The new generation of browsers is offering more and more control over how consumers can configure Privacy Settings. Thanks to the worldwide Privacy initiatives, it has become a focus for many, and Microsoft Edge is not behind. Microsoft had been offering extensive Privacy Settings in its OS, and the same applies to Microsoft Edge (Chromium). In this post, they will share how you can configure Privacy Settings in Microsoft Edge.

Tracking Protection is a feature in browsers that limits the effect of services like Google, Facebook, etc., tracking your online activities. If you are profiled, you are almost tracked across services and platforms.

Data Collection in Microsoft Edge

Before they start talking about how you can configure privacy, I wanted to share a bit about how data collection works in Microsoft Edge. In short, to what extent the new browser can collect the data. Some of these are important to Boost the performance of the product. It helps them to understand how one uses the browser. Here is the list of data that is collected by:

• Crash reports.
• Info about how someone is using the browser and websites they visit.
• Installation, feature usage, performance, and memory usage of Edge.
• Site load time, URL of the page, page content, and more.

Microsft Edge has all its privacy settings available in one place so you can easily manage them. Open Edge, click on three dots > Settings > Settings  > Privacy and services. There is a list of settings available here. I am going to break them down in a way you can understand.

1. Tracking prevention
2. Managing Browser Data usage
   • Control what Edge sends back to Microsoft
   • Clear Browsing Data
3. Website Tracking
4. Help Boost Microsoft Edge Section
5. Personalize your web experience
6. Services

1] Tracking prevention

When you visit a website, it tags you. These tags are sturdy, and they can identify that it is the same person. It is used to serve you advertisements or information. Some trackers collect and send your info to sites you haven’t visited. If you like to stay anonymous, then you should either use a VPN or use the Tracking prevention settings. Make sure to toggle it on if it is off, and then configure. Microsoft Edge offers three types of settings upfront

• Basic: Allows almost all trackers.
• Balanced: Blocks trackers from sites you have not visited, less personalized ads.
• Strict: Blocks the majority of trackers, minimal personalization information for content and ads.

The common feature of all these profiles is that they Block all known harmful trackers. The difference is that in strict mode, some websites might not work as expected.  If you are sure that some trackers should be allowed, then you have two options:

• Blocked trackers: You can choose to remove trackers which you trust or maybe it’s yours
• Exceptions: Allow all the trackers from a site you trust.

Related: What is web tracking? What are Trackers in Browsers?

2] Managing Browser Data usage

Like any other browser, Microsoft Edge stores your browsing data, passwords, form data, and so on. Of these, cookies and browsing history information is sent to Microsoft. It allows them to make the experience as rich, fast, and personal as possible.  Now I am sure you will not like that, and Microsoft lets you have full control of it.

Control what Edge sends back to Microsoft

• Open Windows 10 Settings (WIN + I)
• Navigate to Privacy > Diagnostics and Feedback
• Change from Full to Basic

When you choose the Basic option, it will only send info about your device, settings, capabilities, crash reports, and performance details. The Full option sends info about websites you browse, how you use your apps, and all that is available under the Basic option. Make sure to restart the browser once you make the change. They suggest practicing out the Guide on Windows 10 Privacy to control more aspects.

To delete already collected data by Microsoft, go to Windows 10 Settings  > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback. Select Delete under Delete diagnostic data to remove all of them from Microsoft Servers.

Clear Browsing Data

The second option is to clear all of your browsing data. Go to  Edge Settings  > Privacy and services. Here you should first configure what you plan to delete. Click on the arrow at the end of the option—Choose what to clear every time you close the browser.

Toggle on against options that include browsing data, get history, cookies, and other site data, and more. Once configured, click on the Choose what to clear button to remove those data. If you have turned on Sync on Microsoft Edge, then data from other devices will also be deleted.

4] Website Tracking

While they have already talked about blocking the trackers, the Website tracking section offers few more settings.

• Send “Do Not Track” requests: It is a formal request sent by browsers on the user’s behalf, but websites can dishonor it.
• Allow sites to check if you have payment info saved: If you are on a payment gateway and do not want websites to check if you have payment data, toggle this off.

