by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
The hybrid workplace is here, and Microsoft Teams Rooms has the latest innovations to enhance everyone’s experiences, whether in the room, or remote. To make meetings more engaging for both remote and in room attendees, we are announcing a new category of intelligent speakers for Teams Rooms on Windows.
1. Inclusive meetings powered by Microsoft Teams
Intelligent speakers are intelligent peripherals for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows and are designed to bring high quality audio experiences to remote participants can clearly hear all the voices in the room. And they are optimized for Cortana voice assistance to offer touch-less experience to join and end meetings in shared spaces.
2. Intelligent transcription with speaker attribution
Intelligent speakers will bring people identification in live transcription in a shared environment enabling clear voice capture of participants in the meeting room. Allowing everyone in the meeting to spend less time note taking and easily follow along who said what in the room. Intelligent speakers include a 7-microphone array to identify voices of up to ten people in meeting rooms so whether you are working remotely or in the conference room, you can effectively see who said what during and after the meeting.
3. Powered by Microsoft Graph
Knowing who is speaking makes transcription more accurate and meaningful. Once we know who is speaking, we can leverage the power of intelligence through Microsoft Graph that provides access to rich people-centric data and insight in the Microsoft Cloud to contextualize the transcription. For example, because we know who the speaker is, the acronyms, names of colleagues, and different words the speaker uses can be more accurately transcribed.
4. Enterprise grade privacy and security
Voice data will be securely stored in the Office 365 Cloud, and users will retain control of their information, including the ability to delete it at any time. The capture of voice data can be turned on or off for each meeting. Additionally, admins have full control to turn on/off people identification through voice recognition feature across the organization.
The first two partners to launch intelligent speakers are EPOS with Capture 5 and Yealink with MS Speech, they will both require a Microsoft Teams Rooms Standard or Premium license to be enabled. EPOS Capture 5 and Yealink M Speech intelligent speakers can be purchased individually and in bundles to work with Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows products.
Yealink offers a Microsoft Teams Room on Windows bundle with (MVC 320 or MVC 640) and MS Speech Intelligent Speaker. EPOS and Lenovo have partnered to offer a Microsoft Teams Room on Windows bundle with Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub Gen 2 and EPOS Capture 5.
Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub Gen 2 bundle(left) and Yealink MVC 320 bundle (right)
Intelligent speakers people identification is available in preview and will be available with a Teams Rooms Standard or Premium license. Future licensing requirements for people identification in transcription are subject to change. The Teams intelligent speaker is available in English in the United States, future regions to come.
by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We introduced Microsoft Whiteboard with the goal of bringing people together for visual collaboration, working across a range of devices and ecosystems including Microsoft Teams.
Over the past 18 months, while many people were working remotely, we learned that customers needed virtual-first tools to creatively problem solve with others. To help people thrive in a more flexible work environment, we have reimagined the Whiteboard experience to help our customers collaborate, wherever and whenever.
Today we’re excited to announce a completely new Microsoft Whiteboard, the visual collaboration workspace in Microsoft 365, designed for hybrid work.
With the new innovations in Microsoft Whiteboard, we’re providing better hybrid work and collaboration experiences, whether or not you’re physically in the room together. To achieve this, our innovations focus on five key areas: guided collaboration, new content types, new user interface, improved inking experience and expanded Microsoft 365 integration. Let’s look at what’s new in each key area.
Make real-time collaboration easier
Collaboration that just works is core to the new Whiteboard experience, and we’re introducing a number of new features to make this a reality. Collaboration Cursors help you be remote, but feel together, by showing where and what other collaborators are doing on the whiteboard. Get other people’s attention as you share your best ideas with the new Laser Pointer. Reduce distractions while guiding users through ideas with Follow Along. And finally, easily get started with the most common scenarios like problem-solving, planning, and workshops, with our wide array of new Templates. Together, these features improve collaboration, engage all participants, and reduce hybrid work barriers—no matter where you are.
