Microsoft

The human error of Tay

Neville Hobson 10 Comments Communication, Entertainment, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Society, Technology, Web

Microsoft’s public experiment with artificial intelligence in the form of Tay, an AI chatbot, made news headlines everywhere during last week – but not for positive reasons at all. Launched on March 23, Tay was developed by Microsoft’s Technology and Research and Bing teams to experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding. Microsoft says: Tay is designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation. The more you chat with Tay the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized for you. Tay is targeted at 18 to 24 year old in the US, the dominant users of mobile social chat services in the US. Tay was built […]

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Windows 10 is just around the corner

Neville Hobson 9 Comments Experiences, Experimenting, Hardware, Reviews, Software, Technology
Windows 10

In just a few days, on July 29, Microsoft will begin the public rollout of Windows 10 in 190 countries. If you want to upgrade your desktop or laptop computer, it’s a free upgrade in specific circumstances. Lifehacker has a simple flowchart that makes it quite easy to see if you qualify. The only difference to this chart is that Windows 8 won’t get you the free upgrade but Windows 8.1 will. According to Microsoft: The only requirements are that a) your device is compatible, and b) you’re running genuine Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows 8.1 (Update). Windows 10 is designed to run on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs. That means your device is likely compatible […]

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Windows 10 shows the scale of Microsoft’s ambition

Neville Hobson 18 Comments Business, Experiences, Experimenting, Hardware, Innovation, Reviews, Software, Technology

On July 29 – in just over two weeks’ time – Microsoft will begin the formal roll-out of Windows 10, the new edition of the Windows operating system for PCs and tablets (and Windows phones). It’s been the subject of a comprehensive beta-testing programme by around five million people since the programme was launched at the end of September 2014. I’ve been part of this programme as a Windows Insider since last October, running the incremental builds of ‘Windows 10 Insider Preview’ as they become available on a couple of different computers, and providing feedback. It’s been a stimulating and most interesting experience so far; a few comments on that in a minute. So starting on July 29, if your […]

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The new image of Microsoft

Neville Hobson 5 Comments Business, Communication, Marketing, Public Relations, Software

Microsoft is changing its logo to the one you see above, the first change to its corporate and brand logo since 1987. In explaining the new look, Jeff Hansen, Microsoft’s General Manager Brand Strategy, says the company’s wave of new product releases coming this year – notably the new Windows 8 operating system, currently in release preview – “represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning.” […] The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in our products as well as our marketing communications. The symbol is important in a world of digital […]

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I’d love to try the new Office Preview if I could get it installed

Neville Hobson 6 Comments Business, Communication, Experiences, Reviews, Software, Technology

This concise comment on Microsoft’s Office Preview support forum says it all about the frustrations that many people including me have experienced in trying to install the free trial version of Office Customer Preview: Hey Microsoft, make it simple yo…… Announced yesterday, Microsoft is making the trial universally available to anyone who cares to try it out and who has a suitable PC, and you’re in a country listed on your account page. Basically, any modern computer running Windows 7 or Windows 8 should be fine, even a netbook (details). Note you’ll need a Windows 7 edition at minimum to install this – neither Vista nor XP are supported. It certainly looks the business with its three different editions: Office […]

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