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July 3, 2025, 9:30 AM

Top News

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:

Sources: Microsoft cut hundreds of Xbox jobs across studios, including King, ZeniMax, and Halo Studios, and cancels games like the new Perfect Dark and Everwild — Hundreds of people were laid off as the company canceled upcoming games such as Perfect Dark and Everwild

More: Video Games Chronicle, Windows Central, Blizzard News, Engadget, The Verge, Aftermath, Thurrott, Aftermath, GamesIndustry.biz, IGN, Gizmodo, 80 Level, PCMag, PlayStation LifeStyle, iPhone in Canada, GamingBolt, Game Sandwich, Eurogamer.net, VideoGamer, GameSpot, Wired, PC Games Insider, Silicon Republic, Windows Central, Gamereactor UK, Game Developer, KitGuru, Comic Book, TheGamer, Press Start, Push Square, Pure Xbox, GamingBolt, Gameranx, Tech4Gamers, Screen Rant, Digit, Dexerto, Stevivor, Neowin, Game Informer, Forbes, TechRaptor, Game Rant, Game File, PocketGamer.biz, Mobilegamer.biz, Capital Brief, Cord Cutters News, and Nintendo Life

Bluesky: @jasonschreier, @jasonschreier, @headfallsoff.com, @zfighteramuro, @branzellan, @jonathancovey, @eplerjc, @nhegelbagel, @banjotranso, and @zfighteramuro

Forums: Hacker News, r/wow, r/gamingnews, r/gamesEcultura, r/halo, r/technology, r/Games, r/xbox, r/ICGA, and r/MMORPG

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Source: Microsoft plans to lay off ~9,000 employees, or less than 4% of its workforce, across teams and role types, after cutting ~6,000 in May and 300+ in June

More: The Seattle Times, GamesIndustry.biz, The Verge, Windows Central, Moneycontrol, Bloomberg, IGN, Windows Central, GeekWire, Fortune, The Information, Variety, Search Engine Roundtable, Variety, Guru3D, Verdict, The Statesman, The Indian Express, Trak.in, The Daily Upside, TheGamer, SiliconANGLE, CBC News, CNN, AfroTech, Digital Trends, MediaPost, Los Angeles Times, MarketWatch, Plain Dealer, MobileSyrup, Techpresso, The Verge, and Irish Independent

Bluesky: @jasonschreier, @yeetkunedo, @lightningarts, @jamesdavismakes.com, @keithamus.social, @brandrick, @carnage4life, and @stephentotilo. Mastodon: @nixCraft@mastodon.social. Threads: @johncodezzz

X: @fuckyouiquit, @jezcorden, @dc_draino, @xmbgx, @ultraegyptian, @mr_rebs_, @dougmackeycase, @derenicbyrd, @demickyd, @tomwarren, @destinlegarie, and @_tom_henderson_

LinkedIn: Danny Chung, Noah Berkson, Ruwan Fernando, and Marty Kahnle

Samuel Axon / Ars Technica:

Sources detail EA's issues developing the next Battlefield, which now has a $400M+ budget; some staff were skeptical of the EA leadership's 100M player target — EA insiders describe stress and setbacks in a project that's too big to fail. — It's been 23 years since the first Battlefield game …

More: Engadget, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Eurogamer.net, Game Rant, Gamereactor UK, TheGamer, Tech4Gamers, Windows Central, Screen Rant, and Comic Book

Bluesky: @naseer.eu. Forums: r/gaming, r/xbox, r/pcgaming, r/TwoBestFriendsPlay, r/PS5, r/Games, and Ars OpenForum

Wall Street Journal:

Ford CEO Jim Farley, Andy Jassy, and other CEOs are now predicting AI will significantly cut white collar jobs, a shift from a reluctance to acknowledge losses — Ford chief predicts AI will replace ‘literally half of all white-collar workers’ — CEOs are no longer dodging the question of whether AI takes jobs.

