The City of Lyon will replace Microsoft's office suite with free office software, including OnlyOffice for office work and Linux and PostgreSQL for systems and databases. The city aims to "no longer be dependent on American software solutions and acquire true digital sovereignty," according to an official statement.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is planning to cut jobs in the company's Xbox gaming business, as early as next week. I first reported in Notepad earlier this month that Microsoft was planning Xbox layoffs "potentially by the end of the month," and now Bloomberg says a round of "major layoffs" is due next week.

I understand managers at Microsoft have been briefed about Xbox cuts and wider layoffs in other parts of Microsoft's businesses. The upcoming cuts are also expected to hit Microsoft's sales organization, just at the start of a new financial year. Microsoft is planning to restructure parts of its Xbox business as it looks ahead to its next generation of consoles. One source tells me Microsoft is restructuring Xbox distribution across central Europe, resulting in some Xbox operations ceasing in some regions. The expected layoffs will be in addition to the 6,000 cuts Microsoft already made in May, and on top of the more than 300 job cuts earlier this month.

Microsoft has released a modern, open-source version of its classic MS-DOS Editor -- built with Rust and compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's now simple called "Edit." Ars Technica reports: Aside from ease of use, Microsoft's main reason for creating the new version of Edit stems from a peculiar gap in modern Windows. "What motivated us to build Edit was the need for a default CLI text editor in 64-bit versions of Windows," writes [Christopher Nguyen, a product manager on Microsoft's Windows Terminal team] while referring to the command-line interface, or CLI. "32-bit versions of Windows ship with the MS-DOS editor, but 64-bit versions do not have a CLI editor installed inbox." [...]

Linux users can download Edit from the project's GitHub releases page or install it through an unofficial snap package. Oh, and if you're a fan of the vintage editor and crave a 16-bit text-mode for your retro machine that actually runs MS-DOS, you can download a copy on the Internet Archive. [...]

At 250KB, the new Edit maintains the lightweight philosophy of its predecessor while adding features the original couldn't dream of: Unicode support, regular expressions, and the ability to handle gigabyte-sized files. The original editor was limited to files smaller than 300KB depending on available conventional memory -- a constraint that seems quaint in an era of terabyte storage. But the web publication OMG! Ubuntu found that the modern Edit not only "works great on Ubuntu" but noted its speed when handling gigabyte-sized documents.

Microsoft will offer free Windows 10 security updates through October 2026 to consumers who enable Windows Backup or spend 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, the company said today. The move provides alternatives to the previously announced $30-per-PC Extended Security Update program for individuals wanting to continue using Windows 10 past its October 14, 2025 end-of-support date.

The company will notify Windows 10 users about the ESU program through the Settings app and notifications starting in July, with full rollout by mid-August. Both free options require a Microsoft Account, which the company has increasingly pushed in Windows 11. Business and organizational customers can still purchase up to three years of ESU updates but must pay for the service.

Windows 10 remains installed on 53% of Windows PCs worldwide, according to Statcounter data.

OpenAI has designed features that would allow people to collaborate on documents and communicate via chat within ChatGPT, The Information reported Tuesday. The features would pit OpenAI directly against Microsoft, its biggest shareholder and business partner, and Google, whose search engine has already lost traffic to people using ChatGPT for web searches.

Whether OpenAI will actually release the collaboration features remains unclear, the report cautioned. The designs would target the core of Microsoft's dominant productivity suite and could strain the companies' already complicated relationship as OpenAI seeks Microsoft's approval for restructuring its for-profit unit. Product chief Kevin Weil first discussed and showed off designs for document collaboration nearly a year ago, but OpenAI lacked sufficient staff to develop the product due to other priorities.

OpenAI launched Canvas in October, a ChatGPT feature that makes drafting documents and code easier with AI assistance, as a possible first step toward full collaboration tools. More recently, OpenAI developed but has not launched software allowing multiple ChatGPT customers to communicate about shared work within the application.

Microsoft is turning the Xbox App on PC into a universal game launcher by integrating libraries from multiple storefronts like Steam. The feature is currently limited to those in the Xbox Insider program. From the announcement: With the aggregated gaming library, players can conveniently launch games from Xbox, Game Pass, Battle.net and other leading PC storefronts from a single library within the Xbox PC app. Whether you're on a Windows PC or a handheld device, your Xbox library, hundreds of Game Pass titles, and all your installed games from leading PC storefronts will now be at your fingertips. When a player installs a game from a supported PC storefront, it will automatically appear in "My library" within the Xbox PC app, as well as the "Most recent" list of titles in the sidebar -- making it easier than ever to jump back into your games. And this is just the beginning. We'll continue rolling out support for additional PC storefronts over time.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ExtremeTech: Microsoft has changed how Windows 11 manages System Restore points after its June 2025 security update. The update, KB5060842, says that starting with Windows 11 version 24H2, System Restore points will be kept for up to 60 days. After 60 days, restore points older than 60 days will no longer be available for use. [...] The change does not change the way restore points are created or used; it only sets a clear time limit for how long they are stored. Windows will still delete older restore points if the allocated disk space fills up. But now there is a firm upper limit of 60 days, regardless of available space. The report notes that restore points in Windows 11 have varied. "Some restore points were removed after only 10 days, while others sometimes lasted the full 90 days, as reported by XDA Developers."

The new 60-day limit should give users more certainty about how long their restore points will remain on their system.

IYO filed a trademark infringement lawsuit [PDF] against OpenAI and Jony Ive's company earlier this month, alleging the defendants deliberately adopted a confusingly similar name for competing products. The lawsuit surfaced after the Microsoft-backed startup quietly pulled promotional materials about its $6.5 acquisition billion deal with Ive's firm.

