On Monday, Microsoft held its annual ‘Build’ conference. The Seattle based tech giant talked about all kinds of new and interesting developments both for consumers and developers. These include things like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, Azure, and of course Edge. So here’s the rundown of what was discussed at the conference.
Windows Terminal
One of the highlights of the conference was Windows Terminal. The terminal gives command-line users access to emoji-rich fonts, multiple tab support and other customization tools. Another notable promise, is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), that developers should expect sometime next month.
Microsoft Azure
As always, Azure took its place on the pedestal with a plethora of new changes in the service. Some of the developments include internet of things (IoT), mapping, databases, storage, and analytics. Also mentioned here was Azure IoT Edge, an IoT cloud service launched last year. According to Microsoft, this service now works with Google’s open source container orchestration framework, Kubernetes.
Another memorable mention is Azure and GitHub integration. This is a result of Microsoft’s acquiring the code hosting repository, for $7.5 billion, back in October 2018. This new integration means that developers can transition from their repositories to deployment more efficiently, in a seamless manner.
In other news, Microsoft announced updates for Azure Mobility Service API for Azure Maps. Furthermore, there be an upgraded Bing Maps software development kit (SDK). Also, Bing Maps will have a new multi-itinerary optimization API for drivers, planners, and fleet dispatchers.
Quantum Computing & Q#
Keeping the tradition of revealing new open source projects during the Build conference, we expect the Quantum Development Kit to arrive on GitHub in summer, The aim of the new Quantum Development Kit is to open quantum computing for more developers.
Developers will be able to run experiments and create their own quantum computing programs. Additionally, Microsoft introduced Q#, a quantum programming language, as part of this kit.
AI and Microsoft Office
CEO Satya Nadella, spoke about Microsoft’s new set of updates for Microsoft 365. the cloud-based software that also includes MS Office. The main point here was Ideas in Word that uses AI, for grammar and style checks in Word. This feature uses natural language processing (NLP) technology and machine learning to suggest improvements in human-written documents. ML.NET 1.0 is another AI development, launched after Build 2018, last year. At this year ‘Build’, Microsoft introduces an open source, cross-platform framework for .NET developers, improving accessibility for them.
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Build also brought up talks on Google’s Chromium open-source project for its Edge desktop browser. As of last month, we saw the rollout of Chromium builds for Microsoft’s Windows 10. Monday’s ‘Build 2019’ saw the Seattle based firm announced that the Chromium-powered Edge will get a special Internet Explorer (IE) mode. Other developments for Edge include new privacy tools, and “collections” a new feature that uses “cloud-powered intelligence” as Microsoft puts it. Its purpose is to collect and organise the content you find while browsing.
