Cloud Computing

In this instalment of our Startup Feature series, we speak with Oliver Duric from Grezzy, one of our BizSpark startups. Grezzy is a software platform in the health and fitness space that connects people, tracks activities, motivates to be active and compete with the goal of living healthy. Grezzy has also recently moved into Microsoft’s office premise at One Marina Boulevard, as part of the BizSpark Residency program. For those who are curious to find out more about BizSpark Residency following the recent news releases (like this and this), read on! [caption id=“attachment_20630” align=“alignnone” width=“769”] Oliver Duric from Grezzy, seated at his co-working space in Microsoft Innovation Centre[/caption] ...

Last weekend was a blast at Maker Faire Singapore, a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. Maker Faire began in California in 2012, and has since planted its seeds across numerous countries including US, UK, Taiwan, Japan, and in its fourth year running - Singapore. The two-day fair had more than 250 booths - more than double the number last year - spread over three floors in a former school building in Tampines. The fair not only helped to engage, connect and grow this community so that we can foster and celebrate a stronger do-it-yourself culture, but also allowed participants to participate in hands-on activities and pick up new skills at the event. Our team was down to check out the latest and coolest projects, and it was such an eye-opener! We were truly inspired by the passion and enthusiasm of these artists, hobbyists, scientists and tech enthusiasts at the fair. And we share some of the highlights below :) [caption id=“skills” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Participants picked up skills at the Maker Faire, such as furniture making and soldering[/caption] [caption id=“enzyme-making” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Or making enzymes from fruit waste that can be used to clean your house![/caption] [caption id=“welding-demo” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] A live welding demo by OneMakerGroup that used charcoal to heat the aluminium above 600 degree Celsius to melt and mould it[/caption] [caption id=“iot-booth” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] My friends and I also had a booth to showcase our “IoT in Smart Homes” application - a box that can be locked/unlocked remotely with a mobile app![/caption] [caption id=“intel” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Intel had a huge showcase of their coolest projects built upon the Intel Edison board. Those 6-legged dancing robots were amazingly fun to play with[/caption] [caption id=“3d-scan” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] A 3D scanner put together by Autodesk using Raspberry Pi boards. It was interesting to inspect the “bare-bone” of this technology[/caption] [caption id=“latte-plus” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Fancy a robot-made latte art? Robots can do creative work too![/caption] [caption id=“hammock” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] A fusion of art and technology - an electric hammock and light display[/caption] [caption id=“handicraft” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] There were also more traditional handicrafts on display. Pick up a pair of hand-made earrings for that special someone![/caption] [caption id=“strawbee” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Strawbee kept kids really busy with… straws! Simple tools that we never knew could build such dramatic structures[/caption] [caption id=“bicycle” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] We spotted unconventional bikes by Bikes 4 Fun, whose mantra is to inspire children to reinvent and be creative[/caption] [caption id=“forum” align=“alignnone” width=“3072”] Besides booth showcase, inspiring speakers also went on stage to deliver forum presentations on various topics around the Maker movement[/caption] I have always been interested in technology and its potential to help people of all background create value in their lives. But I have not had much opportunity to witness this live. At the Maker Faire, I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the collective passion of all makers in creating something out of nothing. It was heartening and empowering. And it was an even bigger bonus for me to have made several new friends who share similar interests in making. I definitely look forward to further this Maker movement in other communities!

It only takes 10 minutes to deploy your website with Azure. Free distinction for everyone! Just follow the guide below. What do you need? 1. A Microsoft Account with Azure! (Hey! Microsoft gives you a 30 day free trial) 2. A Dropbox Account (Free 2GB account is more than enough) 3. A folder with all the developed HTML/PHP/JavaScript/CSS files (Make sure they can run on local host to save your 30 days free trial) 4. 10 mins of your time Alright! Let’s start! ...

