Microsoft is laying off 4,800 employees
A year after cutting around 9,100 employees, Microsoft is making further layoffs today as it begins its new financial year. The software maker is laying off around 4,800 employees today, approximately 2.1 percent of its workforce. Most of the employees affected by today's cuts are in Microsoft's commercial sales business or the company's Xbox division. […]
Some of the nation’s rich are letting AI teach their kids
Most Americans don't trust AI. It's proven that it doesn't know what safe toppings for pizza are. People don't even want to listen to AI music. But none of that matters for some of America's wealthy, who are turning to AI to teach their kids instead of traditional schools. Companies like Forge Prep and Alpha […]
Mr. Lif’s Emergency Rations EP is post-9/11 hip hop at its most daring
There was a period in the early aughts when Definitive Jux (nee: Def Jux) seemed like it was going to be the future of hip hop. While the label featured plenty of experimental, boundary-pushing, and politically minded acts, Lif stood out as the most "conscious rapper" in the traditional sense. It was clear though, that […]
Where to preorder Grand Theft Auto VI
Rockstar's long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI is launching November 19th, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X consoles. The game will be available digitally at launch, with physical cases containing codes, not discs, so your options for preordering are straightforward. The preloading phase for the game begins on November 12th, which should give you […]
Infuriating Google commercial imagines the founding fathers embracing AI
"Group project, but make it 1776." That's how a new commercial for Google Workspace opens. And things only get cringier from there. The clip imagines what it would be like if the founding fathers turned to Google's collaboration tools and Gemini to help them draft the Declaration of Independence. Ben Franklin texts Thomas Jefferson to […]
The Sourdough Sidekick automates the boring bit of baking
Baking sourdough bread is inherently old-fashioned, relying on natural fermentation and wild yeast instead of the simple, predictable commercial stuff. So it might sound anathema to bring a gadget into the mix. The trick to the Sourdough Sidekick - backed and branded by King Arthur flour - is that it promises to automate the boring […]
How Keurig saved — and ruined — your coffee
Before Keurig, the coffee in your office was almost certainly terrible. Old, burned, made by someone who would rather poorly eyeball than properly measure. Just altogether gross. After Keurig? You could make your own coffee, a cup at a time, exactly when you needed it. The single-cup brewer was an elegant solution to an extremely […]
Vizio accidentally made the best dumb TV on the market
When I first started testing Vizio's 65-inch Mini LED Quantum TV, I thought the big story was that Vizio was back and that it had a quantum-dot TV for under $398 - the cheapest on the market. Vizio's been pretty quiet since it was acquired by Walmart in 2024, so putting out a TV with […]
Xbox is a disaster
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the bleak state of the video game industry, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Microsoft closed out Summer […]
NASA launched an emergency mission to stop the Swift Observatory from crashing to Earth
The Swift Observatory was launched in 2004, but recent solar storms have pushed its orbit lower, and it's in danger of burning up in Earth's atmosphere as soon as this year. To try and stave off its demise, NASA has enlisted Katalyst Space Technologies. The company's Link spacecraft launched Friday with the goal of intercepting […]