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Microsoft News
Hackernoon
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Tips and Insights From a Successful SDE-2 Application: Microsoft Engineer Interview (Offer 2024)
- Surabhi Gupta shares her experience with Microsoft Interview for the SDE-2 position.
- Her interview journey consisted of five rounds, each designed to assess different technical prowess and problem-solving skills.
- Surabhi shares a structured preparation plan for landing an SDE-2 position.
- The preparation plan includes daily problem-solving on LeetCode, studying system design, and reviewing core concepts in algorithms and system design.
- Regular mock interviews and communicating clearly during interviews can also aid in preparation.
- Microsoft SDE-2 interview process consists of Online Assessment, Technical Coding Rounds, and Final Round.
- The key topics for preparation include Data Structures and Algorithms, System Design, Coding Proficiency, Concurrency and Multithreading, and Behavioral Skills.
- In her fifth and final round, Surabhi was assessed with advanced problem-solving questions and behavioral assessments.
- System design knowledge is essential for an SDE-2 role at Microsoft.
- Mock interviews can simulate the actual interview scenarios, offer feedback, and enhance confidence.
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Medium
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Microsoft Xbox Store Android Secret Revealed
- Microsoft has prepared for changes in the Xbox ecosystem, including allowing players to play and buy Xbox games directly from the Xbox app on Android.
- However, the Xbox store on Android is still not available after almost a month, but Microsoft claims the delay is not their fault.
- Microsoft needs a court order to force Android to make radical changes to the Play Store, which is causing the delay.
- Competitors accuse Google of not allowing their apps in the Play Store and developers criticize Android for forcing the use of Google Play Billing.
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Medium
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Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism
- Technofeudalism is a concept coined by Yanis Varoufakis in his book, where he describes how capitalism is being replaced by a more opaque and unequal system dominated by digital platforms and 'cloud capital.'
- The Internet, originally created for military purposes, has now become the central infrastructure of cloud capital, which no longer relies on salaried workers but instead exploits the unpaid labor of billions of people who generate content, data, and attention.
- Recent events in the United States highlight how big tech and its leaders are redefining political, economic, and social power, as seen through Silicon Valley technocrats appointed in the Trump administration and antitrust investigations against Microsoft.
- Technofeudalism is becoming more relevant as state sovereignty and labor rights are challenged by the rise of this new era of technological accumulation.
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Insider
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ChatGPT's search market share jumped recently, while Google has slipped, new data shows
- ChatGPT is gaining market share in the online search market, challenging Google's dominance.
- A recent survey shows that 5% of respondents preferred ChatGPT as their top search provider, up from 1% in June.
- Google's search share slipped from 80% to 78% according to the survey results.
- Generative AI features, such as those offered by ChatGPT, are increasing user engagement and posing a threat to Google's search dominance.
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Arstechnica
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Microsoft discontinues lackadaisically updated Surface Studio all-in-one desktop
- Microsoft discontinues lackadaisically updated Surface Studio all-in-one desktop.
- The Surface Studio, a $4,300 touchscreen PC, received only two updates in eight years.
- There are no plans for a follow-up to the Surface Studio.
- The high cost and outdated internal components limited its appeal.
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Windows
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Phi Silica, small but mighty on-device SLM
- Microsoft's Applied Sciences team has created an on-device small language model (SLM), dubbed Phi Silica, designed to improve the battery, inference speed, and memory efficiency for Windows 11 Copilot+ PCs that use a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of 40 trillion operations per second. Phi Silica runs several features of the latest Copilot+ PC including a turnkey pre-optimized SLM for developers to utilize. Phi Silica's context processing consumes only 4.8mWh of energy on the NPU and a 56% improvement in power consumption when compared to operation on the CPU.
- Phi Silica is based on a Cyber-EO compliant derivative of Phi-3.5-mini, developed specifically for Windows 11. The model has a 4k context length and supports multiple languages, including Tier 1 languages. It includes key improvements necessary for in-product experiences. A language model consists of several components such as tokenizer, detokenizer, embedding model, transformer block and language model head.
