Microsoft Build 2019: Developers show off latest technologies

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Virtual avatar employees mingle with human employees to work on toy designs while a new framework allows up to nine people to work on the same document and simultaneously translate it into nine different languages. That's among the new technologies that developers are showing at the Microsoft Build 2019. Our Mark Niu has the story from Seattle.

At Microsoft Build in Seattle, CEO Satya Nadella hit on message that is now front and center at seemingly every major tech conference - privacy.

SATYA NADELLA, CEO MICROSOFT "When we think about privacy - privacy as a human right - is as much an engineering design principal, and it is a process issue. Same thing with cybersecurity, same thing with AI ethics. How do you build systems without bias."

Nadella says that responsibility comes as 95-percent of Fortune 500 companies are running programs on its Microsoft Azure Cloud service. It showed how coffee maker Starbucks is using artificial intelligence and blockchain technology - connected to Azure to learn customers' preferences and track the history of a product.

ANITA RAO, PRINCIPAL PROGRAM MANAGER MICROSOFT "We can see where the coffee beans were grown. Starbucks supports efforts for farmers in those regions, when and where the beans were roasted. Tasting notes and more."

MARK NIU SAN FRANCISCO "Microsoft is making a big play to show its usefulness in the workplace. And that includes providing new tools that work quietly in the background and ones that completely transform meeting spaces."

Microsoft showed how its Azure Speech service can transcribe conversations, using AI to learn dense, industry jargon.

"Azure Speech Services have built this VMs running on Azure hypervisors, using Ubuntu based Docker containers that are orchestrated with Azure Kubernetes Service."

It also introduced a new framework called FLUID, which allows up to nine people to work on the same document and translate it into nine different languages, simultaneously. And through its partner Spatial and its new Hololens 2 Mixed Reality system, online meetings are getting a big dose of interactivity.

"So, can quickly just grab a document off the wall and toss it right on our shared workspace."

At a simulated meeting at toy company Mattel, virtual avatar employees mingle with human-bodied employees to work on toy designs.

"I'm just going to scroll the 3D models that are stored on it and select Sky Justice. There we go. Let's make this life-size and zoom this up a little bigger."

Other people joining the conference remotely can also upload their own files, adding a new dimension to meetings likely never experienced before.

Mark Niu, CGTN, San Francisco.