Author: Thomas Kohnstamm

Thomas Kohnstamm

Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, works to democratize AI and invests in clean energy data centers — Weekend Reading: Nov. 18 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm
art-connect2016_nyc_cityscape_final_1600x600_lowres-1024x384

This week at Microsoft was packed with big aspirations and big announcements. From data centers entirely powered by wind farms to AI partnerships with Elon Musk and the company’s ever-deeper involvement in open source (yes, you read that correctly), nothing was business as usual. And, as happens every November, much of the news came out of the main event: Connect(); 2016 developer conference in New York City. Welcome to this … Read more »

Alberto Cairo, Power BI & the rise of data journalism

- Thomas Kohnstamm
Data journalist Alberto Cairo working at his computer

From the election of Pope Francis to the passing of Nelson Mandela to Miley Cyrus’ MTV #twerk heard ’round the world, 2013 was full of big headlines and viral hits. Yet The New York Times’ top story of the year was the humble result of a vocabulary survey of 350,000 randomly selected Americans conducted by a then-intern at the paper. Instead of presenting these findings in a written article, “How … Read more »

Doubling European cloud capacity, investing in startups, more Minecraft fun — Weekend Reading: Oct. 7 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm

Last week’s big AI announcements eclipsed a lot of other news at Microsoft. This week, we march forward with all sorts of exciting announcements from cloud to startups to nano technology and gaming. Hold on tight as Weekend Reading gives you the light-speed tour of recent happenings at Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith revealed that the company has invested over $3 billion across Europe to date … Read more »

Gearing up for the football season, opening new doors with Linux — Weekend Reading: August 26 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm

Microsoft never stops. But we do rest. And as summer winds down, things have been a bit slower than usual while many of us enjoy vacations and recharge for the productive fall season ahead. This week we still managed to pick up a couple of neat Windows 10 tips like using Cortana to access certain apps without having to unlock your phone and using Continuum to connect your phone to … Read more »

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference showcases big plans with GE, new Windows subscriptions for businesses and why Facebook uses Office 365 — Weekend Reading: July 15 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt at WPC

The sold-out 2016 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto, Canada, wrapped up yesterday after four days of back-to-back announcements. We won’t take up your entire weekend by covering all of the news that came out of WPC, but here are some hand-picked highlights for this latest edition of Weekend Reading. The announcement that GE’s Predix platform for the Industrial Internet will be available on the Microsoft Azure cloud for … Read more »

Windows Holographic, the new Indy 500 app and Asia’s largest computer trade show – Weekend Reading: June 1 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm
Windows Holographic, Weekend Reading

June is here, but that doesn’t mean things are slowing down for summer at Microsoft. This week brings announcements about the new era of mixed reality computing, an app for the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, Computex in Taipei, where thousands of new devices were showcased, and much more. Check out a few of the top highlights in this latest edition of Weekend Reading. In further proof that science … Read more »

How London startup SAM Labs is making the Internet of Things into everybody’s thing

- Thomas Kohnstamm
SAM Labs

There are some 10 billion hardware devices connected to the Internet today. By 2020, this Internet of Things will power over 50 billion connected cars, dog collars, toothbrushes and pretty much anything else you can imagine. But while it’s now easier than ever for people to use or even create new software, innovative hardware design has remained a distant frontier, accessible only to trained engineers and the most diehard of … Read more »

A $1 billion cloud computing donation, ‘Minecraft’ heads to the classroom and editing genes with machine learning — Weekend Reading: Jan. 22 edition

- Thomas Kohnstamm

Late January may be the dreariest stretch of the year, but it has been a downright exciting week at Microsoft. Here’s our latest edition of Weekend Reading with an overview of the company’s news highlights over the last days. Yes, you read it correctly in the headline. That is $1 billion with a “b.” Microsoft’s donation will roll out over the next five years in the form of cloud computing … Read more »

Read the inside story behind the making of ‘Halo 5: Guardians’

- Thomas Kohnstamm

Jeremie Sloan’s garage in Oregon City teems with life-size “Halo” helmets, chest plates and codpieces. All are built with the goal of perfect fidelity to the “Halo” series of video games. Elsewhere in his labyrinth of basement workspaces, Sloan uses pepakura, a Japanese papercraft technique, to match and glue thousands of tiny serial-numbered paper tabs into the models for his costumes. It takes weeks to construct a single Master Chief … Read more »