Boost creativity with rich and interactive content
Collaboration powered by rich content is a key part of the new Whiteboard experience. This allows everyone to contribute in the way that best suits their idea, device type, or personal preference. Combine shapes, lines, text and ink to create Collaborative Diagrams. Make connections, annotate, and iterate together across multiple types of content with our new Insert Image and Document capabilities. Organize related thoughts, ideas or solutions in an auto-layout grid with Notes Grid. Provide lightweight, contextual feedback via a range of engaging and fun Reaction Stickers. Collaborate across apps by bringing in Fluid Components like tables or task lists. Yes, you can still use Whiteboard for inking, but all of these new capabilities transform Whiteboard into a rich visual collaboration workspace that lets you and your team be more creative together.
Experience a unified modern look and feel
With the introduction of so many new collaboration features and content types, we’ve created a new user interface to support our ever-growing capabilities. Our new Fluent Toolbar adds a modern visual refresh to our expanded set of visual collaboration tools. The new Creation Gallery provides a highly discoverable, intuitive and responsive layout across devices as large as a Surface Hub and as small as a phone. See who is on the board and collaborating with you at all times in the new Top Bar. The new Whiteboard provides a Single Unified User Experience across all devices, operating systems, and platforms. Ultimately, the new Whiteboard user interface emphasizes what matters most—people and content—so you can do your best work.
Experience a unified modern look & feel in the new Microsoft Whiteboard
Maximize creativity with ink for everyone
Digital ink is an important part of whiteboarding, whether used to express your own ideas or to comment and annotate on others’ ideas. The new Whiteboard is empowering everyone, no matter if you have a pen or not, to leverage the unique visual expression capabilities that ink can offer. Improved Mouse Inking smoothes ink, making it easier than ever for those with a mouse or trackpad to visually communicate ideas that are hard to write in words. Pen Support for Whiteboard in Teams allows you to ink automatically or get the unique benefits of using a pen, such as the tail eraser. Quickly draw shapes and watch them automatically straighten with Shape Recognition. Spark the imagination and creativity of your team with Rainbow & Galaxy Ink.
Integrate seamlessly across Microsoft 365
The new Whiteboard is now integrated into even more areas across Microsoft 365 to more seamlessly fit into your existing workflows. Whiteboard is now available in Teams Channels & Chats. The new Share Content experience in Teams Meetings allows you to easily start a collaborative whiteboard for everyone in the meeting with just one click. Pre-prep or reuse whiteboards across multiple Teams Meetings with the new Open Existing Board functionality. Search and discover whiteboards on Office.com and SharePoint, and leverage the rich content management features of OneDrive for Business.
The new Microsoft Whiteboard is integrated seamlessly across Microsoft 365 such as Teams, Office.com, OneDrive and SharePoint.
We hear from customers every day that while the future of work may be evolving, one thing remains clear—it’s never been more important for people to be able to collaborate effectively wherever and whenever. We’ve created the completely new, hybrid work focused Whiteboard experience to meet this need, so both remote and in-person attendees can visually collaborate across the same digital canvas. To get started, try the new Whiteboard today. To learn more, visit the Whiteboard product page or read the FAQ.
by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Starting later this month, we’re introducing new personal wellbeing experiences including a Headspace integration with Microsoft Viva Insights to empower people to balance the need to stay connected and informed with the need to disconnect and recharge. In the 2021 Work Trend Index – a study of over 31,000 people in 31 countries – over half of the respondents reported feeling overworked and over a third described themselves as outright exhausted. The research uncovered something crucial: employees want flexible remote work options to stay, but the digital overload associated with more remote work is challenging their wellbeing. To help address these challenges, we’re introducing updates to the Viva Insights app in Microsoft Teams including a Headspace integration, a new focus mode, and quiet time settings.
Headspace meditations and mindfulness exercises
Weekly meeting time for Teams users has more than doubled since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back-to-back meetings increase stress and make it harder to stay engaged and focused. In just a few minutes a day, meditation and mindfulness with Headspace can help you reduce stress and improve focus. Starting later this month, we’re bringing a curated set of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises from Headspace to the Viva Insights app to help you start your day grounded, relax your mind before a big presentation, or disconnect from work in the evening.
