Microsoft's Xbox division will be hit with significant layoffs next month, according to people familiar with Microsoft's plans.

The company has been preparing for the layoffs internally for weeks, with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma hinting about "making hard choices" last month. Sources suggest the cuts could even involve a studio closure, or changes to the Xbox studio lineup. In a recent Giant Bomb episode, rumors of 1,000 layoffs for Microsoft's Xbox division were mentioned. Bloomberg also reported today that the cuts would be "major," and involve budget cuts for marketing and other areas of Microsoft's Xbox business.

Moments before Bloomberg's r …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Voltron may sound like an ointment for back pain, but the reboot Legendary Defender demonstrates that there's more to the big stompy robots concept than meets the eye.

New college graduates around the country have been booing and heckling commencement speakers who hype up AI. Microsoft would like everyone to talk it out.

In a blog post running more than 3,100 words, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith addressed the recent spate of viral clips from graduation ceremonies, like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt getting an earful at the University of Arizona, or the speaker in Florida who seemed surprised when students booed at the mention of AI as "the next industrial revolution." The videos speak to a broader societal sentiment around AI - the technology is deeply unpopular even as technology compani …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Whos in Whoville won’t have a very merry Christmas this year.

If you've uploaded a song to YouTube, Google almost certainly considers your video fair game for training its Lyria music AI, it just won't admit it right now.

A group of independent musicians is suing Google, claiming that it illegally used songs they uploaded to YouTube to train its Lyria 3 model. Google has filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying:

Their lawsuit is based on the unsupported hypothesis that Google trained on their specific works. Even accepting their untested allegations as fact, the Complaint cannot stand. Plaintiffs each granted YouTube, and Google - which provides the service-a broad license to use the uploaded con …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The media giant is pushing to expand its mobile and gaming business.

We checked out Gears of War E-Day and chatted to the devs at Summer Games Fest, to find out more about the latest chapter in the Gears saga.

Through the acquisition, WMG aims to better track when its artists' work is used in AI-generated content or for training AI models.

Over 15 years after David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network premiered in theaters, Sony has released the first trailer for The Social Reckoning ahead of its theatrical release on October 9th. The follow-up takes place 17 years after the events portrayed in the original film and follows a young Facebook engineer who enlists the help of a Wall Street Journal reporter to expose the platform's secrets.

The film stars Jeremy Strong as a much older Mark Zuckerberg (doing a memorable impression of the Meta CEO's voice), Mikey Madison as Facebook engineer and whistleblower Frances Haugen, and Jeremy Allen White as WSJ reporter Jeff Horw …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Insta360 has launched its first gimbal camera, the $770 Luna Ultra.

Doctor Who's previously-announced Christmas special is no more as the BBC severs ties with Russell T. Davies and Bad Wolf.

Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery is under scrutiny from the UK government.

The director of 'Close Encounters' and 'ET', an original story, 'X-Files'-style conspiracy theories… 'Disclosure Day' is a welcome escape from the mega-franchises.

Pour out a bottle of Head & Shoulders for Ivan Reitman's Evolution on its 25-year anniversary.

With the next tranche of declassified files from the Pentagon expected any day now, dive deeper into the UFO phenomenon with these 15 books covering its history, impact and possible explanations.

'This season in a lot of ways is a celebration and I think you can feel it in everything'

'It was such a great playground to play in, and I hope that it opens up more projects like this for creatives to embrace and trust.'

Jason Momoa will star as the psycho space biker this summer, but who exactly is Lobo?

On Episode 212 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by Apollo legend Gerry Griffin live from the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in McLean, Virginia.

Raúl Esparza will reprise his lead role as the famous Renaissance astronomer this fall in 'Galileo'.