Microsoft

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Deal Values OpenAI at a Sky-High $500B

It's now the world's most valuable private company

(Newser) - OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has surged to a $500 billion valuation, outpacing SpaceX and making it the world's most valuable startup. Bloomberg reports that in OpenAI's latest deal, current and former employees sold roughly $6.6 billion worth of their shares at that valuation to an...

Push to Get Workers Back in the Office Is Meeting Resistance

Mandates rise at places like Microsoft, Paramount, but office attendance remains stubbornly low

(Newser) - Many large companies are tightening their return-to-the-office policies, but workers aren't exactly flooding back to their desks. Names like Microsoft, Paramount, and NBCUniversal are ramping up in-person requirements, with some, such as Paramount, telling employees to return full time or consider a buyout. The New York Times and...

To Fight Climate Change, Google Is Burying Cow Poop

Tech giant backs Kansas startup Vaulted Deep, which is burying tons of waste to cut emissions

(Newser) - Google is shelling out for cow manure, but maybe not in the way you'd expect. The tech giant just inked a deal with Kansas-based startup Vaulted Deep to buy 50,000 tons of carbon removal over the next five years, by way of injecting animal waste and sewage...

Nvidia Makes Massive Investment in OpenAI

They plan to build a 'superbrain'

(Newser) - Nvidia is making a $100 billion investment in OpenAI, teaming up with the company behind ChatGPT to build data centers on a scale that rivals the world's largest power plants. The deal, announced Monday, will see Nvidia provide OpenAI with at least 10 gigawatts of computing systems for...

White House Answers $100K H-1B Visa Confusion

Companies warn H-1B holders against travel

(Newser) - A surprise $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications has tech giants and foreign governments scrambling to protect their workforces and respond to an unprecedented shakeup in the US skilled immigration system. The decision prompted immediate reactions from major technology and finance companies, which rely heavily on the...

Microsoft Curtails Workers' Ability to Work From Home

HR chief says in-person work 'energizes teams'

(Newser) - Microsoft is ending its pandemic-era remote working policy, requiring employees near its Seattle-area headquarters to return to the office at least three days a week. In a memo sent Tuesday, HR chief Amy Coleman said the company is convinced that in-person work "energizes" teams and delivers better results—...

Microsoft Workers Arrested for Protesting Israel Ties

They were part of a group staging a sit-in at Microsoft President Brad Smith's office

(Newser) - Police arrested seven people Tuesday after they occupied the office of Microsoft President Brad Smith as part of continued protests over the company's ties to the Israel Defense Forces, organizers said. Current and former Microsoft employees were among those arrested, said the protest group No Azure for Apartheid, per...

Elon Musk Wants to Rival Microsoft With 'Macrohard'

He aims to build all-AI software solutions with xAI's Grok

(Newser) - Elon Musk is adding another venture to his already crowded portfolio. On Friday, the xAI CEO announced plans for a new company he's calling "Macrohard"—a name Musk described as tongue in cheek but attached to a most serious project. The aim: to create a company...

Report: Palestinians' Calls Secretly Held in Microsoft Cloud

Israel's Unit 8200 allegedly holds millions of such calls on Azure servers

(Newser) - Microsoft's cloud technology is helping to facilitate an unprecedented Israeli surveillance system, according to a joint investigation by the Guardian , +972 Magazine, and Local Call. They report that in late 2021, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella met with the head of Israel's Unit 8200, the country's elite...

Bidding Wars for AI's Top Talent Would Make an NBA Star Blush

Tech giants battle for top minds with record-breaking deals

(Newser) - The bidding war for artificial intelligence talent is looking less like a job market and more like NBA free agency, minus the salary cap. Take 24-year-old Matt Deitke, per the New York Times : Meta dangled an initial offer of $125 million in cash and stock to recruit him from...

