I'm at Build in Seattle and will be live-blogging all day! This blog post will automagically update every minute or so. I'll be sharing the latest news on Azure, ASP.NET, and TypeScript! After the event I will share my overall thoughts and dive deeper on select topics. And follow me on Twitter and Instagram to stay in touch!

Keynote

Imagine Cup Finals

3 teams of students have each created some very impressive products.

  1. Winner: The third team created a brand new technique for measuring blood glucose levels using images of the retina from a smart phone. (zero-impact, cheap, and easily accessible; this is a big one).
  2. Runner Up: The first team demonstrated an air filtration mask for pollution-ridden environments. The coolest part is that they have custom plates for kids.
  3. 3rd Place: The second team created a mobile app that uses Azure Computer Vision and other ML/AI services to locate and guide you to things around you (perfect for vision-impaired).

KeyNote

Satya Nadella:

  • The future is embedding compute in the edge, building a new world.

  • As developers we have a call to trust, honest, and ethics that must be our responsibility.

  • Announcing a new open source project for securing election software using homomorphic encryption.

  • 4 Areas of the conference

  • Azure and Edge Computing

  • Dynamics 365 & Power Platform

  • Business Automation???

  • Gaming

  • Meet the needs of developers and fit every service/platform.

  • Bring computing to the edge and hybrid.

  • Focus on how Azure DevOps, tooling, etc. works between cloud and edge.

  • Examples of Walgreens and AB InBev (among others) using Azure and IoT to improve customer experience.

  • Deep dive into the latest from Starbucks:

  • DeepBrew. Smart menu recommendations using IoT ordering devices (takes into account region/cultural preferences, seasonal favorites, and purchase history).

  • An additional system for StarBucks allows them to monitor and track all brewing operations at their flagship Seattle location.

  • Using Azure blockchain to provide transparent details on where your coffee beans were grown, traded, etc.

  • Azure Cognitive Services: Empowering companies, developers, end users.

  • Azure Speech Services, has the ability to transcibe text AND learn local jargon, even within your O365 organization. Learns your terms, abbreviations, names.

  • Uses mutliple microphones to create a cloud-based microphone array. Can even recognize your voice footprint to identify who is speaking.

  • Bot Framework:

  • 3,000 new apps created each week

  • Create a conversational bot from the contents of a PDF!

  • Empower every business to create thier conversational canvas.

  • JET built a customer service agent using Bot Framework.

  • Coka-Cola using Bots internally across the organization.

  • HoloLens 2

  • The quintessential edge of Azure.

  • Spatial Anchor

  • Improved Augmented Reality -> Mixed Reality.

  • Makes VR more physical.

  • Autonomous Systems

  • Machine learning & self-learning

  • Dynamics 365 & Power Platform

  • Embedding Power Platform into your apps and services integrates with Dynamics 365

  • Open Data Initiative

  • Working with Adobe and SAP.

  • Unilever utilizing for sustainability, used to market and educate the benfits of sustainability.

  • Microsoft 365:

  • Provides productivity in life and drives business interaction

  • Putting people at the center and thinking about how they access thier devices (people first, not device first).

  • Runs on Microsoft Graph, Teams, Edge, etc.

  • Enable Graph integration on internal data, allows for massive improvements to search, analytics, and predictions.

  • Cortana is available in Teams

  • All Bot Framework bots can be used across devices (Siri, Alexa, etc).

  • We need an open-assistant (one wake word, one agent, shared data & services).

  • Multi-turn (back & forth exchanges), multi-domain (calendar, emails, contacts, directions, business info), and multi-agent.

  • Video demonstrating how a converstaional AI with Cortana can empower you daily routine.

  • Windows and Office Developer Ecosystem

  • Using inking to intelligently teach math

  • Bloomberg using Excel to

  • Edge Browser

  • Now built on Chromium.

  • Bringing ARM64 support.

  • Contributing back so that all browsers can improve.

  • Will be cross-platform: Win10, Win7, Mac, iOS, Android

  • Privacy & Security, providing transparency and choice.

  • New Announcements (Divya):

  • Provide seamless enterprise experience:

  • IT Customizable home page, show contextual "recents" (docs, appointments, search results)

  • Edge will support IE with "IE Mode", no need to switch browsers.

  • Provide privacy/security.

  • Create simple tools to see who can see your data

  • Tracking Prevention allows for great control, even blocking malicious trackers.

  • Increase productivity

  • Collections: group links and content, easily share, and integrate into Office apps, auto-records citations, auto-categorize into Excel.

  • Fluid Framework (Mike & Chika)

  • Hyper fast co-authoring & bots that work with you.

  • Auto translate as you type, using bots as

  • Bots can provide proofing, security audits, etc.

  • Fluid Components

  • Allows data to be manipulated across apps and devices (table data in a Word doc and Teams page).

  • Teams (Satya)

  • Microsoft 365 is not just for "knowledge workers", but also "first-line" workers.

  • Nascar trainging team, retail specialists, hospital workers.

  • Announcements (Raanah):

  • Use mobile devices to capture data and events

  • Shifts Module allows for servicen techs to work better together.

  • Video Conferences

  • Dynamic backgrounds (hide your house)

  • Whiteboard centering and transparent people (no more blocking the whiteboard/sreen).

  • HoloLens + MS Graph + Spatial

  • Uses hand & finger tracking to grab and throw files, images, data.

  • Connect in the same room even across the world.

  • Can join without HoloLens, using mobile phone for Mixed Reality or laptop for virtual view.

  • Gaming in Microsoft

  • donkey.bas is on GitHub

  • Xbox Live, GamePass, Mixer

  • Azure for game dev (Rare, Ubisoft)

  • Xbox Live

  • 63M users

  • Now available on iOS and Android, GameLoft starting the integration

  • PlayFab

  • LiveOps: Measure, manipulate, and modify game data to improve gamer expereince.

  • Microsoft Game Stack

  • Azure, AI, MS 365, and more, all for gaming.

  • Mystery Minecraft teaser - tune in May 17th on minecraft.net

  • The "commercial" contained a mixed reality effect allowing you to view your Minecraft creations in the real world using a smartphone or tablet.

Over all it was quite the keynote, as you can see from the flurry of notes that I took. It's quite clear that the focus this year is using AI to improve business and connecting users through Teams and remote services. Look for more articles on ASP.NET and the latest for Azure.