help you make the most of Windows 11, which is now available. With the new Windows, the user experience has been completely reimagined in a simplified, clean, fluid design that is completely new, yet immediately familiar. Get up to speed on new features with the Get Started app. Great news if you’d like the convenience of porting your PC’s preferences to your new Windows 11 PC: If you’ve allowed Windows to back up your apps, Get Started will prompt you with a list of the apps you had on your old device and allow you to choose which you want to load on your new device. Instead of starting over completely, you can safely restore all of your Windows 10 photos, docs and files to your Windows 11 device through prompts that let you choose what to migrate to your PC (though these are dependent on what you’ve opted to sync/back up using OneDrive, which you must sign into first). This app can also automatically apply the settings and preferences you’re used to. Programs and apps can also transfer. Start and Taskbar. You’ll now find Start and Taskbar front and center. Get things done with fewer clicks and swipes. From Start, you can search for anything, as a centralized search lets you search the web and your PC from one place. Find your browser, tabs and folders. It’s a streamlined redesign that revolves around you. You’ll also find new visual elements and sounds to enjoy, as well as smooth animations, new buttons, toggles and fonts. This new layout and navigation help make complex tasks easier. Snap Assist and Desktop Groups help you better organize the apps on your desktop. Too many open windows? Drag one of them to the edge of the screen to activate Snap Assist to “snap” them all (maximum of four, five with hotkeys) to a clean, organized grid that makes the most of your screen space. After you’ve upgraded to Windows 11, if you use external or multiple displays, Windows can remember how you had your apps arranged. When you plug your PC back in, everything will be automatically put back into place. With Desktop Groups, you can quickly switch between multiple desktops. For instance, one can have Word, Microsoft Edge and Teams open. Another can have PowerPoint, OneNote and a music player. There are four standard preconfigured layouts, with two additional ones for screens with effective screen resolutions of 1920x1080 or higher. Chat from Microsoft Teams: You can connect from your PC with any of your personal contacts regardless of what computer, phone or tablet they are on— iOS, Android, PC or Mac – with chat [1] and calling (both audio and video) built into Taskbar. Stay on the same call with someone for up to 24 hours – which means you don’t have to drop and dial back in [2]. All of this is free through a free Microsoft Account. Widgets: Looking for one place on Windows to get quickly caught up on things that matter to you – such as to-do lists, upcoming meetings and news? Then you’ll enjoy the addition of Widgets to the Windows 11 Taskbar. Click or swipe from the left side of your screen to open to see content you curate, rather than trying to find it in separate apps, tabs and pages. See personalized content – like reminders, stocks, sports scores, social media and local weather – at a glance. Use the Interests page under Manage Interests to search for topics and publishers you want to follow. The Microsoft Store, refreshed with a new design, has a wide variety of apps, shows and movies for your work and downtime, from casual gaming to professional editing. Behind the scenes, Windows is working with developers to bring you more content. The new Microsoft Store comes with tools like Preview and Search to help you find what you’re looking for. Microsoft Edge is packed with tools that help you and your family stay safe online, save money while you shop and keep you organized and focused, including Dark Web monitoring, automatic price comparisons and vertical tabs. As part of helping you stay safe, when any of your passwords saved to the browser match with those seen in the list of leaked credentials, Microsoft Edge will notify and prompt you to update your password. (Password Monitor scans for matches on your behalf and is on by default.) Let’s say you’ve just joined a new bank, and you’re setting up your online account. We can help you generate a secure password to help keep your account secured, and then we’ll monitor the Dark Web and alert you if your login credentials are ever jeopardized. And when you’re about to buy a pair of sneakers in the U.S., Microsoft Edge will alert you if it has found a better deal elsewhere. And when you’re ready to checkout, it will help you save even more money by automatically applying coupons to your order (if you’re in the U.S., Canada and Australia). Do you ever feel like you’ve got too many things going on and that’s reflected in the seemingly endless tabs in your browser? Sleeping tabs keep your focus on current projects. Touch, voice and pen inputs. The digital pen, touchscreen and voice typing capabilities of Windows 11 make it easier to work the way you prefer. For instance, you may work best talking out your thoughts. This used to mean recording your voice with your phone and then playing it back to transcribe your words into text. But if your Windows 11 PC has a microphone, that process happens instantly, with voice typing – text transcription of your speech. It can even detect inflection and rhythm to add the necessary punctuation. Or, maybe writing or drawing is how you learn best, but the PC is where all your learning is happening. You also like to annotate PDFs. Now you can use a digital pen to make the most of both worlds. You can also personalize the new Pen menu with your favorite apps for fast access. Smartphones have gotten many of us used to touchscreens, but sometimes taking notes isn’t as easy on them. But if your Windows 11 PC comes with a touchscreen, you’ll be able to take notes instantly with a digital pen and use natural gestures, such as multi-finger gestures for quicker navigation. PC gaming and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. With Windows 11, you can play the latest games with immersive graphics at high frame rates – thanks to DirectX 12. With Auto HDR, you’ll also see a wider, more vivid range of colors. With cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate [3] you’ll be able to play with others who are on console, or with Xbox Game Pass for PC you can download and play great PC games with the peripherals you love. Discover your next favorite game on your Windows device with Xbox Game Pass, where you can play more than 100 high-quality games with friends on your PC, console, phone and tablet for one low monthly price. And this October kicks off the three biggest months in Xbox history with incredible game launches including Age of Empires IV on Oct. 28, Forza Horizon 5 on Nov. 9 and Halo Infinite on Dec. 8. All three of these games will be available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC members on day one. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you won’t have to wait to get the latest games. They’ll be in your library ready for you to download or play with cloud gaming on day one. Instead of buying just one game and hoping that you’d love it, now for a fraction of the price of a new game you can try over a hundred games on your PC (or Xbox console, tablet or phone!). Use the Xbox app on Windows to connect and chat with friends as you browse and play PC games and tap into the heart of the Xbox community and join millions of players ready and waiting to play together. OneDrive. When you sign up for a free Microsoft account you get 5GB of cloud storage. And when you purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription you get 1 TB of cloud storage to save, edit and share your photos and files easily and securely across your devices. You can’t buy memories, but you can protect them. Windows PCs can automatically back up precious files to the cloud on OneDrive. You have enough space for 500,000 photos plus your documents. So, take that selfie from every angle, and record your sleeping pets every day. Access, edit and share your photos and files wherever you go with the OneDrive mobile app. Simply make changes and save and OneDrive will automatically sync your files so they’re updated and accessible on every device. OneDrive keeps your files backed up and protected with ransomware detection and file recovery options. And for your most important files, you get a secure folder (Personal Vault) that you can only access with a second step of identity verification. Find out more about Windows 11. [1] Certain features require specific hardware. Chatting via SMS is available in limited countries and will be made available to other geos on a rolling basis. Please refer to this page for more details. Internet access required, ISP fees may apply. [2] You can meet with anyone in a 1:1 call and speak up to 24 hours for free. For a group call (more than two people), you can meet with up to 100 participants and call up to 60 mins for free. We are waiving these limits in light of COVID-19 so that you can meet with up to 300 participants and speak up to 24 hours for free until further specified. [3] Subscription sold separately. Terms and exclusions apply. Game catalog varies over time, by region, and by device. See xbox.com/gamepass and EA Play - EA Video Game Membership - EA Official Site for details. Xbox Cloud Gaming: Streaming limits apply. Requires compatible controller (sold separately), supported device and Xbox Game Pass app; see system requirements. System requirements vary game by game; performance scales with higher-end systems. See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications. Continue reading...