More: PYMNTS.com, Vox, Tom's Hardware, ZDNET, Unite.AI, ITPro, implicator.ai, Fortune, and TechCrunch

Bluesky: @campuscodi.risky.biz. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to. Forums: r/centrist, r/recruitinghell, and r/technology

Gian Volpicelli / Bloomberg:

ASML, Mistral AI, and 40+ European companies urge the EU to delay the implementation of its AI Act for two years, saying it puts the bloc's AI ambitions at risk — European companies including ASML Holding NV, Airbus SE and Mistral AI have called on the European Union to suspend the implementation …

More: EU AI Champions Initiative, Financial Times, Silicon Canals, WinBuzzer, MarketWatch, Reuters, implicator.ai, Cryptopolitan, and Politico

X: @bmoens. LinkedIn: EU AI Champions Initiative

Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority:

Samsung's One UI 8 build animation files show its future tri-fold phone, with three rear panels and two inward-folding hinges, rumored to be the Galaxy G Fold — Samsung may unveil its tri-fold foldable phone with dual hinges soon — here's your first animated look! — • — •

More: Android Police, Tech Advisor, The Verge, Business Standard, Android Headlines, Sam Lover, SammyGuru, SamMobile, PhoneArena, Phandroid, and Cult of Mac. Forums: r/Android

Spiegel Online:

A whistleblower details Clothoff, an AI-powered nudify app that owns 10 similar services; Clothoff had 27M visitors in H1 2024 and produced 200K images daily — AI-generated naked images of real women is the business model behind Clothoff, a dubious “nudify” app that has millions of visitors.

More: Ars Technica. Bluesky: @santi4dc. Threads: @mattnavarra. Forums: r/technology, r/technology, Beehaw, and Ars OpenForum

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:

OpenAI says the tokenized OpenAI shares now on Robinhood are not equity: “We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it” — OpenAI is distancing itself from Robinhood's latest crypto push after the trading platform began offering tokenized shares …

More: The Block, The Hans India, Engadget, Protos, crypto.news, TechCrunch, Proactive, CoinJournal, Decrypt, israelhayom.com, Reuters, Coinspeaker, Crypto Briefing, The Crypto Times, Cryptopolitan, Cointelegraph, CoinGape, Benzinga, CoinDesk, and CryptoSlate

Bluesky: @gidmk, @mattrosoff, and @edzitron.com

X: @openainewsroom, @s4mmyeth, @chatgpt21, @chooserich, @mikeisaac, @teslaart3, @waymoproblems, @merts_eth, @mikeisaac, and @mikeisaac

Forums: r/wallstreetbets and r/smallstreetbets

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Similarweb: since Google launched AI Overviews, the number of news searches that result in no click-throughs has grown from 56% in May 2024 to 69% in May 2025 — Referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers are growing, but not enough to counter the decline in clicks resulting …

More: What's New in Publishing, Search Engine Roundtable, Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, and WinBuzzer. Threads: @simondowens

Bloomberg:

Sources: OpenAI has agreed to rent additional computing power from Oracle, totaling ~4.5 gigawatts of US data center power, as part of its Stargate initiative — The AI company will rent additional capacity from Oracle totaling about 4.5 gigawatts of data center power in the US …

More: Network World, Benzinga, Financial Times, The Information, Verdict, Capacity Media, Cryptopolitan, WinBuzzer, Investor's Business Daily, The Verge, ITPro, and SemiAnalysis

Bluesky: @bwnash, @bwnash, @onefeincat, @edzitron.com, @edzitron.com, and @inspector-w

X: @marionawfal, @edludlow, @morqon, @edludlow, @prometheanaix, @andrewcurran_, and @rohanpaul_ai

Forums: r/singularity, r/OKLOSTOCK, r/OpenAI, r/artificial, and r/wallstreetbets

Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal:

Ripple applies for a US national banking license, which would place its RLUSD stablecoin under the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's regulatory remit — A national banking charter would make the OCC a regulator of Ripple's stablecoin — Ripple has applied for a national banking license …

More: Business Wire, CoinDesk, CryptoSlate, CryptoNinjas, Cryptopolitan, The Crypto Basic, Coinspeaker, crypto.news, Blockhead, Coinpedia Fintech News, Bitcoinist.com, CoinGape, Watcher Guru, The Crypto Times, Bitcoin Insider, CryptoPotato, Yahoo Finance, ZyCrypto, Blockonomi, American Banker, PYMNTS.com, Cointelegraph, and Benzinga

