I still remember the first time I signed up a Cloud service was with Dropbox in 2009. Then there were not much competitors and choosing a Cloud service to match your needs wasn’t that hard. All I need was the ability to access my files from anywhere and a easy way to share them with my university classmates. In this article, I hope to help you get acquainted with these key players in the Cloud service market today . So are you happy with your Cloud? ...
On 19th April, six Singaporean teams battle it out in the Imagine Cup Finals (Singapore Chapter) to earn a spot to the Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle, Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) on August 2nd, 2014. Here are some highlights from the exciting presentations: 1. Games Category: Life Choices. Team Life Choices developed a 2D game that teaches youths about the implications of life choices that are made by “modelling life as close as possible into a game with controlled environmental settings”. Within the game, users are able to engage fellow players and take part in activities and events to earn experience points. At the end of the game, each player will be provided with a game summary that provides advice on their life choices and recommendations to improve their life experiences. The team hoped to gradually roll out this product across schools in Singapore. 2. World Citizenship Category: I-HEARD (Intelligent Hearing Device). Team Elites created a sophisticated communications tool that utilizes voice and text translation technologies to improve communications for the deaf and mute. The team utilized a range of technologies to offer continuous speech recognition and location tracking capabilities, such as Bing and Nuance speech recognition, Bing translator, and Bing Map and Reverse GeoCoding. The audience was impressed by the sophistication of the tool and the team’s passion for helping to address a real-life challenge for a specific segment of the community that has not been adequately addressed till today. 3. Innovation Category: FACE (Facial Analyzer for Crowd Emotions). Team Stand produced an innovative system that enables the real-time capture and analysis of facial expressions with a wide range of uses in the private and public sector, such as retail, business analytics, and profiling. The system utilizes machine learning algorithms to improve its classification and analysis engine so as to increase its accuracy of predicting race, gender, age, and emotions. With its rich data sets, the system is able to generate a wide range of analytics reports with classification intervals. As noted by the judges, one of the key challenges for Face is the thorny issue of privacy. However, as highlighted by a recent report on marketing for millennials, 40% of millennials are able to identify specific digital information that is tracked and collected by companies. The key to making these data tracking activities acceptable to the general public is to be transparent about the types of data that is tracked, and to assure consumers that these information will not be mistreated. I would like to congratulate all of the teams on their amazing innovations which addresses real-life challenges. As pointed out by Mr. Tan Chun Siong, Microsoft Technical Evangelist and organizer of Imagine Cup (Singapore Chapter), this competition is the start of their journey and he hopes that the teams will continue to work with Microsoft to refine their products and bring it to market. Continue to Dream It, Build It, and Live It! What do you think of the Imagine Cup Finals? Do you have other great events and conferences that you’d like us to cover? Do share with us your experiences and recommendations in the comments below.
Apps Central is a monthly newsletter by Microsoft Singapore that shares a range of marquee apps, new apps & top rated apps on Windows and Windows Phone that we hope will help you get the most out of your devices. This is a delayed release (February), but the list of apps are still very relevant. Do check them out and discover some hot new apps! App Alert: Path Tired of social media updates from your entire network? Keep it closed and cosy with Path, a trusted place for your personal life. With a limit of only 150 “friends”, you’ll add only the people you care about, where you can be yourself, stay close to the people who matter most, and share life instead of links. With its beautiful design and simple experience, Path is loved by millions of people—and it’s ad-free! ...
Factsheet Office Lineup: Pricing and Availabilities As of 15 April 2014 Office 365 subscription-based models WHAT Office 365 Personal (NEW) Office 365 Home Office 365 University PRICE (per annum) S$89 per year S$138 per year S$108 for 4 years PRICE (per month)1 S$9.80 S$13.80 N/A LICENSES ·1 PC or Mac and 1 Tablet ·5 PCs or Macs & select mobile device ·2 PCs or Macs & select mobile devices ...
Microsoft launches Office 365 Personal in Singapore New addition to Office 365 line-up to cater to varying productivity needs of customers today Singapore, 15 April 2014-- Microsoft Singapore today unveiled Office 365 Personal, a new addition to the Office 365 line-up for consumers. Designed for the individual, Office 365 Personal allows for its users to install Office on one PC or one Mac, as well as one tablet device to be connected to the service. At an annual subscription rate of S$89.00, Office 365 Personal delivers the familiar features of Office in the cloud to subscribers which unlocks user scenarios previously not possible on desktop versions of Office. The new consumer subscription offering suits smaller households or individual users with single PC and tablet devices dedicated for productivity uses. Additionally, Microsoft will continue to offer Office 365 Home Premium subscription for households, now rebranded as Office 365 Home from today. With an annual subscription rate still at S$138.00 per year, Office 365 Home is perfect for households with multiple devices, where it can be installed in up to five PCs or Macs, and five tablets (including iPad). Office 365 Personal and Home usher in new ways to get things done in a new world of work and play through the most complete set of Office applications – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access.: ...
In this month’s Developer Feature series, we are honored to have Mr Garion Goh, a 38 year old veteran; Game Designer/Founder of Apptivise (a Microsoft BizSpark startup) to share with us on his journey of App development. How did you come up with Apptivise, and does it stand for anything? Well, I founded another company before Apptivise, called Ectivise, and “Ective” is a combination of “Eco” + “Active”. We added the suffix “-ise” to make “Ective” into a verb, denoting action, which also carries the meaning of “to make or become”, as in materialise, realise, etc, and so it becomes Ectivise; we want an active and vibrant company. So, when I started down the path to focus on App development, Apptivise came naturally from Ectivise. ...
Apps Central is a monthly newsletter by Microsoft Singapore that shares a range of marquee apps, new apps & top rated apps on Windows and Windows Phone that we hope will help you get the most out of your devices. This is a delayed release (January), but the list of apps are still very relevant. Do check them out and discover some hot new apps! App Alert: Path Tired of social media updates from your entire network? Keep it closed and cosy with Path, a trusted place for your personal life. With a limit of only 150 “friends”, you’ll add only the people you care about, where you can be yourself, stay close to the people who matter most, and share life instead of links. With its beautiful design and simple experience, Path is loved by millions of people—and it’s ad-free! ...
Attention to all students! On 19th April, Microsoft Singapore is opening its doors to ALL OF YOU for the local Imagine Cup 2014 finals. This will be happening at the Microsoft Auditorium, starting with a lovely breakfast at 9:00am. Over the past 6 months, innovative young minds all over Singapore have been dreaming, building and living the inventor’s dream. To make the world a better place, they have created projects to influence critical fields such as healthcare, education and our environment. After rounds of refining their projects, six teams of finalists will pitch to industry experts for the opportunity to represent Singapore in the World Finals held in Seattle this July. Only one will be selected for each of these categories: World Citizenship, Innovation, and Games For the techies, the creatives, and the entrepreneurs – JOIN US! Be inspired. Be the next! ...
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