These days, Microsoft tends to announce products as they begin development; so they have fewer big announcements at their large events like Microsoft Ignite. Nevertheless, yesterday's 2.5 hour keynote did include some interesting information and announcements.
The two things that interested me the most were:
Azure OpenAI Service - a new addition to Microsoft's powerful Cognitive Services suite that allows you to create models that understand the context of text. The demo showed a transcript of a basketball game in which OpenAI was able to summarize the game's action into a brief paragraph. You can watch that demo here.
Microsoft Teams Connect should make it easier to collaborate in Teams with members from different organizations. This has been a pain point on some of my recent projects, so I look forward to seeing how this affects my work.
Microsoft Loop appeared in my build of Teams a few days ago, so my teammates and I have been playing with its collaborative features, which allow us to quickly add things like tables and to-do lists and edit them simultaneously.
While watching videos, I sometimes learn about things that are not new, but are new to me. Copilot is a plug-in for Visual Studio Code that automatically generates code, based on comments you add. I was unfamiliar with it, but I will be trying it out this week. It looks very cool!
Below are my raw notes, taken while watching the keynote:
New: Azure OpenAI Service
Customize models. Add context
Summarize text
Summary of summaries
Co-Pilot VS Code plug-in
Creates code based on comments
Teams Connect
Collaboration: Chat, call, meet, etc.
Metaverse
Digital representation of the world
Dynamic 365 Connected Spaces
Microsoft Mesh
Mesh for Microsoft Teams
Avatars with facial expression
Shared whiteboard
Judson A: Sustainability case study
Teams
Pages with flexible canvases
Loop components: Pull in content
Keep in sync
Multiple users can edit in Teams, Outlook, Word, or Teams mobile
Outlook
@ mentions
Automatically create meeting
Clip Champ
All your video needs in one place | Clipchamp
Teams Connect
External shared channels alongside internal channels
Collaborate with those outside company
Public Preview 2022Q1
Webinar
Virtual Green Room for presenters to prep
Curated attendee: Attendees see only shared content and guests invited to speak
ISV
Bring your apps into Teams
Bring Teams into your org
Viva Insights
Meeting suggestions provided to organizer
Create a meeting plan
"Send praise" feature
Dynamics 365
Supply Chain Insights
provide risk scores
Projected delivery dates
Storm surge risk
Power Automate
Process step map
Add comments to apps
Azure Arc
Hybrid and multicloud management
Virtual desktop in Azure Stack
SQL Server 2022 Preview announced
Azure Container Apps
Fully-managed and serverless platform
Does not use Kubernetes. Focus on apps
Upgrade path to Kubernetes
GitHub Codespaces
Create development machines in the cloud in <15 seconds
Access via web browser
New: Power Apps pay-as-you-go pricing model
Distribute Power Apps as native iOS and Android apps