Microsoft reported that sales rose 13 percent to $38 billion in its fiscal Q4, for a net profit of $11.2 billion. Largely due to continued demand for its Azure cloud-computing services, both figures exceeded Wall Street expectations. Microsoft’s revenue from the commercial cloud division “surpassed $50 billion for the first time ever in the latest fiscal year.” The company is also the target of a complaint Slack filed with the European Commission, accusing it of using its market power to crush rivals. Read more

Spotify inked a new multi-year global licensing deal with Universal Music Group after being out-of-contract for about a year. Under the terms of the agreement, Spotify has access to UMG’s catalog for streaming and UMG will be part of Spotify’s so-called two-sided marketplace, whereby it will pay for analytics, data and marketing. Spotify, under pressure to prove to investors that it can be more consistently profitable, spends most of its revenue on licensing deals with music publishers and record labels. Read more

Facebook-owned Instagram created an “equity and inclusion team” to look at how Black, Hispanic and other U.S. minority users are impacted by the company’s algorithms and machine-learning systems. An Instagram spokesperson revealed that Facebook is planning a similar team. Only last year, Facebook wouldn’t allow employees to study the issue of bias introduced by algorithms, so the move is a reversal. Meanwhile, the advertiser boycott against Facebook, in part for how it deals with racial issues, is still in effect. Read more

The University of Florida (UF) and Nvidia joined forces to enhance the former’s HiPerGator supercomputer with DGX SuperPOD architecture. Set to go online by early 2021, HiPerGator will deliver 700 petaflops (one quadrillion floating-point operations per second), making it the fastest academic AI supercomputer. UF and Nvidia said the HiPerGator will enable the application of AI to a range of studies, including “rising seas, aging populations, data security, personalized medicine, urban transportation and food insecurity.” Read more

Since COVID-19 shut down in-person concerts, live-streaming versions from the likes of Diplo, John Legend and Keith Urban have become the norm. At first the streamed concerts were mostly free and aimed at soothing nerves or raising money for charity. Since then, concerts have become more professionally produced while artists also experiment with interactive Q&A sessions, specialized mini-concerts and performing in video games. Some artists, like Erykah Badu, built their own platforms — and venues, media organizations like Billboard and NPR, and even retailers such as Urban Outfitters and Navy Exchange started participating. Read more