- Microsoft and academic researchers have created QuaRot to enable true low-precision inference by quantizing both weights and activations down to 4-bits. The result is a model that delivers, with the bulk of compute offloaded. Key techniques Microsoft employed include weight sharing, memory-mapped embeddings, and disabling the arena allocator to optimize the memory efficiency of the model.
- Expanding the context length beyond the sequence length of the context processor was crucial for enabling real-world applications. To expand the context length and enable streaming prompt processing, Microsoft employed the sliding window approach by processing smaller chunks of size N with the padding applied to the last chunk if necessary. Microsoft also came up with dynamic and shared KV cache for context processing, which helps improve memory efficiency.
- The resulting Phi Silica model features improved first token latency for shorter prompts and improves memory efficiency, while retaining most of the power-efficiency afforded by a largely NPU-based operation. The floating point model from which Phi Silica is derived has undergone safety alignment using a five-stage 'break-fix' methodology. The Phi Silica model, the system design and the API undergo responsible AI impact assessment and deployment safety board reviews.
- Microsoft's Phi Silica pushes the boundaries of what's possible with today's NPUs in a rapidly evolving, complex technical landscape. By advancing quantization research, Microsoft achieved remarkable gains in three critical areas: memory efficiency, power efficiency, and inference latencies without compromising quality or functionality.
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Windows
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Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4580 (Beta Channel)
- Microsoft has recently released a new Windows 11 preview for users who are part of the insider beta testing program.
- The latest release comes with build number 22635.4580, and it brings several new features, improvements, and fixes.
- For instance, the previous system tray is being temporarily withdrawn to address a few issues, but users can continue to give feedback while exploring simplified Windows 11 designs.
- The File Explorer component has received several updates in the latest release.
- For instance, when launching Explorer folders from outside the app, such as from the desktop or another program, users can choose to open them in a new tab, making it easier to browse multiple folders/setup.
- Other upgrades for the File Explorer utility include new snooze and turn-off options for the “Start backup” reminder in the address bar.
- This latest beta release has also fixed several issues, including one that caused Chinese Pinyin IME to stop working when switching between windows.
- Finally, the Microsoft Store has received an update, with the platform now supporting updating directly in the store for Win32 apps provided and updated by their publishers.
- Insiders can perform updates by clicking the update button; it won’t start automatically.
- This feature will be available for Windows Insiders across all channels running Store version 22411.1401.x.x and higher on the Microsoft Store platform.
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Windows
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Previewing More Copilot+ Experiences with Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel
- Microsoft has release a new preview of Windows 11 Insider for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs, including macOS quality and more Click to Do capabilities.
- Alongside a preview of Recall, the firm’s reimagined Surf feature, Microsoft is expanding Click to Do, its AI-powered image and text recognition feature, beyond just Recall.
- Machine learning capabilities in Copilot+ now allows users to quickly locate apps, images or documents just by describing their contents.
- The AI-powered Cocreator in Paint app also allows users to generate their own stunning inputs with which to conjure new artwork.
- To use these new features, users will need to update their Copilot+ PC to Microsoft Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.2510 (KB5048780).
- Microsoft continues to roll out the Recall preview and is inviting feedback from users on its updated security and privacy architecture.
- Recall is currently supported in select languages, including simplified Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.
- The addition of these new features will increase the functionality of Microsoft's hardware as it seeks to rival Apple's ongoing advances in new technology.
- The new Windows 11 update also includes various other fixes and improvements, including for the task bar, audio and the display.
- For Win32 apps provided and updated by developers, the Microsoft Store will now support updates inside the Marketplace. Previously, these apps could only be updated outside of the Store.
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Metaoption
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Image Credit: Metaoption
MetaShip Shipping Solution: Unlocking Business Insights with Key Analytics Features
- MetaShip, an innovative shipping solution integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, offers key analytics features to empower businesses.
- The key analytics features provided by MetaShip include tracking total shipping spend by month, total shipping spend by location, year-over-year comparisons, average number of shipments per week, total spend by shipping carrier, average spend per shipment weight, and total spend by service level.
