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North Carolina Becomes 8th State to join Elevate America
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By David Bowermaster
Administrator, Microsoft on the Issues
North Carolina Governor Bev Purdue announced yesterday that North Carolina will partner with Microsoft to implement Elevate America, an initiative designed to help get people back to work by giving state and local governments the tools and resources they need to provide no-cost or low-cost technology skills training to job seekers.
North Carolina joins seven other states that have launched Elevate America since the program began in February, including Illinois, Iowa, Virginia, Washington, Maryland, Mississippi and Missouri.
As Microsoft Corporate Vice President Pamela Passman previously blogged, more than 50 percent of today’s jobs require technology skills, with experts predicting that percentage will rise to 77 percent in the next decade. In today’s market, jobs in almost every industry and at every level require at least basic proficiency with computers and other digital technologies.
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Microsoft Shareholders Vote on “Say-on-Pay,” Other Measures
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Posted by John Seethoff
Vice President and Deputy General Counsel
Over the last few months Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and I have blogged about our Board of Directors’ consideration of “Say-on-Pay” proposals that enable shareholders to weigh-in on our executive compensation practices.
As we shared in September, our Board approved a policy that enables Microsoft shareholders to cast a non-binding, advisory vote every three years on the compensation programs for our senior executive officers. The first vote took place at our annual shareholders’ meeting today in Bellevue, Washington. Nearly 99 percent of the ballots received supported Microsoft’s compensation practices.
Earlier this week, Brad and Edward J. Durkin, director of the corporate affairs department of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, co-authored an op-ed in Roll Call that explains why Microsoft chose a three-year voting cycle, rather than annual “Say-on-Pay” votes as some have advocated. The three-year cycle was actually drawn from a proposal Microsoft received from the UBC. If you’re interested in this issue, please take a look at the op-ed and leave us a comment to let us know what you think.
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Partnering to Enable European Citizens to Monitor Climate Change
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Posted by John Vassallo
Vice President, EU Affairs
Earlier this week Microsoft joined with the European Environment Agency to launch a compelling example of how Microsoft’s cloud computing technology can be a real ‘change maker’ in the fight against climate change.
As part of our on-going partnership with the EEA to combine cutting-edge technology and environmental data,
we have expanded the EEA’s Eye on Earth portal by adding AirWatch, a new service which will provide air quality information to more than 500 million people across Europe.
This project is an extension of the first phase of Eye on Earth, which launched in May 2008 with WaterWatch, an extremely useful service that allows Europeans to look up a particular beach or lake, check the water quality from official monitoring stations and rate the water quality themselves.
The goal of Eye On Earth is simple: To engage Europe’s governments and citizens in the use of real-time environmental information and to boost interest in the environment. I believe this site is a great practical application of data-driven decision making: Direct collection of data through local sensors that allow citizens to comment and pass judgement on their environment on the spot. Give it a try! Make your voice heard.
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Helping to Secure Family-Wage Jobs for Our Returning Military Heroes
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Posted by Lutz Ziob
General Manager, Microsoft Learning
Lutz Ziob, General Manager, Microsoft Learning
Given the current state of our economy, securing and retaining family-wage jobs is of upmost importance to most Americans. Today, I was fortunate to represent Microsoft at a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing that focused on the critically important issue of the employment needs of our returning veterans.
As the General Manager of Microsoft Learning, I know firsthand the importance of providing access to the kinds of learning tools that all workers will need to compete and prosper in our fast-changing information economy. In the 21st century, occupations and employment are evolving faster than ever before, largely driven by the rapid pace of technology, innovation and change. Information technology has become so pervasive in the world of work in the U.S. that almost every job requires some level of IT understanding and skills.
And of course, this group of Americans, our nation’s returning military heroes, is especially deserving of our help in finding new civilian careers. In my testimony I talked about the need for a new partnership approach, with government, education and industry working closely together to ensure that our veterans and their families receive access to the skills training and educational resources they need to transition smoothly and successfully into sustainable, family-wage civilian work.
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Forum Highlights Innovations in Education
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Posted by L. Michael Golden
Corporate Vice President, Education
Michael Golden (left) and Michel Levy, general manager, Microsoft Brazil (right), present Bahia Governor Jaques Wagner with a copy of Windows 7 at the fifth annual WIEF.
The TV hero MacGyver could learn a thing or two from the real heroes I met earlier this month in Salvador, Brazil. Sure, MacGyver could build a working airplane engine out of a rubber band and a toothpick, but the educators who gathered in Salvador for Microsoft’s Worldwide Innovative Education Forum are doing some truly amazing things.
Some teach in schools that lack clean water, reliable electricity or other basic resources, yet as they explained at the Forum, they’ve found ingenious ways to engage students and equip them with 21st-century skills, often by using technology.
