It might not get the same kind of attention as Google and Apple, but Microsoft is still one of the biggest and most powerful tech companies operating today. It runs Azure, one of the biggest cloud computing services, and maintains Windows 11 and the whole Office suite of software. It also makes plenty of Surface hardware and has a whole slew of gaming products, including the Xbox Series X. But the company is ever expanding — building new hardware, acquiring new game studios, and making sure that even if Microsoft doesn’t run your phone, it can touch plenty of the apps on it.
An even messier return to console wars than we thought: As spotted by ResetEra, Microsoft’s own Xbox Podcast seems to have inadvertently revealed proof that Gears of War: E-Day was coming to PS5 before Xbox locked it down. The podcast episode has been pulled, presumably to fix the goof.
Xbox has just released a new Halo: Campaign Evolved trailer, and the footage was captured on Sony’s PS5 Pro console. The trailer comes a day after Microsoft brought Xbox exclusives back at its Xbox Games Showcase, with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution both skipping PlayStation.
Mustafa Suleyman on automation, OpenAI, and why it’s ‘dangerous’ to call AI ‘alive.’
We’ve been waiting to hear more about inXile’s new steampunk RPG, and during the Xbox Games Showcase today we finally got a rough release window: 2027. Clockwork Revolution will also be an Xbox console exclusive, just like Gears of War: E-Day.
Hoffman, who joined Microsoft’s board in 2017, won’t stand for reelection at the company’s next shareholder meeting, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.
In an episode of his Possible podcast with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Hoffman says he wants to focus on Manas, the AI drug development startup he co-founded last year.
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Microsoft’s commitment to AI is not news. Copilot has been everywhere for... a while now. But at this week’s Build developer conference, the company made clear that it wants — and needs — to be a bigger player in the space. The Verge’s Tom Warren joins David to talk about the new Scout AI assistant, the Solara operating system concept, and whether Microsoft can hang with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Also: how’s the new era of Xbox going?
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At Computex, Asus announced the ROG NUC 16 Edition 20 — a mini-PC with Intel’s highest-end mobile chip and a flagship RTX 5090 Laptop GPU. It’s even decked out in gold accents for the Republic of Gamers’ 20th anniversary.
Like other Asus Computex announcements, there’s no pricing. But as Liliputing points out, the standard model with an RTX 5080 costs $3,799.
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‘We have to prove that we can do everything that we need to from the ground up,’ said AI chief Mustafa Suleyman.
Microsoft has a vision for its future AI hardware concepts, including an AI ID badge. It doesn’t feel entirely new, but it does feel very Microsoft.
verge_user_m4cy2c5f:
congrats this is the rabbit r1 but for middle managers instead of teenage engineering gadgetheads
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Microsoft’s new publication has a familiar name and is aimed at developers, kicking off with information about the launch of Project Solara, its agentic AI hardware-focused platform.
[Command Line]
At its Build developer conference, Microsoft is launching Microsoft Execution Containers, a policy-driven layer to make it more secure to run things like OpenClaw on Windows. It’s going a step further too, by allowing a companion app for OpenClaw to run contained on Windows PCs. It should stop AI agents like OpenClaw from deleting all your files. “You can totally run OpenClaw inside your company now,” says OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger.
Microsoft just introduced a couple of concept gadgets at Build 2026 that are powered by a new platform, Project Solara, which is made to run AI agents on devices taking the form of everything from smart speakers to security badges or earbuds.
Microsoft just launched a new Surface Dev Box, and the company is already using the machine live on stage at Build. The top looks like the vent on an Xbox Series X, and inside there’s an Nvidia RTX Spark chip and 128GB of unified memory. Overall, I’d say it looks like a flattened Xbox Series X.
It’s nearly time for Microsoft’s annual developer event. The Build keynote kicks off at 9:30AM PT / 12:30PM ET / 5:30PM UK. I’m expecting we’ll hear a lot about new Microsoft AI models, Windows dev improvements, and a little surprise or two.
The ‘90s are in right now, and with a new Microsoft antitrust case on the horizon, even the Federal Trade Commission is getting into the spirit.
Drinkboxgamer:
The Knicks are in the NBA finals and Microsoft are under antitrust investigation, it really is the 90s all over again.
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Asus is launching various Vivobooks and ExperBooks at Computex, but I’m most interested in the Zenbook 14 with a base-level Snapdragon X1-26-100. It’ll come in AMD and Intel configs too, but the Qualcomm version will start with a lowly 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD.
Sounds like another Neo wannabe, but we don’t know for certain since pricing is TBD.
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Nvidia’s RTX Spark ‘superchip’ shows promise for Windows laptops. But it also comes at the worst time.