Recharge with a quick mental break and tap into Headspace guided meditations in the Viva Insights app in Teams
Focus mode with Headspace music and timers
Back-to-back meetings not only increase our stress, but can also cause a rise in after-hours work to finish individual tasks. To help you protect time to work uninterrupted with Teams notifications silenced, Viva Insights offers the ability to schedule daily focus time. Building upon this, later this year, we are introducing a new focus mode in the Viva Insights app. This will feature Focus music from Headspace and implement timers to help you make progress on important tasks in regular intervals, with breaks planned in between.
Introducing a new focus mode in the Viva Insights app in Teams featuring Headspace music and timers
Quiet time user and admin settings
Remote work has eliminated physical boundaries between work and life, and an increase in after-hours chats has led to a feeling of being always-on. To help create better boundaries and protect your personal time, later this year Viva Insights will offer the ability to configure quiet time to silence mobile notifications from Outlook and Teams outside your working hours as well as provide personalized insights on how well you are disconnecting. You will also be able to set quiet time directly from Teams and Outlook mobile.
Introducing quiet time settings to silence after-hours mobile notifications from Teams and Outlook
Additionally, with new controls coming in Microsoft Endpoint Manager, IT administrators can create org-level policies to mute after-hours notifications. This will provide organizations a way to encourage their employees to disconnect and recharge during their personal time, as well as support compliance with regulations that limit use of work applications outside of working hours.
Introducing quiet time settings in Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center
Learn more
- For more on Microsoft Viva, head over to aka.ms/Viva
- For more on getting started with the Viva Insights app in Teams, visit aka.ms/InsightsDocumentation
- Join our first Microsoft Viva Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) event on June 23, 2021, where members of the Viva team will be available to respond to questions.
- Join Kamal Janardhan, Product Management lead for Viva Insights and Jeremy Chapman, the host of Microsoft Mechanics, as they walk through the Viva Insights user experience and showcase steps for IT admins to configure access. Watch the full Microsoft Mechanics video series at aka.ms/VivaMechanics.
by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
As offices begin to open, there is great anticipation of reuniting and collaborating in person. But as people’s habits have changed over the past year, so have their expectations. Going forward, the workplace will be hybrid. This fluid experience will be realized across a continuum of spaces, where extreme flexibility allows you to choose where and when you work.
Now, more than ever people need collaboration experiences that put everyone on an equal footing, whether they join meetings from a conference room, home office, or on the go. In March, Microsoft unveiled our vision for the future of Teams Rooms, where connections feel natural and people feel included, represented, and can collaborate without boundaries. And today, Jared Spataro shared new innovations from Microsoft Teams and Teams Rooms designed to help you connect and engage, regardless of where you work.
Over the course of this year, we will deliver new experiences in Teams Rooms built to ensure everyone can be seen, heard, and fully participate from anywhere. Today we are announcing a new set of features, capabilities and devices that support the best hybrid meeting experience yet.
Front row, a new content layout for Teams Rooms, with a dual-monitor configuration, gives participants a greater sense of connection with remote attendees.
Participate on equal footing, no matter where you are
With so many people working from home this past year, we shared a more balanced meeting experience, where nearly all participants were joining remotely and on equal footing. As your organization plans for the hybrid work world, you have an opportunity to extend this equitable meeting experience across workspaces, ensuring everyone can collaborate without compromise.
To give people in the room a greater sense of connection to remote participants and support collaboration before, during, and after meetings, we’re introducing a new content layout called front row. Visually, this new layout moves the video gallery to the bottom of the screen so in-room participants can see remote colleagues face to face across a horizontal plane – similar to if they were in the same room.
Meeting content is surrounded by contextual fluid components like the agenda, tasks, and notes, which can be updated in real-time, helping you stay engaged and productive. Additionally, the meeting chat is brought clearly into view so when in a room you can easily see and engage in the conversation in real-time. This layout will be supported across both single and dual display configurations.
Single screen configuration of Front row, a new content layout for Teams Rooms brings remote users on equal footing with in-room meeting participants. Single screen configuration of Front row, a new content layout for Teams Rooms brings remote users on equal footing with in-room meeting participants.
