While Microsoft’s biggest developer’s conference, Microsoft Build 2018 embarked on its core Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing ideas and extension. However, Day 2 was all about its new version of Android Launcher, Microsoft Launcher.
On the second day of the event, Microsoft announced the modifications that will be implemented in Windows 10 by introducing the Sets features. With addition to the Your Phone app that was introduced on Day 1, the company introduced its add ons. Alongside, the focus was toward the Microsoft’s Office suite, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Store.
However, the ultimate spotlight of the developer’s conference was Microsoft 365.
Joe Belfiore, the Vice President of Microsoft explained to the crowd present at the conference that Microsoft 365 is equivalent to Windows + Office + Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS.) He brought to light that the company has two platforms as of now, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365. He stressed on the fact that there are around 135 million commercial monthly active users of Office 365 and more than 200,000 organizations are using Microsoft Teams.
Another fascinating update here is Outlook and its teams will be getting Adaptive Cards. These cards will appear in Outlook message. It will reflect changes in your organization’s Microsoft Graph data that will all be actionable. The example Microsoft gives is that a manager could approve an expense report in a card. You’ll also be able to pay bills in a card using Microsoft Pay.
You can now make your Grammar Nazi friends shut up! Here’s how!
Emphasizing on AI and Machine Learning to improvise its existing products, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Developer Platform Kevin Gallo used Microsoft Word as an example, stating the company’s objective is to make a writer’s duty more convenient.
Kevin Gallo further added, “Some areas are very, very hard to detect with traditional algorithms.” Nevertheless, this could be achieved through grammar checking powered by Windows ML and artificial intelligence. Microsoft is taking autocorrect to a whole new level.
He also added, this problem is personal as his daughter, Anna struggled with grammar her whole life and felt that she would never be a good writer. The English language is complex, with words having different meanings depending on the subject. He put up a demonstration where the older version of Word and Word powered by Machine Learning was displayed. The ML personified Word displayed the errors such as the nouns that were missing were highlighted. How cool is that? A writer’s job is sure as hell going to get easier with this improvisation!
A whole bunch of Your Phone app features were also introduced at the event. Your Phone app will display all the user’s photos, videos, notifications and messages on their Personal Computer (PC) directly from their Android or iOS devices. The app has the ability to drag and drop phone camera photos to the Windows 10 operating system. You could also copy and paste different kinds of information between the devices. This app will be available to Windows Insiders first and Windows 10 users in a later build.
Microsoft introduced the latest version of its Android launcher, Microsoft Launcher. Launcher is a very popular app in the Google Play Store and brings a host of Microsoft centric features to Android. The new Microsoft Launcher for Enterprise version brings customization and security to organizations. Not only that but also allows administrators to create desktops for specific users with feeds into specific business systems.
The much talked about feature “Sets” in Windows 10 is the latest announcement from the event. This new feature makes your tasks easier by allowing you to set all the elements of a task together. You can keep apps, web pages, documents or files all at one place. When you resume work after a period of time, all the relevant task elements can be restored. You can also search through all the significant information. The customer applications can be restored as well if they incorporate Sets into their application. According to Belfiore, the release time of this feature is not specified yet as the company is still working on it.
Ultimately, Microsoft wants to make the life of its users pretty easier by making the best use of AI and machine learning. These were the highlights from the Day 2 of Microsoft Build 2018. Yet, there is a lot more to come from the 3 day event.
Let us know in the comments section below what you think of the new features! For more updates follow us on www.startupstories.in