Related read: Privacy and Security Settings in Edge browser on Windows 10.

5] Personalize your web experience

Toggle off the setting here to block Microsoft from using your browsing history for personalizing advertising, search, news, and other Microsoft services. You can manage your data that’s saved on the Microsoft cloud and change ad settings from the Microsoft privacy dashboard.

6] Services

These are here to Boost your browsing experience solely, and I would highly recommend them to use it except that never allow extensions to change search engine, new tab page, or home page settings.

• Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors: useful when you try to connect to public WIFI where a login is required.
• Microsoft Defender SmartScreen: It blocks malicious sites and downloads and PUA.
• Address bar: It allows you to search directly from the address bar, and it is possible when you enable Search and site suggestions.

Related read: Trace offers excellent Tracking protection for Chrome and Firefox.

How to check if Tracking prevention feature in Edge is working

Open any websites which display advertisements. Wait for it completely load it. Done that, click on the lock icon next to the website URL. It will reveal settings like certificates, cookies, etc. Along with this, Tracking prevention has a dedicated area where you can view:

• Tracking prevention is turned on for the website
• Number of blocked trackers
• There is a direct link to open the settings to manage all sites.

You would be surprised to know on the number of trackers that a website deploys to track any consumer.

Related: How to search any website from the address bar

That concludes their guide to configure Privacy Settings in Microsoft Edge. Make sure also go through Windows 10 Privacy settings as well to set privacy on Windows 10 completely.

I finally pried myself out of Windows' clutches and ran into the arms of the Mac ecosystem.

This year, I've tested the 15-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro, with the latter being my daily driver, and you know what? I'm never going back to Windows.

It's Mac's power efficiency that seduced me into its lair. As a laptop reviewer, I'm acutely aware of the battery runtime differences between Windows PCs and MacBooks — and they are embarrassingly wide.

MacBooks, specifically units with Apple's in-house M-series chips, typically last between 16 and 20 hours on a single charge. (This is based on a battery test that continuously surfs WiFi until the laptop runs out of juice.) Windows laptops, on the other hand, pfft! You're lucky if you find one that lasts more than 10 hours.

However, once in a blue moon, I find myself missing some elements of Windows. Take a look at my wishlist for Mac — features I wish Apple would implement.

1. One-key actions

Mac requires an extra key for certain actions. For example, on Windows, with a simple tap of the Delete key, I can trash any files I don't want. On Mac, it's the Delete key and the COMMAND key.

On Windows, I can open a folder filled with pictures and hit the right arrow key to scroll through them — like a slideshow.

You can do something similar on Mac, but it requires an extra step — the spacebar — before you can scroll through your folders. Of course, there's nothing arduous about the addition of the COMMAND and Spacebar keys with these shortcuts, but simple tasks like these felt more seamless on Windows.

2. Snap Layouts

Snap Layouts are arguably the best feature of Windows 11. I love that I can "snap" apps into two-window, three-window, or four-window configurations.

As someone who often works with several different apps simultaneously, having the ability to snap Windows into certain quadrants of the screen is incredibly helpful. I'd love to have Slack snapped to one side of the screen, Gmail attached to the top right, and Google Docs positioned on the bottom right. Sadly, macOS doesn't have this feature.

3. Gaming

The battery life on Windows gaming laptops are abysmal, even worse than general-purpose consumer PCs, but if you keep your laptop stationed to a desk — and chained to an outlet — having a machine that doubles as a gaming rig is amazeballs.

With laptops like the Acer Nitro 5 and the HP Victus 16, packed with dedicated graphics cards that can handle gaming, I can work during the day and play at night with access to all of my Steam games.

I can't do the same with my MacBook. Sure, my M2 Pro MacBook Pro can run some games natively like Resident Evil Village and No Man's Sky, but for the most part, access to games are more limited (compared to Windows) due to the small share of macOS-ported triple-A titles.