For example, Nubia Solano from the rural town of Sahagun in Cordoba, Colombia, raised money for school computers by working with parents to make and sell pencil holders. Now, as her students gain computer skills, they’re developing them further, and developing communication skills, by teaching their other teachers about computers.
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White House CIO Vivek Kundra Helps Showcase Windows Azure
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Posted by Teresa Carlson
Vice President, Microsoft Federal
When it comes to cloud computing, federal customers have a lot to consider and new business options to explore nearly every day. And while “the cloud” is still in its infancy, today, I’m excited to extend our cloud announcements coming out of Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference (PDC09) in L.A., to the federal community. One of our own fearless leaders in the federal government, CIO Vivek Kundra, today joined Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie as Ray unveiled Microsoft’s cloud-based platforms Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage power to host, scale and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers. Think of Windows Azure as a sort of operating system in the cloud, extending the Windows platform to allow for the creation of new, transformative cloud experiences that federal enterprises can take advantage of.
With help from Vivek, we showcased a community technology preview (CTP) of a subset of Windows Azure - codename “Dallas. ” Powered by Windows Azure and SQL Azure, this “data as a service” provides an open catalogue and marketplace for data – both public and commercial. Vivek demonstrated an app we helped to build for his iPhone - to find, query, and make meaningful use of Department of Labor teaching information and data that stored and catalogued in Windows Azure’s “Dallas.” Not only could he find out where teachers were most needed, but he could even get to the level of jobs for special education teachers.
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Partnering With Customers – and Competitors - on Green IT
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Posted by Steve Lippman
Director, Environmental Engagement Strategy
As part of our capacity-building efforts with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profits, Microsoft recently partnered with TechSoup Global to present a set of webinars with green technology guidance specifically tailored to small and large NGOs. These webinars are one small part of a larger proactive campaign to help all our customers—large and small businesses, government agencies and others—optimize the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability of their information technology.
Advances in both hardware and software have dramatically increased the energy efficiency of computing. The leading energy-efficient laptops now entering the market use less energy than a single compact fluorescent light bulb. However, with more than 1 billion computers on the planet and 250 million new laptops, desktops and servers deployed each year, the IT industry must continue improving the energy efficiency of its products.
We have improved the efficiency of the Windows operating system with increasingly sophisticated energy-saving features and are building new energy efficiency requirements into our design process for future operating systems.
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Defending Patent Quality
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Posted by Horacio Gutierrez
Deputy General Counsel
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in Bilski v. Kappos – a case to determine what types of business methods should be eligible for patent protection – Microsoft issued the following statement:
“Microsoft has urged the Supreme Court to reaffirm its precedents holding that mere abstract ideas like those claimed in the Bilski patent cannot, and should not, be patentable. Because the Bilski patent does not relate to a computer-implemented invention, reaffirming the appropriate standard for patent eligibility set by the Supreme Court in prior cases should not have an adverse effect on commercial software companies that, like Microsoft, have built up a diverse portfolio of high quality patents that reflect strong investment in innovation.”
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Microsoft and the FTC: A Continued Focus on Privacy
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Posted by Frank Torres
Director, Consumer Affairs
On December 7, the Federal Trade Commission will host the first in a series of day-long roundtable discussions “to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer data.” The goal of the sessions, according to the Commission, “is to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.”
As part of the ramp-up to the roundtables, the Commission invited public comments about how best to address consumer privacy in emerging technologies. Our comments focus on Health IT, online advertising, and cloud computing. These three evolving fields have a lot in common: each promises significant potential benefits for both consumers and innovators, but widespread adoption depends on ensuring users’ privacy at every step.
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Promoting An Accessibility Ecosystem of Choice and Opportunity
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Posted by Laura Ruby
Director, Accessibility Policy & Standards
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) held a field hearing last Friday in Washington, D.C, on broadband access for people with disabilities. The event, part of the agency’s efforts to develop a National Broadband Plan, included a technology exhibit of some of the options and programs available to improve accessibility.
Microsoft had an opportunity to demonstrate some of the enhancements in Windows 7 that make it easier for people to see, hear, and use a computer. These include the new lens mode and full-screen mode in Windows Magnifier; our resizable on-screen keyboard with text prediction, hover and scan modes; and new speech recognition and multi-touch technologies. We also showed how Microsoft’s Silverlight plug-in enables closed-caption support of HD streaming media and rich Internet applications.
Microsoft has long been committed to developing innovative accessibility solutions and to integrating accessibility into broader product planning, research and development, and testing. We’re also committed to improving the interoperability of our software with the hundreds of assistive technology products that third-party developers have created to work with Windows. These specialized hardware and software products provide additional accessibility features for those with significant vision, hearing, dexterity, language, or learning needs.
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