Helping remote participants establish a genuine presence in the room is key to delivering an inclusive hybrid meeting experience. Turning on video is one of the best things you can do when joining remotely and with new video layouts for Teams Rooms, we’ll maximize screen real estate by splitting the video gallery across all available displays when content isn’t being shared. With increased screen space, video of remote participants can be seen more clearly, bringing greater attention to the people who aren’t in the room.
New video layouts for Teams Rooms maximizes screen real estate by splitting the video gallery across available displays.
We’re also bringing popular features from the personal Teams meeting experience to Teams Rooms. With the ability to pin or spotlight multiple video streams, you can maintain a clear view of the selected videos when in a room. Remote participants can promote their presence in the room by engaging in the meeting, which doesn’t always require speaking up. Live reactions, now visible in a Teams Room, allows you to share sentiments, and when using the classic video grid layout, chat bubbles alert in-room participants to the conversation happening alongside the meeting, so nothing gets missed and all voices are heard.
Teams Rooms now include popular features from the personal Teams meeting experience that help remote attendees promote their presence in the room.
Optimize how remote viewers can see and hear what happens in the room
When you join meetings from a personal account, your individual video and profile information makes it easy to identify who said what but faces and voices can get lost in the crowd when joining from a shared meeting space. We are working with our certified OEM partners to deliver audio and video capabilities that allow every person in the room to be seen and heard more clearly.
Meeting transcripts are a great tool for you to catch up on a meeting asynchronously, but traditional transcription services can’t identify or differentiate between speakers. Intelligent speakers, now generally available from EPOS and Yealink, are designed for Teams Rooms and use Microsoft’s voice recognition technology in Teams to identify who is speaking and apply their name to the meeting transcript. After a quick voice enrollment in Teams, speakers are recognized automatically, and biometric enrollment information is securely stored and manageable in the Office 365 Cloud. Learn more about intelligent speakers for Teams Rooms here.
New category of intelligent speakers for Teams Rooms make meetings more engaging for both remote and in room attendees.
We are also working with our certified OEM partners to deliver enhanced views of rooms that are optimized for remote participants, allowing every person in the room to be seen more clearly. With new advanced camera capabilities, Teams Rooms devices from Neat, Jabra, Logitech and Poly help you feel even closer to the people in the room when joining remotely.
We’re thrilled to announce the newest partner to join the Teams device family, Neat. Later this year, Teams experiences will be available across Neat’s full device portfolio, designed to support hybrid work across home and office workspaces. All Neat devices incorporate unique sensory capabilities like Neat Symmetry, which allows everyone to be seen equally up close. Neat Symmetry combines advanced AI with high-resolution sensors to focus in and individually auto frame each in-room participant, instinctively following them as if they have their own camera person. Learn more about Neat and Neat Symmetry here.
Neat joins the Teams family. Teams experiences available across device portfolio later this year are designed to support hybrid work.
All Neat devices incorporate unique sensory capabilities to allow everyone to be seen equally up close.
The new Jabra PanaCast 50 front-of-room video bar provides an immersive 180-degree view of the room so everyone can be seen. With the new dynamic gallery view, active speakers in the room are shown up close, in their own video pane. PanaCast 50 can also be used to capture an in-room whiteboard so it can be brought into Teams and enhanced, using Microsoft’s intelligent capture feature, eliminating the need for a second content camera. These new views will come to the PanaCast 50 through a software update coming later this year. Learn more about Jabra and Jabra PanaCast 50 here.
Jabra PanaCast 50 front-of-room video bar provides an immersive 180-degree view of the room so everyone can be seen.
New dynamic gallery view enable active speakers in the room to be shown up close, in their own video pane.
RightSight2, a new feature for Logitech Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini, creates a more inclusive meeting experience for remote users by displaying two views on the Teams meeting screen: one of the active speaker, and another that captures everyone in the room. As the conversation shifts to a different speaker, so does the camera. RightSight2 will be available later this year as a software update for Teams Rooms. Learn more about Logitech Room Solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms here.
RightSight2, a new feature for Logitech Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini, will be available later this year for Teams Room.
The RightSide2 feature for Logitech Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini, creates a more inclusive meeting experience for remote users on a Teams meeting screen.