4. Paint

I've taken Paint for granted. It's a low-brow app that is the McDonald's of content-creation tools, but as someone who isn't skilled enough to use the more sophisticated, complex photo-editing apps, I truly feel the pain of Paint's absence. I once used it to easily remove objects in photos with a uniform background.

I often find myself looking for the Paint app to make rudimentary, basic photo edits, but then I realize, damnit — it doesn't exist on macOS.

5. Face unlock

I find it a bit bizarre that my iPhone 15 Pro Max has FaceID support, but not my MacBook.

The conspicuous notch on my 14-inch MacBook Pro greedily takes up screen real estate, so Apple couldn't squeeze in some FaceID tech inside? Meanwhile, as long as your Windows laptop has an IR camera, you can use facial-recognition tech to unlock your laptop quickly and seamlessly.

Final thoughts

In the end, however, the list of things I don't miss about Windows trumps the few things I'm wistful about.

For example, I don't miss the frustrating battery life, the absence of AirDrop, the bloatware, and the traumatic Windows updates. However, I try to deliver Windows some mercy with the latter. Unlike Apple, Microsoft must deal with rolling out OS updates to systems with an incredibly wide range of internals, so ensuring that updated software is compatible across all Windows-supported PCs is a monumental task.

UPDATE: Dec. 21, 2023, 12:32 p.m. EST Originally, number one stated that Windows provided a more seamless way to scroll through a folder. However, a reader informed me that I can easily scroll through a folder with a spacebar + arrow combo. That's awesome! Still, I low-key miss not having to take extra steps, or extra keys, for simple tasks.

Small businesses and organizations have long been caught in a kind of virtual Slough of Despond when it comes to managing their e-mail systems, designing and maintaining their Web sites, and scheduling their business lives with a group calendar. Because they can't afford their own IT staff and network infrastructure, they either do without, or else pay too much money for too few services for outsourcing or hosting.

If you believe Google and Microsoft, small business salvation is at hand. Both have recently launched free -- yes, that's right, free -- services for small businesses. Google offers Google Apps For Your Domain, while Microsoft has its Microsoft Office Live Basics. Both services are currently in beta, and both in essence function as loss leaders, because both Google and Microsoft will offer fuller featured for-pay versions of the services. (Microsoft offers Office Live Collaboration for $29.95 per month and Office Live Essentials for $29.95 per month, while Google has not yet announced the name and pricing of its for-pay service.)

Which one is best for your organization? I put them through their paces side by side. Overall, as you'll see, Google's service beats Microsoft's because of its superior e-mail, and because it offers a calendar, something that Microsoft does not. But if your primary focus is on Web site building, you'll instead want to use Microsoft's service.

Read on for the nitty-gritty details.

Initial Setup
For small businesses that are setting up e-mail and managing a Web site through either Google Apps for Your Domain or Office Live Basic, one of the most daunting tasks will be the initial setup and configuration. After all, the whole point of these free tools is that they're for organizations without IT staffs -- and for normal folks, handling the requisite domain registration or transfer, DNS server setup, etc. can be a difficult task.

Which is better at the job? That depends on your needs. If you already own a domain, then Google wins hands down, offering simple-to-follow advice and directions. But if you're setting up a new domain, then Office Live Basics is your best bet, because it offers domains for free -- and Google doesn't include tools for domain registration.

Google Initial Setup
Transferring your mail and Web server information from your existing service to Google is not an easy task, but Google does an admirable job of helping you with the transfer.

For your e-mail to work with Google, you need to make changes to your existing Mail Exchange (MX) records, which control how incoming e-mail is routed for your domain. You need to make those changes with the registrar who has your DNS records (for example, Network Solutions or GoDaddy.) Similarly, to be able to create and host Web pages using Google, you need to make changes to your CNAME record with your registrar.

Don't expect any help from your registrar; they typically takes your money when you register a domain, and then leave you on your own. But the Google setup pages for transferring MX and CNAME records are a model of simplicity. They detail, in simple-to-follow steps, exactly how to make the changes. Besides the general instructions, you can find specific instructions for seven of the largest registrars, including GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Yahoo and others.

Google offers customized hands-on info to help you set up e-mail and Web hosting.
Click image to enlarge.

