The Earth is warming. The extent and the effect of this change is experienced differently across the planet, but there is much work to be done before we understand it. Dr. Joseph Cook, a Microsoft AI for Earth grant recipient, and his team are looking into some of the toughest questions around climate change — why are things heating up the way they are? What, if anything, can be done about glacial melting?

For more, follow Microsoft on the Issues on Twitter.

There are close to 7,000 languages spoken around the world today. Yet, sadly, every two weeks a language dies with its last speaker, and it is predicted that between 50% and 90% of endangered languages will disappear by next century. When a community loses a language, it loses its connection to the past – and part of its present. It loses a piece of its identity. As Microsoft thinks about protecting this heritage and the importance of preserving language, it believes that new technology can help.

For the past 14 years, Microsoft has been collaborating with te reo Māori experts and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (the Māori Language Commission) to weave te reo Māori into the technology that thousands of Kiwis use every day with the goal of ensuring it remains a living language with a strong future. The collaboration has already resulted in translations of Minecraft educational resources and it recently commissioned a game immersed entirely in the traditional Māori world, Ngā Motu (The Islands).

Read More at Microsoft On The Issues.

Hydrogen is the most widespread element in nature, found in everything from the ocean depths to the air we breathe, in every earthly substance and in stardust. Hydrogen is the foundation stone of the universe. In terms of energy, its applications are widespread, including fuel cells, industry and space. It's hydrogen that launches into orbit satellites, space stations, monitors, telecommunications systems and probes destined to fly about for decades.

Eni, Toyota and the city council of Venice have agreed to assess whether they can build a service station for filling vehicles powered by hydrogen. The site for the new plant will be chosen soon, and our eye is on Bavaria, where hydrogen cars are making great headway.

Learn more at Eniday: Energy Is A Good Story

The Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace launched in 2018 with the commitment of signatories to stand up to cyber threats like election interference, attacks on critical infrastructure, and supply chain vulnerabilities. Last week, on the first anniversary of the call, the number of signatories has nearly tripled to more than 1,000 and now includes 74 nations; more than 350 international, civil society and public sector organizations; and more than 600 private sector entities. These commitments to the Paris Call from around the world demonstrate a widespread, global, multi-stakeholder consensus about acceptable behavior in cyberspace.

Read More at Microsoft On The Issues.

Ferrera Erbognone, a small town in the northern Italian province of Pavia, is home to one of the most cutting-edge computing centers in the world: Eni's Green Data Center. All of the geophysical and seismic prospecting data Eni produces from all over the world ends up here. Now, the Green Data Center is welcoming a new supercomputing system: HPC5, an advanced version of the already powerful HPC4. Due to be completed by early 2020, HPC5 will triple the Green Data Center's computing power, from 18.6 to 52 petaflops, equivalent to 52 million billion mathematical operations per second.

Learn more at Eniday: Energy Is A Good Story