The new Poly Studio E70 intelligent camera detects and tracks active speakers to help remote participants more clearly follow what is happening in the room. Poly DirectorAI is the brain behind the camera’s capabilities, leveraging AI and machine learning technology to deliver real-time automatic transitions, framing to zoom in closer to the person speaking and tracking to follow the conversation. A future segmented view will display multiple people in their own individual frames. The Poly Studio E70 will be available globally later this year. Learn more about Poly and Poly Studio E70 here.
New Poly Studio E70 intelligent camera, available later this year, will help remote participants more clearly follow what is happening in the room.
Poly DirectorAI, the brain behind the new Poly Studio E70, leverages AI and machine learning technology to deliver real-time automatic transition.
Teams Room on Surface Hub brings boundaryless collaboration to your hybrid meetings
We are all looking forward to those moments of brainstorming huddles back in the office. But in a hybrid environment one of the biggest challenges is finding ways to collaborate fully with participants joining from different locations. We are pleased to share the new Teams Rooms on Surface Hub experience, designed to enable boundaryless collaboration on a device purpose built for teams to meet and co-create, wherever you work.
New Teams Rooms on Surface Hub experience has been redesigned to bring popular features from the desktop to enrich collaboration for the hybrid workplace.
This next generation of Teams on Surface Hub has been redesigned to bring your favorite features from the desktop into the meeting space. With a new meeting stage, a robust set of meeting controls, and popular features including Together Mode scenes, background noise suppression, chat bubbles, and live reactions, Teams Rooms on Surface Hub enriches collaboration for the hybrid workplace. You can easily access your Microsoft 365 files and confidently present using features like PowerPoint Live in Teams, letting you see slides, notes, and your audience all in one view.
People love the rich collaboration capabilities on Surface Hub, and the new Microsoft Whiteboard experience announced today will also come to Teams Rooms on Surface Hub so everyone can draw and ink on the same digital canvas, no matter where they are.
The new Teams Rooms on Surface Hub experience will be rolling out in preview to the Windows Insider Program for Surface Hub later this month. Learn how to enroll in the program here.
Be seen, heard and collaborate from anywhere, at any time
As part of an increasingly mobile workforce, you may work from offices where you do not have an assigned space. Imagine coming into the office for the day or working from a satellite location – you’ll need spaces that give you the flexibility to touch down and focus for a few hours, or simply take a quick call or meeting in private. The new hotdesk capability on the Teams display provides you a way to reserve workspaces ahead of time, and gain access to your personal Teams account in a shared space. Simply log in with your Office 365 credentials and use the display to access your Teams chats, files, and calendar. You can also pair the display with your PC, providing a second screen to help you multitask. When finished, securely sign out and the space is ready for the next person.
New hotdesk capability on the Teams display provides you a way to reserve workspaces ahead of time, and gain access to your personal Teams account in a shared space.
When working from your personal workspace, you will be able to enjoy the rich features of the Teams display on the newest member of the portfolio, Neat Frame. You can easily chat, collaborate, and access the Teams and AI features found on the display on this larger, portrait oriented, 15.6-inch form factor. Now there is a new way for you to easily see colleagues better and engage with live reactions, quick responses, and more.
Enjoy rich features of Teams display from personal workspace with newest member of the portfolio, Neat Frame.
Finally, for seamless connectivity on the go, the first Teams-certified true wireless earbuds will soon be available from Logitech in both Graphite and Rose colors for an always-on Teams experience from your mobile device or desktop.
The first Teams-certified true wireless earbuds from Logitech will soon be available; an always on Teams experience from your mobile device or desktop.
Businesses around the world have been consumed with making remote work successful during the past 18 months, focusing on the physical office took a temporary backseat. That’s all changing as people begin to go back into the office. The way we work has permanently changed. As we return to the office and the physical meeting room, Microsoft, with our device partners, are committed to bringing experiences to Teams Rooms that allow everyone to participate on equal footing, whether in the room or remote.
by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Recording of the Microsoft Teams monthly community call from June 15, 2021.
Call Summary
Latest news from Microsoft engineering on Microsoft Teams updates and community assets.