The World Now Has Two $4 Trillion Companies

Microsoft crosses the threshold to join Nvidia

(Newser) - Nvidia got there first , but Microsoft on Thursday became the second company to reach the $4 trillion threshold. The company hit the milestone after its fourth-quarter earnings report pleased investors, reports the Wall Street Journal . Shares were up more than 5%, which pushed the company's market cap above the...

Find Out How AI-Proof Your Job Really Is
The Most, Least AI-Proof Jobs
Jul 31, 2025 7:14 AM CDT

The Most, Least AI-Proof Jobs

Microsoft pulls out the ones that are most, least likely to be overtaken by artificial intelligence

(Newser) - How likely is it that a bot will soon replace you at work? That depends on what you do for a living, as Microsoft found in its most recent research measuring which jobs are most and least vulnerable to being replaced by artificial intelligence, reports Axios . In its study titled...

Microsoft SharePoint Hack Hit US Agencies

Chinese hackers exploit vulnerability in older versions hosted by customers

(Newser) - Numerous organizations and some government agencies around the globe have been compromised in recent days as hackers exploit a vulnerability in older versions of Microsoft's file-sharing tool SharePoint. The vulnerability was discovered in versions of the software hosted by the customers themselves, as opposed to Microsoft's cloud, early...

Microsoft Is Paying to Send Poop Deep Underground

Carbon capture project is injecting 'bioslurry' into rocks

(Newser) - With AI data centers' need for vast amounts of power threatening its commitment to be carbon negative by 2030, Microsoft has turned to innovative carbon removal strategies—including one that involves sending human waste deep underground. The company has signed a 12-year contract with Vaulted Deep, a company that grinds...

Nvidia Beats Apple, Microsoft to the $4T Mark

AI chipmaker is the first to hit that market cap

(Newser) - Nvidia has become the the first publicly traded company to reach a $4 trillion market value, leaping past Apple and Microsoft as its AI-powered chips fuel a new era of tech growth. CNN reports the company's stock jumped 2.5% on Wednesday, and in doing so pushed it...

Goodbye Blue Screen of Death, Hello Black Screen of Death

Windows error screen is getting a makeover after more than 40 years

(Newser) - Nearly every Windows user has had a run-in with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" at some point in their computing life. Now, after more than 40 years of being set against a very recognizable blue, the updated error message will soon be displayed across a black background, the...

Iran's Latest Strike Hits Microsoft Office in Israel

Fires are burning, multiple people are injured after missiles hit Beer Sheva

(Newser) - Multiple fires erupted in the Israeli city of Beer Sheva on Friday after an Iranian missile strike hit a tech park that houses a Microsoft office, Reuters reports. CNN has video of the aftermath of the attack, which local police say resulted in property damage and six minor injuries. "...

Microsoft: We've Entered the Era of the 'Infinite Workday'

Report backs up the assertion using 365 data

(Newser) - Forget clocking out at five—Microsoft says the boundaries of the traditional workday have vanished, with workers now so tethered to their jobs they're experiencing the "infinite workday," reports Quartz . In a report released Tuesday that analyzes data from its 365 suite (specifically "trillions of...

Why the World Still Runs on Ancient Windows Machines

Legacy software quietly powers pockets of daily life

(Newser) - Decades after their heyday, aging Windows systems persist in surprising corners of society. The BBC's visit to a modern New York City hospital revealed an in-elevator screen that relied on Windows XP. Despite official support ending for that operating system a decade ago, it lives on in places...

The Other Thing AI Is Taking Over? The Energy Grid
Turns Out, AI
Gobbles Up
a Lot of Energy
LONGFORM
Jun 1, 2025 2:23 PM CDT

Turns Out, AI Gobbles Up a Lot of Energy

Data centers' energy use is ballooning, and the secrecy around the industry doesn't help

(Newser) - The rapid integration of artificial intelligence into daily life marks a significant shift online, with hundreds of millions of people relying on chatbots and generative tools for everything from research to image creation. But as AI use expands, its growing appetite for energy is becoming clear, prompting new research...

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