Setup literally takes minutes; what could have been a frustrating task is made exceedingly simple. There's only one drawback: You can't sign up through Google for a new domain. If you want to get a new domain, you'll have to first register it with a registrar, then walk through the Google setup steps.

Windows Live Setup
If you don't yet have a domain, Office Live presents an exceptionally simple way to register one and make it live, all in one step. Even better -- you don't have to pay for it. Unlike when you register with a conventional registrar, with Office Live it's free. (If you cancel your Office Live account, you get to keep your domain, which is registered through Melbourne IT . But you'll then have to pay the normal annual registration fee for the domain name.)

Getting a domain is about as simple as can be. Use Office Live to search for a domain name not yet taken. When you find one, sign in with a Windows Live account (free; formerly called a Windows Passport account.) Then fill in basic information, such as your name, address, and so on, and you're done. In less than five minutes, you'll have a free domain. The only odd part of the process is that you'll have to put in information about your credit card number, even though it won't be charged.

Office Live offers an exceptionally simple way to register a domain and make it live, all in one step.
Click image to enlarge.

What if you want to use an existing domain? Here's where things get a little sticky. You'll have to transfer the entire domain to Office Live's registrar. (At Google, you keep your domain with your existing registrar; you merely change your existing records.)

In theory, transferring a domain should be easy to do. On the page where you search for an available domain, there's a "Transfer current domain name" button that claims to automate the process. But registrars don't like losing business. So when you follow the wizard the button launches, the great odds are that you'll find out that your record has been "locked" by your registrar. You'll have to unlock it yourself; Windows Live offers no help in doing that. I have two words for you " good luck.

Once it's unlocked, though, transferring your domain is simple; just follow the steps and you can do it quickly and easily.Home Page Creation
Both services offer automated Web page creation tools -- you don't need to know a single piece of HTML code to quickly build Web pages and entire sites. But Microsoft's Web site-building tools are far superior to Google's. If a substantial Web presence is important to you, but you don't want to pay a designer or coder, then Microsoft's service is the winner.

That's not to say there's much wrong with Google's Web site creation tool. It's simple to use and basic -- point-and-click tools let you create a page in minutes. It's much like every other Web-based page-creation tool you've ever seen, with buttons for formatting text, creating links, including images, and so on. There are several different layouts and looks from which you can choose. If you prefer to use HTML instead of the tools, click Edit HTML, and you'll be able to edit the raw HTML. Publishing the site is simple; click the Publish button.

The Google web page creation tool is simple, easy to use -- and very basic.
Click image to enlarge.

Don't expect anything sophisticated from the tool; you can't even use it to make a graphic link. For that, you'll have to edit the HTML yourself. In addition, the tool is pointed at creating a single page, rather than an entire site; there's no way to apply site-wide navigation or a common look and feel, and there are no site-wide management tools. All in all, it's bare-bones basic and not particularly sophisticated.

Office Live offers far more sophisticated page creation tools -- in fact, they're just about the most sophisticated set of Web-based page creation and management tools you'll find anywhere.

You start off by creating a customized template for your site, including navigation, headers and footers, fonts, and a theme (complete with graphics) based on your business's industry. The designs themselves are sophisticated, and less cartoony and simplistic than those offered by Google. There's a far greater selection as well.

The tool doesn't take a one-page approach to building a site. It starts off with four linked, pre-created pages, including the home page, an About Us page, a Contact Us page, and a Site Map page. New pages, which carry site-wide navigation and design, can be easily created, and it's also easy to apply an entirely new design and theme to the entire site with a few clicks.

The Web creation tools offered by Office Live Basics are about the best you'll find in any Web-based site service. Click image to enlarge.

The site administration tools are excellent, and include an image gallery, which shows all the graphics you've uploaded and that are ready to be used. There's even a site reporting tool, that visually displays traffic trends, as well as a way to revert your site to a previous version, if for some reason the current one gets corrupted.

There a lot more as well -- far more than can fit into this review -- but the bottom line is that this is a surprisingly powerful and sophisticated page creation tool. It amazes me that it's free.