Protect your data in the Cloud Trust and Security have been hot topics for the public cloud since its inception. Corporate IT departments and CIOs have repeatedly expressed concerns over the loss of control associated with moving various levels of sensitive data to a public cloud. At the same time, the overall benefits of a public cloud are tremendous and continue to gain momentum. This means that many organizations have a pressing need tomigrate to public cloud infrastructure in spite of ongoing concerns about security. Encryption is one of the fundamental required tools for protecting data in the cloud. However, encrypting the data in the cloud, and then storing the encryption keys in the cloud in order to be able to access the data, provides only a very minor improvement over simply storing the data in the cloud in the first place. Trust Services provides a unique combination of end-to-end application level encryption and power of the cloud to roam encryption keys in a totally secure way. It enables data driven applications to work with sensitive data, securely stored in different cloud-based storages while continuing to maintain control over access to this data. ...

We are proud to announce the @Home with Windows Azure competition here in Singapore! Join us in this effort to give back to a very deserving cause, and get a solid understanding of the Windows Azure platform in the process. You will deploy an application to Windows Azure that directly contributes to Stanford University’s Folding@home effort, a distributed computing project that carries out simulations of protein folding. By simply running a piece of software, you can help scientists learn more about diseases like Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease and many cancers through banding together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. This distributed computing project was created by Stanford University researchers to help scientists unravel the mysteries of protein folding in hopes of helping cure diseases. Started by the US East Region DPE team, The @Home with Windows Azure project allows you to contribute to it by using your MSDN subscription or by using a free 3-Month Trial subscription to harness the power of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Prizes & Dates Your first prize will be the good feeling for contributing to a good cause! Also, globally, for every deployment of the @home with Windows Azure application Microsoft will donate $10 to Stanford University’s effort (up to $5,000 maximum). You also have the chance to win one of the following great prizes that will be randomly drawn between Singapore participants that enter before 11:59pm on 15 June 2012 and leave their solution deployed until at least 11:59am on 25 June 2012: ...

Ryan Crawcour is an adventure sports junkie that also has a passion for IT. With over fifteen years’ experience architecting, designing and implementing solutions on the Microsoft platform, he has achieved a solid track record in all things distributed & connected. A large focus for Ryan has been on…[more] [slideshare id=9780043&doc=mstechdays2011-tothecloudalaparoundtheentirewindowsazureplatform-111019230449-phpapp01]

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The newest version of Windows Intune is now available. Sign up here for a FREE 30-day trial and test it out on up to 25 PCs! What are the some of the key new features we have added? Software Distribution: Deploy most Microsoft and third-party updates or applications to PCs nearly anywhere over the Internet to Windows Intune managed PCs. Remote Tasks: You can now easily and remotely perform the following tasks on Windows Intune managed PCs from the administration console: Full scan, Quick scan, Update Malware Definition, and Restart. Read-Only Access: You can now can give select administrators read-only access to the administration console so they can view PC information as needed, but not perform any configuration tasks if you choose to. Enhanced Reporting: You can easily create hardware reports based on new hardware filters for common hardware characteristics. Additionally, you can now create and save report parameters to make it easy and efficient to run a report again in the future. Alerts & Monitoring: You can now configure alert types to be reported according to a specified threshold, frequency, or percent of computers affected. Want to learn more about these new features and all the other updates to Windows Intune? Check out the following content: ...

Microsoft Cloud Day was held on April 27th 2011 with 170 attendees representing 130 companies. It was a full day event with the aim of updating our community on Windows Azure Platform. We had extensively covered a mix of business and technical contents, from introducing the importance of cloud computing to deploying and monitoring Windows Azure application on the cloud. Highlights of the event includes the participation of Windows Azure AppFabric product team sharing the roadmap which was beneficial to our customers. We had excellent speakers from our SI Partner aZaaS, NCS and we also invited our customer Yolk for showcasing its Azure solution. All training partner booths (aZaaS, NCS and NetAsset) showcasing MS learning and cloud courses were well received. ...