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.
When Microsoft was first developing the Surface Duo, it was originally intended to run a Windows 10-based OS code-named Andromeda that looked a lot like Windows Phone. Of course, the company ended up canning those plans, opting to make the Duo Android-based instead.
But you can now get your hands on an unstable build of Andromeda and see what might have been.
Beyond part one’s exposure of affiliate revenue hijacking, MegaLag digs into Honey’s “extortion” by adding limited-use “friends and family” type discounts and lying to the store owners about never removing codes for unaffiliated businesses while trying to sign them up as partners.
Other misdeeds described include marketing Honey’s for-adult-use-only browser extension to kids in partnership with channels like Mr Beast, who encouraged kids to install it everywhere they could, while collecting data on everyone who installed its extension, even if they never signed up. And despite a cease-and-desist from PayPal’s lawyers, this series isn’t over yet.
id Software, which created Doom and Quake, announced on Friday that they’ve voted to join the Communication Workers of America.
They’re now among a growing number of game developers, artists, designers, producers, and engineers under Microsoft who have chosen to unionize, including Bethesda and the teams working on Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch.
[Communications Workers of America]
Following a Fallout-themed Xbox controller released last year featuring Vault Boy, Microsoft has announced a new version inspired by Pip-Boy. The standard controller is available now for $82.97, but both it and the Elite controller can be further customized through the Xbox Design Lab. Season two of Amazon’s Fallout series debuts on December 17th.
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The study (pdf) analyzed 37.5 million de-identified Copilot conversations to show patterns in how people interacted with AI, but are we that surprised there’s a spike in existential questions around 2AM?
The researchers suggested more variety in AI beyond the standard chatbot approach, with different skills and personalities for different devices, such as more personal AI models for mobile platforms.
Microsoft seems to have gotten the message that Linux is becoming real competition and that the Xbox Ally needs more work! “[W]e will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers,” the company writes.
[Windows Experience Blog]
The “production release” of Windows MIDI Services just hit the Dev and Beta Windows Insider channels, and Microsoft says it will land on retail installs in “the next few months.” This means higher-resolution expression, two-way communication between devices, and less need for third-party drivers. MIDI 2.0 was announced in 2019, but adoption has been slow, with macOS and Android adding support in 2021 and 2022, respectively. There are still only a handful of compatible devices available, too.
We’ve had year-end recaps from Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, and more so far, but real heads are waiting for the big one.
verge_user_m4f74353:
These are great, but I’m still holding out for my Microsoft Teams Reviewed this year🤞
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Multiple sales teams lowered how much salespeople are expected to grow annual sales of Foundry and other AI products, reports The Information, citing sources who called the move “rare.”
Even as its overall cloud business has boomed, the report says that over 80 percent of one US Azure sales team failed to grow Foundry sales by the “ambitious” 50 percent target last year, so in July, the company lowered this year’s goal to 25 percent.
Update: CNBC reports that an unnamed spokesperson denied the report, saying Microsoft has not lowered quotas or targets for its salespeople.
The tech industry “needs to earn the social permission to consume energy” for AI data centers he says in an interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. Nadella also called for faster permitting for new power infrastructure and “innovation” in energy efficiency and generation.
Meta is booting rival AI companies out of WhatsApp to reduce the competition for its own Meta AI assistant, a classic sign of confidence.
Dkfkhfkwkdnc:
A product so good the producer has to protect people from alternatives lol
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Microsoft, just like OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity, has announced new AI shopping updates, as US users of Copilot in Edge will have access to Cashback, Price Comparison, Price History, Product Insights, and Price Tracking features. It also says Copilot’s AI will now proactively tell you if there’s a cheaper deal elsewhere.
The feature is rolling out for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels, according to Microsoft. I like using tables in Apple Notes, so I think they’ll be pretty useful in Notepad, too.
Yesterday Microsoft announced it’s making the classic Zork games open-source, and apparently some folks have gotten a little excited about it.
alectrem:
no need to fork zork when you can uncork zork straight from the zork zource, its like the opposite of zork divorce in zork court due to a zork tort
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The original Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III games are now available under the MIT license. Microsoft, Xbox, and Activision have teamed up to preserve the clever Z-Machine engine that powered the Zork games and allow students, teachers, and developers to study the code and learn from it. Microsoft has also worked with Jason Scott, from the Internet Archive, to grant this open-source license.
If you’ve experienced performance issues in games after installing the latest Windows 11 October 2025 update (KB5066835) then Nvidia now has a hotfix driver to address the problems. It’s not clear what games have been impacted by Microsoft’s latest update, but you can grab the latest hotfix driver here or wait until the next non-beta release.