E-Mail
No surprise here; when it comes to e-mail, Google beats Office Live hands-down. That's because Google uses Gmail for its e-mail, while Office Live uses Windows Live Mail. As we've detailed in Is Google Still the Ajax King?, Gmail is far superior to Windows Live Mail, offering threaded conversations and excellent ways to organize e-mail, including powerful rules and filters. And it allows you to either use it as Web-based mail or POP-based mail, or a combination of the two.

Getting to your Office Live Mail account is confusing, and there's no obvious way to get from Mail to managing your site.
Click image to enlarge.

By way of contrast, Live Mail is not nearly as well-organized, buries some of its more useful features, and doesn't offer POP3 access. In addition, Office Live gives you only five accounts for your organization, while Google offers 25.

Calendar
The Google Calendar is straightforward and intuitive (for a full review, see Google Calendar Beta: A Hot Date). To create an event, merely click on the date and time, fill out a simple form, and you're done.

If it's an event to which you want to invite others, you just have to include their e-mail addresses, and the invitation will be automatically sent out in iCalendar (.ics) format. When someone accepts the invitation, their acceptance is automatically placed in the calendar. In addition, if they don't use Google Calendar, and instead use another calendaring program or Web site that is compatible with the iCalendar format, the meeting will show up in their calendar when they open the .ics file.

Creating a group event in the Google Calendar is easy: fill out this page, and the notification gets sent to everyone on the list.
Click image to enlarge.

Outlook, Notes, Apple's iCal, and other calendars and calendar sites are compatible with the iCalendar format, to varying degrees. So in Outlook, for example, there is no active updating of the event; rather, the new file needs to be opened each time.

Google's iCalendar support is particularly useful when scheduling meetings with people outside your organization. You could create a meeting request, have it sent out in the .ics format to people inside your organization as well as outside. Those in your organization would have the meeting show up in the Google calendar. Those outside the organization would have it show up in their iCalendar-compatible calendars. If the recipient's calendar isn't compatible with iCalendar, they will see the meeting request as a plain email invitation.

Google's simple and automated group scheduling is well-suited for small organizations; it offers pretty much all they need, and will save the expense of buying network-based calendar software.

There is one drawback to the Google Calendar, though; unaccountably, it doesn't work with Internet Explorer 7. The browser is still in beta, so it may be that upon launch, the problem will be solved. But as of this writing, you'll have to use or Firefox or an earlier version of IE.

Office Live doesn't offer a calendar; if you're looking for that, you'll have to buy one of Microsoft's for-pay versions of its service.

Overall Integration
Both services are designed for organizations that don't have IT staffs for maintaining mail and Web servers. So integrated tools for managing mail, Web access, and the overall account are particularly important.

Here's where Windows Office Live has very serious shortcomings. In fact, it appears that Windows Live is just a collection of unrelated services, rather than an integrated whole. Managing your site and account is maddening and confusing; expect to bumble around for quite a long time before you accidentally stumble on the proper way to do things -- if you manage to stumble on it at all.

Google offers a simple overall management page.
Click image to enlarge.

You need to have a Windows Live ID (formerly Microsoft Passport) in order to set up an account, which means you need a pre-existing Hotmail or Windows Live Mail account. But unaccountably, after you create your new Office Live account, when you click Inbox, you won't be able to access your new Office Live e-mail. Instead, you'll be sent to your original Hotmail or Windows Live mail account.

That's bad enough, but when you go to that old mail account, all of your site management tools vanish as well, because clicking Inbox sends you away from your new Office Live account.

So how to get to use your new Office Live e-mail account? Log out of the account you used to create that account, then log in again with your Office Live username and password. Ahh! Someone help me, please!

That's confusing enough. What if you now want to manage your Office Live account, by adding new email users, for example? You can't, because the Office Live account you're using wasn't the one you used to set up Office Live --- your original e-mail account was. So log out, log in again with the original account, and add a new users. Want to check your Office Live e-mail now? You guessed right -- you'll have to log out of your Hotmail account, and log back in with your Windows Live account.

