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 new option, which will appear in the “Click to Do” menu, uses AI to generate a written description of an image, chart, or graph on your screen. The feature is rolling out now to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon-equipped Copilot Plus PCs, but Microsoft says support for Intel and AMD-powered devices is “coming soon.”
Earlier this month, an Xbox Game Studios producer suggested that the thousands of workers who were laid off from Microsoft should use AI if they’re “feeling overwhelmed.”
Demand for PCs in the US has cooled significantly from the spike saw in the first quarter, as demonstrated in the chart below. “What we’re witnessing here might highlight US PC demand slowing down in anticipation of the import tariffs looming deadline,” says IDC in its latest quarterly report. Lenovo dominated Q2 2025 with an estimated 24.8 precent global share of “desktops, notebooks, and workstations.” Apple placed 4th after a big 21.4 percent jump in year-over-year shipments. HP ranks 2nd, Dell 3rd, and Asus comes in at 5th.
Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have funded a $23 million training hub in downtown Manhattan that will train teachers how to use AI tools and apply them in educational environments. The “National Academy for AI Instruction” will provide free access and training to the nearly 2 million members of the American Federation of Teachers.
This is the latest of several efforts across the US to make AI usage the new normal for faculty members and their students.
News of Microsoft’s major layoffs today keep rolling in, as the company informs around 9,000 employees of the cuts. I’ve heard from sources that the Xbox user research team has been hit hard, with nearly half the team affected. It’s a key team that focuses on ensuring quality across Xbox games, the platform, and developer tools. Even a product lead for Xbox Family and child safety has been laid off.
According to a report from VGC, Rare will be “restructuring” as part of the latest round of layoffs at Microsoft today, and that means development on its mysterious adventure game Everwild — which was announced way back in 2019 — has ended.
[videogameschronicle.com]
The idea is to make using passkeys a little more seamless. But this isn’t available to everyone just yet: Microsoft is initially rolling it out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel and you need to install the 1Password beta.
It sure looks like the next Xbox is going to be different, as Microsoft competes more with Steam.
Several writers have launched a lawsuit against Microsoft over claims it used a collection of nearly 200,000 pirated books to train its Megatron artificial intelligence model to respond to user prompts. Judges have shot down similar cases that authors raised against Meta and Anthropic this week — perhaps the third time’s the charm?
The Quest 3S Xbox Edition is a custom colorway VR headset bundled with an Xbox controller.
The on-device model powers Microsoft’s Settings AI agent, the company says.
[blogs.windows.com]
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich.
The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life, and Dave Cutler, Microsoft technical fellow and Windows NT lead developer, was also there to witness the moment and meet Torvalds for the first time. “No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
Sources tell Bloomberg that the job cuts could heavily impact workers in sales, while also spanning other areas of the company. My colleague Tom Warren reported earlier this month that there could soon be Xbox-related layoffs as well.
Microsoft is expected to announce the move in July, just two months after it laid off over 6,000 workers across the company.