Ever made a mistake when typing your address and your package wasn’t delivered to you? Do you always need to take out your credit card every time you’re ready to purchase something online? For everyone who’s experienced these everyday nuisances, Microsoft is excited to announce autofill support for your addresses and payment info in Microsoft Authenticator along with existing support for passwords! Fill your addresses and payment info across your devices Just like your passwords, Autofill now stores addresses and payment info using your Microsoft account. If you haven't already synced your autofill data on your mobile device, open the Microsoft Authenticator app, go to the Passwords tab, and simply start syncing your data. Make sure you select Authenticator as your default autofill provider. Once you’ve done that, you can now autofill your addresses or payment info by simply opening your favorite apps or sites and choosing from our autofill suggestions. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/Mobile-Autofill-Address.gif https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/Mobile-Autofill-Payment.gif If you use Google Chrome, you can autofill addresses and payments info using the Microsoft Autofill Extension available on the Google Chrome web store. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/Desktop-Autofill-Payment.gif Never make a mistake in typing your information Let Autofill securely save your address or payment info for you so you don’t have to type it again or make any mistakes in getting your important packages delivered. Your addresses will sync across devices and can be filled automatically, including on your desktop devices using Microsoft Edge or the Microsoft Autofill Extension on Google Chrome. https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/Mobile-save-address.gif https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/Mobile-save-payment.gif Your data is always secure behind your thumbprint At Microsoft, we take the safety of our customers’ data seriously. All autofill data is encrypted both on your device and the cloud when synced across devices. As an added measure of security, customers who autofill payment info with Authenticator will need to verify their identity using bio gestures. This ensures that only the rightful owner of the device can access and autofill passwords and payment info. Our goal is to help our customers access and fill their data in a simple, more secure manner. Please share your feedback and ideas in the comments section below—we’d love to hear from you. Thanks Vishnu Nath Partner Director of Program Management Microsoft Mobile and Cross Device Experiences Continue reading...

Minecraft Live will be beamed across the world at 9 a.m. PT on Saturday, Oct. 16. Packed with Minecraft news and appearances by content creators, the event will celebrate all things Minecraft and include a pre-show and community vote to influence the game. You can watch it all on the Minecraft.net website as well as on Facebook, YouTube and Twitch. Find out more on this Minecraft.net post. Continue reading...

