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.
The Microsoft cofounder isn’t an AI doomer, but he says it’s still “the most dangerous weapon of all time.”
Xbox employees close to Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters will need to come into the office more starting in February.
Microsoft’s annual report reveals the company employed around 223,000 people as of June 30th. That’s 5,000 less than the 228,000 people employed in 2025. It’s the first time Microsoft has had a headcount reduction in 10 years, after the gutting of the Nokia phone business in 2015 and 2016. The reduction comes as Microsoft has laid off more than 9,000 employees over the past year.
[Microsoft]
Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet has been “cooking up retro vibes” as part of Microsoft’s new Xbox Labs effort. The result is what looks like a vibecoded option to pick your dashboard on an Xbox console. This is simply an experiment right now and it’s not clear if we’ll ever see such an option, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma asks “blades on the web. Do we like this experiment?”
The new nine-piece collection created as part of a collaboration with Microsoft debuted at Ikea’s physical stores at the beginning of the month. But if you don’t have easy local access to meatballs and flatpack furniture, the Yxstaby collection, which includes accessories and furniture that draw inspiration from Xbox controllers, is now available through Ikea’s online store, too.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said earlier this month that we should assume that all AI models are “compromised,” and now Microsoft is going one step further. “Unfortunately, frontier models, regardless of their origin, cannot be trusted,” says Hayete Gallot, executive vice president of Microsoft Security. Microsoft is naturally positioning its new Project Perception as a solution to securing AI models. It’s an agentic security system designed to help cybersecurity professionals secure and control AI agents.
[The Official Microsoft Blog]
Reuters reports that Microsoft pulled out of the deal with British company Nscale to build the AI data center after local electricity grid officials said the site won’t be supplied with power until the 2030s. Construction is still expected to go ahead without Microsoft’s support, and Nscale says it’s partnership with Microsoft on other projects “remains strong.”
Nvidia’s new Arm-based laptop chip is an exciting new challenger, but exclusively for the high-end.
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A beautiful laptop built for an AI future that hasn’t quite arrived.
It shared a prototype demo for “seamless updates” that wouldn’t require you to restart your browser. That feature’s still in development, but in the meantime Microsoft also says Edge users can opt-in for “Restart to update on idle,” which was previously called “Instant Updates.”
The collection celebrating Xbox’s 25th anniversary includes games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Minecraft Dungeons, and Gears of War: Reloaded. Microsoft says you can also play some of the free games on Xbox Series X/S with Xbox Play Anywhere.
[Windows Experience Blog]
NBA 2K27 is debuting on the Xbox store on PC this week, and as part of the launch it’s becoming an Xbox Anywhere title. That means if you purchased the game on an Xbox console already, you’ll get the PC copy free from the Microsoft Store and vice versa. Microsoft has been pushing Xbox Play Anywhere for years, and hit a milestone of 1,000 titles last year — ahead of the next-gen Project Helix console.
When Asus briefed me on the ExpertBook A7, reps told me the $899 entry-level config will launch in January with 8GB of RAM. Turns out, Asus decided to switch that to 12GB for the same $899 price — but failed to clarify that with us.
An OLED display, haptic trackpad, and 12GB of RAM for $899? I hate getting bad info, but in today’s RAMageddon world let’s all take the W.
The app already lets you lock your Windows computer, but a beta version has a new Power menu with options to lock, sleep, shut down, or restart your PC, Android Authority reports. Could be handy if you need to power your computer down while you’re away from it.
[Android Authority]
I’m testing Microsoft’s new RTX Spark-powered laptop at the moment, and I’ll have some impressions on it later this week. I’d like to hear what you’d like to know about this particular laptop, so please drop a comment below and I’ll try and include answers in my initial impressions.
It’s like using cloud-based AI tools, but the privacy makes it more appealing.
Apparently, after large language models and agents, we’re now in the age of “decision models,” as Microsoft has announced Microsoft-Decision-1 just days after OpenAI highlighted its new Decisions API.
The point of these models is to choose something quickly and efficiently, like figuring out which AI model to use or what is in an image being analyzed by AI, and Microsoft claims its new tech beat out the others in tests to determine their speed and accuracy.
Tomorrow’s event will announce more than $1 billion in commitments for the Trump admin’s “Genesis Project” AI push and investments from the NSF and Energy Department, reports Axios, including $100 million in credits from something called National Compute.
Meanwhile, Fox News and Bloomberg report Trump will award the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sergey Brin, and Lisa Su, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella are in line for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It’s the first time Trump has ever given out the awards, which usually don’t go to well-known tech execs, judging by previous recipients.
What if we had an incredibly easy to snap-on and snap-off magnetic USB-C port? It’s a joy in person. It might still be proprietary, though: Microsoft is patenting the thing and isn’t quite saying whether it’ll let other manufacturers use it. Either way, you can plug any ol’ USB-C cable into the laptop’s female port.
