Human telemetry, which tracks real-time worker health and safety, has historically been outside industrial data systems. VOORMI and Microsoft are bridging this gap by integrating human telemetry into Azure IoT through VOORMI's Mij™ platform. This allows enterprises to incorporate worker conditions like heat stress and fatigue into their existing machine operational architecture. VOORMI's performance apparel, integrated with this wearable technology, brings human telemetry directly into high-impact safety scenarios. The partnership establishes a new telemetry layer where human, machine, and environmental signals converge for safer operations. Mij™ integrates into customer-controlled Azure environments, enabling intelligent workflows at the edge for low-latency responses. Telemetry flows through edge gateways into Azure services, creating a unified operational environment under the customer's control. The vision is to make human telemetry a trusted, first-class industrial data source. Azure IoT Operations serves as a scalable intelligence layer for worker safety and connected operations. This integrated approach enables real-time awareness, adaptive AI, and context-aware safety guidance for workers.

Microsoft is rebranding its Modern Print Platform to Windows Ready Print to simplify and modernize printing on Windows. This initiative aims to provide a more reliable, secure, and manageable printing experience across various devices. Windows Ready Print emphasizes standards-based printing, particularly through the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and its built-in driver. Beginning in July 2026, new printer installations will default to Windows Ready Print where supported. To facilitate a smoother transition, users and IT administrators can control driver selection during new printer installations. This control is available through Settings or Group Policy, allowing a preference for Windows Ready Print or the traditional OEM driver. Enabling "Default install printers using Windows Ready Print" prioritizes the modern IPP driver for new installations. The "Windows protected print mode" exclusively uses Windows Ready Print, preventing installations of unsupported devices. This protected mode also locks the driver selection setting to favor Windows Ready Print. These changes are designed for new printer installations and do not impact existing devices.

Hi,   I'm on not getting build 29602 offered as a flight through Windows update on any of my VMs and I can figure out why, it has not been offered in the last couple of builds.  Is anyone else experiencing this or have any ideas of how to fix this?  Optional  diagnostics are on and they are connected to my account under insider setting in Windows update settings.  I am just not getting offered the build flight.   Thanks    Kevin

Biological discovery is an iterative process of hypothesis, experimentation, and refinement. Microsoft has launched Microsoft Discovery, a platform for building and governing agentic AI workflows in scientific disciplines. This platform is now collaborating with Ginkgo Bioworks to enable researchers to plan experiments in Microsoft Discovery and run them on Ginkgo's Cloud Lab. Microsoft Discovery offers the reasoning and orchestration layer, while Ginkgo Bioworks provides autonomous laboratory infrastructure for execution. This integrates into a lab-in-the-loop model, enhancing the traditional Design–Make–Test–Analyze loop. An example involves an RNA design-to-data workflow where Microsoft Discovery's AI agents aid in planning, and Ginkgo's lab synthesizes DNA and returns data. Ginkgo Cloud Lab also provides cost transparency before experimentation. This collaboration aims to accelerate research and development by connecting scientific reasoning with real-world validation. It demonstrates how agentic workflows can adapt based on experimental results, offering a more connected model for biological discovery. The partnership embodies Microsoft Discovery's extensibility by integrating Microsoft innovations with partner tools. Agentic AI and autonomous labs are expected to significantly speed up iteration cycles and reduce manual lab work.

Azure HorizonDB is a new cloud-native PostgreSQL service offering enhanced performance and AI capabilities. It allows calling AI models directly from SQL and building durable vector pipelines within the database. High-accuracy similarity search is achieved at scale with DiskANN and AI re-ranking, all without leaving PostgreSQL. The Azure HorizonDB VS Code extension facilitates faster query debugging and optimization with visual execution plans and Copilot-generated fixes. Azure HorizonDB decouples compute and storage, separating the PostgreSQL engine from a new, optimized log service and shared storage platform. This architecture enables superior performance, with HorizonDB achieving over 11,000 transactions per second compared to 4,200 for self-managed PostgreSQL. Enterprise-grade security features like Entra ID integration and private endpoints are built-in. AI-centric features include integrated AI model management for provisioning or bringing your own models. AI functions, like "generate" and "extract," allow direct interaction with AI models using SQL. AI pipelines automate common generative AI application steps such as chunking and embedding directly within PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL, while excellent for data storage and querying, lacks built-in support for long-lived, fault-tolerant background tasks. To address this, pg_durable, an open-source PostgreSQL extension, has been developed to enable durable execution directly within the database. This extension allows PostgreSQL to manage complex, resilient workflows with features like retries, scheduling, and recovery. Instead of relying on external orchestration systems or intricate PL/pgSQL functions, users can define and execute these workflows entirely within the database. On Azure HorizonDB, pg_durable also powers AI pipelines, facilitating end-to-end data and AI workflows. The extension utilizes a domain-specific language (DSL) that allows users to express workflows as SQL expressions. These workflows are executed asynchronously by a background worker, ensuring connections remain unblocked. Each step of a workflow is checkpointed in PostgreSQL, enabling deterministic replay and recovery from failures or restarts. The DSL provides operators for sequential execution, parallelism, conditional logic, and looping, simplifying workflow definition. For AI pipelines on HorizonDB, pg_durable is integrated with the azure_ai extension, offering a declarative approach to building complex AI workflows. This integration ensures AI pipeline steps are as durable and recoverable as regular database transactions. pg_durable is best suited for workflows tightly coupled to PostgreSQL state and benefiting from its inherent durability features.

