If you’re feeling particularly spreadsheet-y today, this BBC podcast highlights some interesting details about the creation of Excel, including Gabe Newell’s involvement and how developers wanted to name it “Number Buddy.”
Also, make sure to check out this wild piece on competitive Excel from my colleague David Pierce.
A new Agent Mode comes to Office apps today, alongside an Office Agent in Copilot chat.
There’s been a bit of backlash to the Xbox Ally handheld’s $999 price tag, which will be a stiff test of consumer interest in expensive console hardware. But it’s also a test of Microsoft’s “everything is an Xbox” philosophy, because this sure is expensive for an Xbox that only plays PC games, and not everyone is sold:
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Only Microsoft can release a thousand dollar device branded “Xbox” that can’t play Xbox games. Only a millionaire executive at this specific company could have hallucinated this.
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Microsoft and Asus revealed last month that the new Xbox Ally handhelds will be launching on October 16th, but there was a distinct lack of pricing and preorder information. Now, it looks like we’re going to get both later today. Asus has started teasing on Facebook that preorders are “dropping soon” with a countdown that ends at 8PM ET / 5PM PT today.
