Author: News Room
When I walked through Microsoft’s doors as an intern in June of 1988, I could never have imagined the products I’d help build, the players and customers we’d serve, or the extraordinary teams I’d be lucky enough to join. It’s been an epic ride and truly the privilege of a lifetime.Last fall, I shared with Satya that I was thinking about stepping back and starting the next chapter of my life. From that moment, we aligned on approaching this transition with intention, ensuring stability, and strengthening the foundation we’ve built. Xbox has always been more than a business. It’s a…
Dear team,Today I begin my role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming.I feel two things at once: humility and urgency.Humility because this team has built something extraordinary over decades. Urgency because gaming is in a period of rapid change, and we need to move with clarity and conviction.I am stepping into work shaped by generations of artists, engineers, designers, writers, musicians, operators and more who create worlds that have brought joy and deep personal meaning to hundreds of millions of players. The level of craft here is exceptional, and it is amplified by Xbox, which was founded in the belief that…
The US Supreme Court struck down some of Donald Trump’s tariffs on foreign imports, which have become a hallmark of the chaos of the second Trump administration.The court’s ruling deals specifically with duties levied using a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), something no other president has done — the 1977 law was initially created to limit presidential ability to declare a national emergency only to times when the threat came from outside the US. The legality of using the IEEPA to tariff imports has been in question since the taxes were announced last year; the IEEPA…
Any ebook reader will let you cram a Beauty and the Beast-sized library’s worth of books in your pocket, but so will your phone. An ebook reader offers a more book-like reading experience, with fewer distractions and less eye strain, and many include extra features, like adjustable frontlighting. Some really are pocketable. Others are waterproof or offer physical page-turning buttons, while a few even let you take notes.I’ve been using ebook readers for more than a decade, and I’ve gone hands-on with dozens, from the Kindle Paperwhite to lesser-known rivals like the PocketBook Era. Whether you want something your kid…
OpenAI is planning to launch a smart speaker designed by Apple legend Jony Ive that sounds a little like a HomePod, according to a new report. The Information is claiming the scoop here, and says it’ll be the first product yielding from the Ive and OpenAI hook-up (remember that creepy-awkward photo with Sam Altman a few months back?). Today’s report brings word from “two people with knowledge” will include a camera to identify the owner and the owner’s surroundings and will listen into the conversations in the background. As if that’s not entirely unsettling. Presumably you’ll be able to interact…
After nearly 40 years at Microsoft, Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is leaving the company, along with Xbox president Sarah Bond. Spencer’s retirement was announced in a memo from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on February 20th, stating, “Last year, Phil Spencer made the decision to retire from the company, and since then we’ve been talking about succession planning.”Follow along below for the latest updates on Microsoft’s Xbox leadership changes Read the full article here
Microsoft has announced a major shake-up of the Xbox gaming business, with the division’s two most recognisable and senior names departing the firm. The CEO of Microsoft gaming Phil Spencer and the president and COO of Xbox Sarah Bond are both departing. Spencer has been at Microsoft for 38 years, 12 of which have been leading the gaming division. He’s retiring. In a tweet he says: “It’s rare in life to know when a chapter is closing, but after 38 years at Microsoft, that moment has arrived for me. I’ve made the decision to retire and begin the next chapter of…
Not yet, it seems. “To be clear, there are no organizational changes underway for our studios,” Microsoft Gaming EVP Matt Booty wrote in his memo today. It’s a little buried under everything else Microsoft’s outgoing and incoming gaming CEOs are saying, so figure it’s worth dragging to the surface! Read the full article here
EA Sports FC 26 uses the AI-generated voice of commentator Guy Mowbray to help with pronouncing the names of some of the thousands of footballers now in the video game. In an interview with Mowbray by BBC Sport, the story covered the monotony in not only pronouncing the names of more than 20,000 players within the game, but also the need to do it multiple times to represent the acts on the field – from taking control of the ball, to blasting one in the top bins from 30 yards out. The story reveals that Mowbray gets a helping hand…
SerpApi, a company that offers tools to scrape content on the web, is fighting back against Google’s copyright lawsuit that accuses it of vacuuming up search results “at an astonishing scale.” In a motion to dismiss filed on Friday, SerpApi argues that Google doesn’t hold a copyright on its search results, alleging that the engine is built “on the backs of others who posted ‘the world’s information.’”In December, Google sued SerpApi, claiming the smaller scraper had violated the Copyright Act by using “deceptive means” to access and scrape its search results. Google also alleges that SerpApi found a way to…
Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. This week, we explain how the presidential phone company connects to an older company that’s really running the show.We’ve long known that Trump Mobile was linked to Liberty Mobile, a carrier that’s traded for years using freedom-themed branding to sell cheap mobile plans to a conservative crowd. Turns out, the two businesses are even closer to one another than it had initially appeared. And as we wait for the launch of the Trump phone — potentially as soon as next month, having been delayed from August —…
Amazon Web Services suffered a 13-hour outage to one system in December as a result of its AI coding assistant Kiro’s actions, according to the Financial Times. Numerous unnamed Amazon employees told the FT that AI agent Kiro was responsible for the December incident affecting an AWS service in parts of mainland China. People familiar with the matter said the tool chose to “delete and recreate the environment” it was working on, which caused the outage.While Kiro normally requires sign-off from two humans to push changes, the bot had the permissions of its operator, and a human error there allowed…