This research developed the Online Meeting Effectiveness Index (OMEI), an AI system designed to evaluate virtual meeting quality. The OMEI analyzes meetings across five key dimensions: Participation, Engagement, Structure, Sentiment, and Tech Quality. These dimensions are further broken down into fifteen measurable indicators. The project was initiated as a Microsoft-sponsored practicum at Santa Clara University's business school. They analyzed 68 publicly available YouTube meeting recordings, categorized by size. The primary goal was to provide actionable insights for improving meeting effectiveness, addressing the common perception of meetings as unproductive. Research indicates that a significant percentage of meetings are perceived as ineffective, leading to wasted time and resources. The OMEI utilizes Azure AI to process meeting data and generate a score and specific feedback. Key findings from the analysis revealed that while technical quality scored high, engagement presented the greatest opportunity for improvement. The study suggests clearer agendas, planned interaction points, and defined action items are crucial for enhancing engagement. The framework aims to fill a gap in workflow technologies by offering automated, AI-driven meeting quality assessment.

Microsoft has released Security Updates for Exchange Server Subscription Edition, Exchange Server 2019, and Exchange Server 2016. These updates address critical vulnerabilities, including CVE-2026-42897, which affects Exchange Server. Exchange Online customers are already protected and require no action. For on-premises servers, it is essential to install these updates to maintain security and ensure the continued function of Exchange Emergency Mitigation and Flighting services. Updates for Exchange Server 2016 and 2019 are only available through the Period 2 Extended Security Update program. Organizations not in the ESU program should migrate to Exchange Server Subscription Edition. Installing the June 2026 SU does not automatically remove previously applied CVE-2026-42897 mitigations, which are recommended to remain in place for continued protection. If mitigations are removed, specific steps are required depending on how they were applied. It is advised to inventory Exchange Servers and install the latest Cumulative Update before applying Security Updates. All Exchange Servers and machines running Exchange Management Tools should receive these updates for compatibility. Customers with hybrid Exchange Online deployments also need to install the SU on their on-premises Exchange servers. Documentation availability may be delayed, and future updates to this post are possible.

Although Skype for Business 2015 and 2019 are now out of support, some customers have purchased the Skype for Business 2015 and 2019 Extended Security Update (ESU). We have therefore decided that until the end of this Skype for Business 2015 and 2019 ESU Period 2 (October 2026) we will make an explicit update related announcement even if we DO NOT release anything for that particular month.     There are no security releases for any version of Skype for Business Server in June 2026, for customers with SfB 2015/SfB 2019 ESU, or SfB SE.    Please keep upgrading your organizations to Skype for Business SE.   The Skype for Business Team

Windows CLAT is now available in public preview for a wider audience. This feature, designed to aid IPv6 adoption, has undergone extensive validation and refinement with early participants. The public preview is accessible through specific Windows Insider Canary builds and will expand to other Insider channels soon. Group Policy Object (GPO) support has been added for configuring Windows CLAT in this preview. Feedback from users is highly valued to guide the feature towards general availability. The text provides instructions on how to enable, confirm, and disable Windows CLAT. It also details how GPO configurations take precedence over command-line settings. Prefix discovery by default uses Route Advertisements, with DNS as a fallback. Currently, the preview is intended for evaluation and not production use due to potential bugs and changes. Several known issues are outlined, including problems with RFC 1918 addresses, roaming between Wi-Fi networks, diagnostic tool visibility, and a lack of WSL support.