It’s time for summer break and for upcoming changes to community call cadence. Sign up for June trainings on Sharing-is-caring. See the new Microsoft 365 Extensibility look book gallery co-developed by Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint engineering. Visit the Microsoft Teams samples gallery to get started with Microsoft Teams development. Build your Teams apps fast with yo teams – go to PnP Teams Quickstart. Build 2021 – latest news on the Microsoft Teams platform and integrations including: Shared stage, Together Mode, Fluid components, Adaptive Cards, Microsoft Teams Toolkit and Developer Portal. The host of this call was Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft) | @vesajuvonen. Q&A takes place in chat throughout the call
Actions:
- Register for Sharing is Caring Events:
- First Time Contributor Session – June 29th (EMEA, APAC & US friendly times available)
- Community Docs Session – June 23rd
- PnP – SPFx Developer Workstation Setup – June 17th
- PnP SPFx Samples – Solving SPFx version differences using Node Version Manager – June 24th
- Ask Me Anything – Teams Dev – July 13th
- First Time Presenter – June 30th
- More than Code with VSCode – June 16th
- Maturity Model Practitioners – July
- PnP Office Hours – 1:1 session – Register
- PnP Buddy System – Request a Buddy
- Call attention to your great work by using the #PnPWeekly on Twitter.
Microsoft Teams Development Samples: (https://aka.ms/teams-samples)
Always a highlight to see you here. Looking forward to seeing you in person at an event one day.
Demos delivered in this session
Kudos App sample using Teams Activity Feed API in Microsoft Graph – showcases how to build a solution leveraging the Teams Activity Feed API for sending notifications to selected users. See how activities (notifications) are gated in the manifest. Create a Kudos app (100 lines code) with appropriate Graph services permissions, layout UI using Fluent UI components, add out-of-box controls from Microsoft Graph Toolkit. Activity feed is now a fully supported workload.
Building a digital asset / document repository management app for Microsoft Teams – Document manager – an asset management system sample app that makes use of Teams platform capabilities to simplify searching, retrieving, sharing, contributing, and governing assets. Uses messaging extensions to find documents, task module to upload documents, Graph APIs, and creates awareness of / gains approvals on assets leveraging user specific views in Adaptive Cards. Stores documents awaiting approval in staging folder in library.
Introduction to Microsoft Teams Toolkit v2 – helps developers create and deploy Teams apps with integrated Identity, access to cloud storage, data from Microsoft Graph, and other services in Azure and M365 with a “zero-configuration” approach (single-line statements and no side trips to Azure and ADD) to the developer experience. Efficiently configures front-end, back-end, bot at same time. Simplifies creating proof-of-concepts! Get the toolkit through the Extensions Marketplace in VS Code.
Thank you for your work. Samples are often showcased in Demos.
Topics covered in this call
- News and updates – Vesa Juvonen (Microsoft) | @vesajuvonen – 3:11
- Build 2021 Recap on Microsoft Teams platform announcements – 9:15
Demo: Kudos App sample using Teams Activity Feed API in Microsoft Graph – Sébastien Levert (Microsoft) | @sebastienlevert – 15:39
Demo: Building a digital asset / document repository management app for Microsoft Teams – Sathya Raveendran (Microsoft) & Arun Kumar Anaparthi (Zen3 Infosolutions) – 30:38
Demo: Introduction to Microsoft Teams Toolkit v2 – Zhenya Savchenko (Microsoft) – 45:27
Resources:
Additional resources around the covered topics and links from the slides.
General resources:
Upcoming Calls | Recurrent Invites:
Microsoft Teams monthly community calls are targeted at anyone who’s interested in Microsoft Teams development topics. This includes Microsoft Teams, Bots, App templates, Samples, and more. Details on the Microsoft 365 community from http://aka.ms/m365pnp. We also welcome community demos, if you are interested in doing a live demo in these calls!
You can download recurrent invite from https://aka.ms/microsoftteamscommunitycall. Welcome and join in the discussion. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to provide your input as comments to this post as well. More details on the Microsoft 365 community and options to get involved are available from http://aka.ms/m365pnp.
“Sharing is caring”
Microsoft 365 PnP team, Microsoft – 16th of June 2021
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