I could go on, but you get the point. Just trying to do the most basic tasks will make your head spin.

Google, on the other hand, uses classic, simple, Google no-frills navigation. When you're checking your mail, for example, click "Manage this domain," and you'll be sent to an overall management page with links for managing and creating user accounts, managing and editing your Web site, changing domain settings, and so on.

The Bottom Line
Which of the sites is better? Overall, Google Apps for Your Domain is a clear winner. It offers superior e-mail, better site management, and has a group calendar, an important component to running a small business and something that Office Live lacks.

If, however, you're mainly looking for a free service that has excellent Web site creation tools, you'll want Office Live.

The truth is, though, you can't beat free, so whichever site you choose, you'll end up being a winner.

Welcome to the second part of the tutorial on Hosting a Website with Microsoft IIS. In this part, they will learn about configuring and creating the MySQL server and configuring WordPress. Now that you have followed all the steps of Part-1 let’s proceed to Part-2.

Creating a database in MySQL

1. Run MySQL command-line client.
2. Enter your root password that you set in subpart 2 of part 1, in the 12^th step.
3. Enter the following:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE databasename;

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON databasename.* TO "username"@"hostname"

IDENTIFIED BY "password";

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> EXIT

Configuring WordPress

1. Now go to your browser and type in your LAN IP that generally starts from “192.168”.
2. Click on “Create a configuration file.”
3. Click on “Let’s go.”
4. Enter the details that you entered during creating the new Database and click submit.
5. In the next step click on “Run the install.”
6. Enter your details like Site Title, Username, Password, etc. in this step.
7. Now click on Log in.
   
8. Enter with your username and password that you created in this part to login.
9. You will now be able to see your dashboard and operate your blog from this dashboard.

Your website is now live on your IP address. You can convert your IP into text or some website name, using many services out there like  www.no-ip.org.

You have successfully hosted your website. If you face any problems or find that you are getting some error messages, don’t panic just go through all the steps again and try to solve your problem.

Media companies are on the brink of an industry-wide transformation as the impact of cloud platforms and the artificial intelligence solutions that depend on them becomes clear. Content creation and delivery is evolving quickly as new uses are found for the technology, making it a crucial element of the industry’s future. According to PWC’s August 2023 Pulse Survey, 67 per cent of technology, media and telecommunications leaders say that the capabilities of generative AI could make their current business model irrelevant – a prospect that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. 

Yet some media organisations are wary about transitioning fully to the cloud, citing concerns around data privacy, security and latency as potential barriers for entry. Organisations working in remote locations may also be unable to take full advantage of cloud capabilities, given their distance from the necessary infrastructure. However, these businesses are willing to explore the possibilities the cloud offers, says Scott Davis, broadcast media architect at Microsoft. 

“We understand why, for certain organisations, there are reasons that moving things into the cloud is problematic,” he says. “However, these partners are saying to us: ‘I can’t move my content to the cloud, but I want to act like I’m in the cloud and get the cloud experience.’ The question is, how do they help them do that?” 

To answer this question, Microsoft is looking to an alternative solution that exists in the space between the on-premises and cloud worlds: the edge. Instead of processing all data on the cloud itself, edge computing involves devices in remote locations processing data at the edge of a network, either through the device itself or a local server. Only the most important data is transmitted to a central data centre, minimising latency and keeping the vast majority of data local and offline.  

“It’s a hybrid approach,” says Davis. “Media organisations don’t necessarily want to commit entirely to the cloud by putting all their operations into one basket. They want to have certain things remain at the edge of the network. Our goal is to install generalised edge devices that act like the cloud but can move to where the content already is in a simplified, cost-effective way.” 

Microsoft offers a range of edge computing services which can be used by media organisations for various solutions. For example, Azure IoT Edge allows internet of things solutions to be managed from the edge, while Azure SQL Edge enables data to be streamed for real-time analytics. In addition, Azure Stack HCI is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution that hosts Windows and Linux virtual machines or containerised workloads and their storage. This connects an on-premises system to Azure for cloud-based services, monitoring and management.  