- These analytics features help businesses optimize costs, improve operational efficiency, make strategic decisions, and scale efficiently.
- MetaShip simplifies shipping complexities and provides businesses with the tools to analyze, optimize, and innovate, giving them a competitive edge in the logistics industry.
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VentureBeat
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Microsoft Copilot Vision is here, letting AI see what you do online
- Microsoft Copilot now has 'vision' capabilities that enable it to browse the internet with users.
- This feature is in the early stages of development and is currently available to select Copilot Pro subscribers.
- Copilot Vision aims to simplify web browsing by providing assistance in reading website contents and making decisions.
- The capability is currently opt-in and will gradually expand support to more users and websites.
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TechCrunch
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OpenAI considers ditching provision that would prevent AGI from being used for commercial gain
- OpenAI is considering removing a provision that would prevent Microsoft from accessing its most advanced technology when artificial general intelligence (AGI) is achieved.
- The provision is intended to prevent AGI from being misused for commercial gain and would grant ownership of the technology to OpenAI's nonprofit board.
- No final decision has been made by OpenAI's board yet.
- OpenAI is facing the need to raise capital for its research and development.
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Macrumors
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Microsoft Discontinues iMac Rival Surface Studio 2+
- Microsoft has discontinued its Surface Studio 2+.
- The Surface Studio was Microsoft's direct competitor to Apple's iMac.
- Despite its innovative design, the Surface Studio struggled to gain traction in the market due to its high price point and outdated hardware components.
- This decision leaves a gap in the Windows all-in-one market for high-end PCs.
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Insider
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Amazon cloud executives share their latest AI strategies, and why choice matters more than owning the top model
- Amazon has emphasized customer choice over market dominance with its AI strategy, and has used Bedrock, an AI development tool, that gives access to many models, as its main horse in the AI race.
- Amazon still believes that the generative AI market is so big and varied that customers will want more model choices that fit their different needs.
- Amazon further leaned into its strategy with new updates for Bedrock, including a marketplace for more than 100 specialized models and a distillation feature.
- Companies typically use three or more foundation models in their AI services according to a recent report by Menlo Ventures, making Anthropic, which Menlo Ventures has backed, achieve 24% share in the AI model market this year.
- Last year, Amazon created a new artificial general intelligence team under the mandate to build the "most ambitious" large language models, and on Tuesday, it unveiled the early results of that effort with its Nova series.
- Amazon's CEO has downplayed any notion of Nova going after competitors and said that he's been surprised by the diversity of models developers use and that Nova is just one of the many options they will have.
- Amazon's AI business is 'growing three times faster at its stage of evolution than AWS did itself,' according to Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy.
- Rahul Parthak, VP of data and AI, go-to-market, at AWS told BI that Nova's launch was partly driven by customer demand.
- Amazon still wants other models to thrive because its goal isn't about beating competitors but offering customers 'the best options,' according to Rahul Parthak.
- Amazon's VP of AI and data, Swami Sivasubramanian, said that model choice approach is a 'core construct' of the business.
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allthingstalent.org
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Image Credit: allthingstalent.org
Anvesha Singh Moves to Microsoft India as their Director of Talent Development
- Microsoft has appointed Anvesha Singh as the new Director of Talent Development for the India GEO.
- Anvesha has expressed her excitement about the role in her LinkedIn post.
- Before joining Microsoft, she served as VP - Talent Management at Vodafone Idea.
- Anvesha has a strong background in talent development and management with experience in renowned organizations.
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Dev
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Image Credit: Dev
Microsoft Copilot: Redefining Productivity with AI
- Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant integrated into Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams.
- Key features include seamless integration, enhanced creativity, simplified data analysis, efficient communication, and collaborative ideation.
- Copilot is built on Azure OpenAI Service, leveraging large language models trained on vast datasets to provide contextually relevant outputs.
- Microsoft envisions a future with even smarter and more context-aware features, empowering users to work smarter.
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