The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is continuing to oppose the Microsoft-Activision merger with a last-minute appeal against a judge’s ruling, while the big tech companies were voicing their eagerness for the merger they say will not harm competition. The FTC on Thursday night asked (pdf) the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which…

Microsoft announced a new round of job cuts internally on July 10 after laying off 10,000 employees between January and March. The company confirmed the layoffs to GeekWire, which broke the news first but did not provide any further details. “Organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business. We…

A U.S. judge ruled on Tuesday that Microsoft can proceed with its planned acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion after the European Union (EU) approved the deal between the two gaming companies. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) objected to the deal in April, arguing that it hurts consumers and that it was…

WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday argued in federal court for a preliminary injunction to temporarily block Microsoft’s acquisition of videogame maker Activision Blizzard, which would stop the deal from closing before the government’s case against it is heard by an administrative judge. “If this deal is completed, the combined company … is likely…

BOSTON—In early June, sporadic but serious service disruptions plagued Microsoft’s flagship office suite—including the Outlook email and OneDrive file-sharing apps—and cloud computing platform. A shadowy hacktivist group claimed responsibility, saying it flooded the sites with junk traffic in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Initially reticent to name the cause, Microsoft has now disclosed that DDoS attacks…

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft’s planned $69 billion purchase of video game company Activision Blizzard was blocked by a federal judge Tuesday, giving more time for an antitrust review of the deal. U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco ruled in support of a temporary restraining order sought by the Federal Trade Commission that will stop…

Tech giant Microsoft has agreed to pay a multi-million dollar settlement to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for illegally collecting children’s personal information without parental consent. The $20 million settlement came after the FTC charged Microsoft for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). According to COPPA rules, websites and online services open…

Microsoft security experts say hackers affiliated with the notorious Clop ransomware group are behind an attack on a third-party file sharing system that resulted in the theft of personal data belonging to Nova Scotians. The Nova Scotia government said it is still trying to determine how many people had their data stolen in the attack…

Microsoft is adding its centralized AI-assisted feature Copilot to Windows 11, the company announced on May 22. In a blog post, Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer, said the new chatbot—which like Chat GPT-4 is powered by artificial intelligence that uses large language models (LLMs)—will help assist users to complete complex tasks. Such tasks will…

Microsoft Corp on Tuesday is expected to make news related to artificial intelligence at its annual build conference, featuring a talk with its CEO Satya Nadella. …