One customer using Microsoft’s edge computing capabilities is Digicel, which provides mobile phone network and home entertainment services in 25 countries across the Caribbean. As part of an extensive cloud transformation strategy supported by Microsoft partner Maureen Data Systems, Digicel create a landing zone and a hybrid cloud environment using Azure Stack Hub and HCI in local markets for performance in a mixed physical and virtual environment. The implementation has helped to prevent outages in on-premises data centres and allowed Digicel to focus on increasing scalability and improving stability in its infrastructure.  

“Microsoft is a longstanding partner with the most wholesome and complete approach and Azure offerings, including Edge Cloud,” said Melinda Lloyd, Digicel Group’s IT program and project manager. “This factor was a critical component given the dynamic locations in which they operate. They made the right choice.” 

Microsoft has also conducted several tests of edge technology at large media events, including trials with a major sports league, to demonstrate its ability to provide cloud services more flexibly. Broadcasters will often cover several events over a short period of time, and Davis suggests that edge technology provides a suitably versatile platform for various different occasions. 

“Today it could be a football match, tomorrow it could be a concert,” he says. “You don’t want the same configuration for covering each of these events, so you’d have to be rolling trucks back and forth to change and rewire them. Instead, why not roll the compute out there using edge devices and just change the software? We’re just getting started in this area, but there’s a lot of potential.” 

Davis also points to a possible democratisation of access to AI services through edge computing as being a potential benefit for smaller media markets around the world. 

“I’m already being challenged to bring AI services such as translation services and alternative subtitles with an edge device,” he says. “There are places in the world where they don’t have access to content because nobody is translating it into the local language. This could become possible through the combination of edge technology and AI, and the models will get better through time as they learn.” 

Communicating on the edge: Microsoft’s Rick Lievano explains how telecommunications operators can help deliver the future of edge computing

Telecommunications companies have a crucial role to play in enabling the implementation of edge computing solutions for all industries, including media, by providing the basic underlying infrastructure it relies upon. 

“Telecommunication companies have the physical locations in central offices, base stations and metro data centres that would enable the distribution of applications as close to the end users as possible,” says Rick Lievano, worldwide chief technology officer for the telecommunications industry at Microsoft. “All industries are looking at mobile operators to 

provide that infrastructure, along with the connectivity offered by a 5G low-latency connection and the compute to enable the many different use cases.” 

To help telecommunications companies successfully enable edge computing solutions, Microsoft has developed a suite of technologies to harness the capabilities they already possess. 

Azure Private MEC allows carriers to deploy private networks leveraging 5G or 4G long-term evolution for their customers and provide connectivity for edge devices. Meanwhile, Azure 

Public MEC allows the full capabilities of Azure to be deployed closer to the end user at an operator’s edge location, supporting key workloads with ultra-low latency capabilities. 

“If a studio is editing a large, multi gigabyte file, shuttling those files up to the public cloud each time you make a change can affect performance,” says Lievano. “But if its cloud-native video editing applications were deployed at an edge location with AT&T, for example, they would be much closer to where the studio is working, resulting in much better performance.” 

Partner perspectives

We asked Microsoft partners Ateme and EZDRM how they are using cloud computing solutions to help deliver new capabilities for content creation and delivery 

“Partnering with Microsoft Azure Edge Computing is a big step for us in making content delivery even better,” says Yohann Guilloux, vice president of global partnerships at Ateme. “Microsoft’s technology helps us deliver their TITAN encoding and NEA delivery solutions a boost, ensuring top-quality streaming, super-fast delivery and minimal delay. This means viewers receive their favourite content more quickly and smoothly, resulting in an awesome viewing experience.” 

“A cloud-centric digital rights management-as-a-service architecture was an early call to action for the team at EZDRM,” says Olga Kornienko, chief operating officer and co-founder of EZDRM. “Deploying these services on Azure grew into a major element of the company’s competitive positioning. Innovation continues today for clients who operate with real world constraints of internet bandwidth and availability.” 

Read more from these partners and others in the Winter 2023 issue of Technology Record.