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The Morning Download: Microsoft Builds on Hybrid Cloud
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Good morning, CIOs. Microsoft Monday introduced new versions of Azure Stack, an initiative introduced two years ago that allows customers to run part of its Azure cloud on in-house equipment. The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley has more.
For the military: a “ruggedized” version of Azure Stack, more robustly constructed to appeal to military users. Microsoft just won a Pentagon cloud contract valued at up to $10 billion.
The company is also introducing a system called Azure Arc to let more of its database applications run within customers’ data centers. Read on for more announcements from Microsoft's annual Ignite conference in Orlando, Fla.
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Naama Issachar was detained by Russian authorities while returning home to Israel via Moscow. Now imprisoned, she is at the center of efforts to prevent an alleged Russian hacker detained in Israel from being extradited to the U.S. PHOTO: HANDOUT/REUTERS
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Russia steps up efforts to shield its hackers. To prevent Russians arrested on criminal hacking charges from being extradited to the U.S., Moscow is relying on a variety of techniques—from prisoner exchange to bribery, The Journal's Dustin Volz and Felicia Schwartz report. U.S. officials said many Russian hackers have ties either to the Kremlin or to Russian oligarchs and can be forced into working for an intelligence service if they are brought home to Russia.
Talking to smart speakers with lasers. Researchers in Japan and at the University of Michigan say they have found a way to use lasers to "speak" to smart devices that take voice commands, opening up a potential new avenue for hackers. (Wired)
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Visitors are tracked by facial-recognition technology at a Security China 2018 expo in Beijing. Hikvision is a leading Chinese maker of facial recognition surveillance cameras used widely within China. It is not part of the lawsuit. PHOTO: NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Chinese professor files rare lawsuit over facial-recognition. Guo Bing accused a wildlife park and zoo in the eastern technology hub of Hangzhou of violating his consumer rights by requiring members to register their faces as part of a new entrance system.
More to come? The lawsuit comes as Chinese consumers are growing increasingly vocal about data-privacy concerns, says The Wall Street Journal's Shan Li.
New report on U.S. not spending enough on AI. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence said the U.S. is lagging behind China in two key areas: Facial recognition and financial technology. The independent government-commissioned panel is chaired by former Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt and also includes Oracle CEO Safra Catz and Andrew Jassey, CEO of Amazon Web Services. (Reuters)
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An illustration showing the position of NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes outside the zone where the sun’s protective bubble of influence fades away. PHOTO: NASA/JPL-CALTECH
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NASA’s Voyager 2 sends first data from interstellar space after 42-year trip. Voyager 2 officially crossed the boundary of the solar bubble, or heliosphere, on Nov. 5, 2018, recording its passage into interstellar space with all five of its sensors in working order. Data from that passage just recently arrived on earth. The Wall Street Journal's Robert Lee Holtz reports that the craft’s sensors showed a sharp decrease in the intensity of low-energy solar ions and an increase in the intensity of cosmic rays. The Voyager 1 probe crossed into interstellar space on Aug. 25, 2012. It is the most distant object made by human hands.
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The project took about a year to develop and involved hundreds of AI researchers throughout the company, a Microsoft executive said. PHOTO: JAAP ARRIENS/ZUMA PRESS
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Microsoft announces AI tool that turns business data into Wikipedia-like snapshots. Project Cortex uses AI models to comb through millions of data points that a business stores in Microsoft services, including those found in emails, documents and calendars. It then automatically generates “topic cards” about company projects, products, customers and internal experts. “It’s a way to help [employees] get access to knowledge, enterprise and learning, within the context of their work,” Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office 365, tells CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos.
Microsoft announces quantum access via cloud. Select Microsoft customers in coming months will be able to run quantum code through Azure on prototype quantum computers. Microsoft has yet to produce any quantum computing hardware, so Azure Quantum, as the service is called, will run on machines made by Honeywell, IonQ, or QCI respectively. IBM offers a similar service, with companies accessing a quantum computer through the cloud. (Wired)
Twitter suspends accounts linked to Hamas, Hezbollah. The curbs come after U.S. lawmakers criticized the social-media company for allowing those entities to remain active on the platform even though the State Department has designated both as terrorist organizations. (WSJ)
Apple addresses Bay Area housing crunch. The $2.5 billion plan includes $1 billion towards a fund for affordable housing, $1 billion to connect first-time home buyers with mortgages, and land parcels, valued at $300 million, set aside for affordable housing. (New York Times)
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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Voters are heading to the polls in several states to pick governors and state legislators in a warm-up for the 2020 election and with a chance to affect party control in places such as Virginia and Kentucky. (WSJ)
Global stocks rose as investors grew hopeful that the U.S. and China may roll back tariffs that have penalized hundreds of billions of dollars in trade. (WSJ)
Pressure from investors and lawmakers to boost gender diversity in the executive ranks and the boardroom are prompting more companies to consider a wider array of C-suite candidates and, increasingly, tie performance reviews and pay to hiring targets. (WSJ)
The U.S. has officially started the process of exiting the Paris climate agreement. U.S. carbon emissions rose 3.4% in 2018, after three years of declines, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (WSJ)
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