Bluesky: @grahamsteele. X: @bgarlinghouse, @diepsanh, @marionawfal, and @its_runtime

LinkedIn: Todd H Baker and Ryan Freeman

Forums: r/XRP and r/CryptoCurrency

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:

Siemens says it has restored full access to its chip design software for its Chinese clients after the Trump admin lifted export curbs, initially imposed in May — President Donald Trump's administration has lifted recent export license requirements for chip design software sales in China …

Zach Vallese / CNBC:

AI is making it easier to create VTubers and faceless voiceover channels, fueling a flood of virtual creators on YouTube and TikTok amid concerns over AI slop — One of the most popular gaming YouTubers is named Bloo, and has bright blue wavy hair and dark blue eyes.

Bluesky: @zachbussey.tos.gg. LinkedIn: Michael Lingelbach. Forums: r/artificial

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About This Page

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The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Edward Helmore / The Guardian:

AG Todd Blanche defends the White House ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, saying access is “a privilege” and Trump is “sick and tired” of inaccurate reporting

Gene Maddaus / Variety:

Paramount and 12 state AGs defend their antitrust settlement after a judge held off on approving the settlement citing concerns raised by Senator Cory Booker

Dominic Ponsford / Press Gazette:

The BBC plans to cut ~90 jobs from BBC Local, aiming to save ~£9.1M, as part of a plan to eliminate ~250 full-time jobs in its Nations division by 2027/28

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More News

Carl Zimmer / New York Times:

Researchers detail Centaur, a modified version of Llama trained on 10M+ responses from 160 psychological experiments, in an attempt to mimic human cognition

More: Nature, Digit, and Tech Xplore

Bluesky: @ericschulz. Mastodon: @Iris@scholar.social

Gina Kolata / New York Times:

An analysis of 15M+ biomedical abstracts from 2010 to 2024 finds researchers using AI to write abstracts use certain words far more often than those who don't

More: Science Advances

Kirk Ogunrinde / Bloomberg:

Bitcoin's implied volatility declined to the lowest level in two years, showing decreased price swings and trading between $93K to $111K in the past two months

More: Coinpedia Fintech News

Washington Post:

White collar workers are increasingly using AI note-taking apps to assist them during Zoom meetings or fully represent them when they choose not to attend

Bluesky: @geoffreyfowler. Forums: Hacker News and r/singularity

Financial Times:

Sources: Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd says Bumble's “centre of gravity” will move to the US where the “talent pool is right now”; 70% of its staff are UK-based

More: Silicon UK. Bluesky: @robblackie, @mims, and @davelee.me

X: @mattlynnwriter and @rcobooth. LinkedIn: Kieran Smith

Bloomberg:

Baidu overhauls its search engine with AI features and a voice function in its most sweeping revamp in years, and rolls out its first image-to-video model

More: CNBC, Nikkei Asia, WinBuzzer, South China Morning Post, and Reuters

Peiyue Wu / Rest of World:

Some Chinese universities are using AI detection tools to screen papers, but false positives force students to “dumb down” content or pay for rewriting services

More: WKYC-TV, Unite.AI, and The Atlantic

X: @peiyue_jess. LinkedIn: Peiyue Wu

Jordan Novet / CNBC:

Datadog is joining the S&P 500, replacing Juniper Networks after HPE acquired Juniper, before trading on July 9; DDOG jumps 10%

More: Barron's Online, Fast Company, PR Newswire, Motley Fool, Benzinga, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Benzinga, and Barron's Online

Earlier Picks

Molly Taft / Wired:

xAI has been granted a permit to operate 15 gas turbines at its Memphis campus until 2027, despite protests and a potential NAACP lawsuit over air pollution

More: WinBuzzer. Bluesky: @darthfos, @wired.com, @wired.com, @charleswlogan, and @mollytaft.com. Forums: r/TrueReddit

Jessica Toonkel / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Netflix has held talks with Spotify about partnering on projects such as a music awards show, as it adds content that was core to the cable bundle

More: Music Ally, LADbible, BMI, Thurrott, What's on Netflix, The Verge, The Information, CNBC, Investing.com, The Olympian, Barron's Online, and Adweek. LinkedIn: Adi T.