The latest free update has arrived for Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Season 8 brings a wide array of new content that lets you outfit your Spartan like never before. Featuring uniquely themed armor sets, vehicle skins, weapon skins, back accessories and more, Halo fans have a lot new to dive into. Head over to Halo Waypoint for videos, screenshots and all the details. Continue reading...

If you’re looking for a mobile computer that can withstand the harshest and most demanding environments, Dell’s Latitude Rugged laptops are an option to consider. [caption id=attachment_176380" align="aligncenter" width="1024]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/la7330t_enb_rain_bk_shutterstock-1313916497-1280x1280-1-1024x576.jpeg Dell Latitude 7330 Rugged Extreme[/caption] These devices come with 11th Gen Intel Core processors, with vPro optional, for enhanced field productivity, Intel Wi-Fi 6E and optional 5G capability for mission-critical connectivity, improved daylight-readability and glove-touch capable screens and battery run-time up to 25 hours. They also come with TPM 2.0 ControlVault advanced authentication to secure devices. Integrated cryptographic keys, contacted and contactless smartcard reader and touch fingerprint reader options provide additional device security. Windows 11 was designed with security in mind to meet the challenges of a hybrid work environment. Find out more about the Rugged portfolio from Tobul’s blog post. Continue reading...

On Wednesday, Acer expanded its gaming and green PC portfolios with an array of Windows 11 devices, including those that prioritize antimicrobial protection. The company also announced a laptop aimed at designers who specialize in 3D modeling. With the shift to hybrid work, Windows 11 represents a new era for the PC: an operating system that works how you work and is flexible, consistent and secure. Acer launched a line-up of green PCs in its Vero series, including the Acer Aspire Vero laptop for consumers and the Acer TravelMate Vero laptop for businesses. From PCs to peripherals, Vero devices share certain green guidelines, such as utilizing post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic and shipping in recyclable packaging. Acer’s Vero devices have also been intentionally designed to be easy to disassemble, simplifying the process of repair or upgrade and ultimately increasing the devices’ lifespans. [caption id=attachment_176377" align="aligncenter" width="1024]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/10/TravelMate-Spin-P4-P414RNA-51-win-1024x731.jpg Acer TravelMate Spin P4[/caption] Acer announced an expansion of its antimicrobial product portfolio, incorporating technology which lessens the need for regular alcohol scrubbing or specialized covers. Devices stay cleaner longer. Laptops with this protection, such as the Acer TravelMate Spin P4, are now available to a significantly wider range of users. A silver ion antimicrobial agent coats high-touch surfaces such as the chassis, keyboard, touchpad and more. Silver ions are highly reactive particles that dramatically reduce the growth rate of microbes upon contact. The Spin P4 comes with up to an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 vPro processor – which is more than sufficient to run several programs, webpages and spreadsheets at once, while up to 1 TB of M.2 SSD storage offers plenty of space for files and assets. It also has a spill-resistant keyboard, offering peace of mind during coffee-powered crunch periods. Its shock absorbent corners have been independently certified as meeting MIL-STD 810H impact resistance standards. For gamers, Acer has expanded its Predator portfolio with new Predator Orion 7000 series desktops, two smart 4K gaming projectors (GD711 and DM712) and a Predator gaming desk that has two practical surface options and a convenient storage rack. The new Predator Orion 7000 series gaming desktops are equipped with the latest 12th Gen Intel Core overclockable processors, up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 series GPUs and up to 64 GB DDR5-4000 RAM. Thin and curved fan blades on the three 2nd Gen Predator FrostBlade fans are designed to smoothly increase airflow without causing turbulence and to quickly dissipate heat. The fans’ wear-resistant and fully-sealed rifle bearings prevent lubricant leaks and the ingress of dust to maintain stability and extend the computer’s lifespan. Intel Killer 2.5G LAN gives gamers a competitive edge by detecting and prioritizing game traffic over other network traffic, resulting in smoother and faster connectivity for online games and streaming media. The 55-inch Predator gaming desk provides ample room for a gaming system, monitor, accessories and more. Gamers can choose from two surfaces; one coated in an easy-to-clean, stylish carbon fiber or another covered with a custom-designed Predator mouse pad. Outfitted with ample storage, the Predator gaming desk comes with a rack for storing gamepads and/or cartridges, a headphone hook, a cup holder and a tray tucked in the back for AC adapters. It also has a headset cradle to save desk space, a cup holder to prevent spills and a cable management cutout on each side of the desk to keep cables organized and out of the way. For more information on these and other recent Acer product announcements, head over to the Acer pressroom. Continue reading...

What should you look for in a new PC running Windows 11? And what steps should you take as you prepare to buy? The Windows Resource Center presents five key factors to consider – including power, hard drive, touch screen and more – along with steps for finding and purchasing a new device, and even trading in your current computer, which could get you some cash back. Head over to the Windows Resource Center to find out more. Continue reading...