The Northern District of California complaint targets OpenAI's $6.5 billion acquisition of "IO Products, Inc.," announced May 21, 2025. IYO, which spun out from Google X in 2021, produces the "IYO ONE," an ear-worn device that allows users to interact with computers and AI through voice commands without screens or keyboards.

IYO has invested over $62 million developing its audio computing technology, it says in the filing. According to the complaint, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ive's design studio LoveFrom met with IYO representatives multiple times between 2022 and 2025, learning details about IYO's technology and business plans. In March 2025, Altman allegedly told IYO he was "working on something competitive" called "io." IO Products, formed in September 2023, develops hardware for screenless computer interaction similar to IYO's products. The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief and damages for trademark infringement and unfair competition.

"The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life..." writes The Verge: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich... "No major kernel decisions were made," jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
More from the Linux news blog Linuxiac: The man on the left is Mark Russinovich, a software engineer, author, and co-founder of Sysinternals, now CTO of Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform. He has become synonymous with deep Windows diagnostics and cloud-scale management. In the late 1990s, his suite of tools (Process Explorer, Autoruns, Procmon) revolutionized the way administrators and security professionals understood Windows internals.

The man on the far right is another living legend: Dave Cutler. Let me put it this way — he's one of the key people behind OpenVMS and the brilliant lead architect who designed Windows NT's kernel and hardware-abstraction layer — technologies that remain at the heart of every current Windows release, from server farms to laptops. So, it's no surprise that people often call him the "father of Windows NT."

The education-news site EdSurge published "sponsored content" from Minecraft Education this month. "Students light up when they create something meaningful," the article begins. "Self-expression fuels learning, and creativity lies at the heart of the human experience."

But they also argue that "As AI rapidly reshapes software development, computer science education must move beyond syntax drills and algorithmic repetition." Students "must also learn to think systemically..." As AI automates many of the mechanical aspects of programming, the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered solutions... [I]t's critical to offer computer science experiences that foster invention, expression and design. This isn't just an education issue — it's a workforce one. Creativity now ranks among the top skills employers seek, alongside analytical thinking and AI literacy. As automation reshapes the job market, McKinsey estimates up to 375 million workers may need to change occupations by 2030. The takeaway? We need more adaptable, creative thinkers.

Creative coding, where programming becomes a medium for self-expression and innovation, offers a promising solution to this disconnect. By positioning code as a creative tool, educators can tap into students' intrinsic motivation while simultaneously building computational thinking skills. This approach helps students see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of technology. It aligns with digital literacy frameworks that emphasize critical evaluation, meaningful contribution and not just technical skills.

One example of creative coding comes from a curriculum that introduces computer science through game design and storytelling in Minecraft... Developed by Urban Arts in collaboration with Minecraft Education, the program offers middle school teachers professional development, ongoing coaching and a 72-session curriculum built around game-based instruction. Designed for grades 6-8, the project-based program is beginner-friendly; no prior programming experience is required for teachers or students. It blends storytelling, collaborative design and foundational programming skills with a focus on creativity and equity.... Students use Minecraft to build interactive narratives and simulations, developing computational thinking and creative design... Early results are promising: 93 percent of surveyed teachers found the Creative Coders program engaging and effective, noting gains in problem-solving, storytelling and coding, as well as growth in critical thinking, creativity and resilience.

As AI tools like GitHub Copilot become standard in development workflows, the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance, precisely what creative coding develops... As AI continues to automate routine tasks, students must be able to guide systems, understand logic and collaborate with intelligent tools. Creative coding introduces these capabilities in ways that are accessible, culturally relevant and engaging for today's learners.
Some background from long-time Slashdot reader theodp: The Urban Arts and Microsoft Creative Coders program touted by EdSurge in its advertorial was funded by a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant that was awarded to Urban Arts in 2023 by the U.S. Education Department "to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades)" in New York and California (Urban Arts credited Minecraft for helping craft the winning proposal)... New York City is a Minecraft Education believer — the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment recently kicked off summer with the inaugural NYC Video Game Festival, which included the annual citywide Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports Competition in partnership with NYC Public Schools.

david.emery writes: Microsoft is making it harder to use Chrome on Windows. The culprit? This time, it's Windows' Family Safety feature. Since early this month, the parental control measure has prevented users from opening Chrome. Strangely, no other apps or browsers appear to be affected.

Redditors first reported the issue on June 3. u/Witty-Discount-2906 posted that Chrome crashed on Windows 11. "Just flashes quickly, unable to open with no error message," they wrote. Another user chimed in with a correct guess. "This may be related to Parental Controls," u/duk242 surmised. "I've had nine students come see the IT Desk in the last hour saying Chrome won't open."

BrianFagioli writes: In a move that could quietly wreak havoc across the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft is purging outdated drivers from Windows Update. The company claims it is doing this for security and reliability, but the result might be broken hardware for users who rely on legacy devices.

If you're using older peripherals or custom-built PCs, you could soon find yourself hunting for drivers that have vanished into the digital abyss. This initiative, buried in a low-profile blog post, is part of Microsoft's new cleanup program. The first wave targets legacy drivers that already have newer replacements available. But the real kicker is that Microsoft isn't warning individual users about which drivers are going away.

Starting mid-July 2025, Microsoft 365 will begin blocking legacy authentication protocols like Remote PowerShell and FrontPage RPC to enhance security under its "Secure by Default" initiative. Admins must now grant explicit consent for third-party app access, which could disrupt workflows but aims to reduce unauthorized data exposure. The Register reports: First in line for the chop is legacy browser authentication to SharePoint and OneDrive using the Remote PowerShell (RPS) protocol. According to Microsoft, legacy authentication protocols like RPS "are vulnerable to brute-force and phishing attacks due to non-modern authentication." The upshot is that attempting to access OneDrive or SharePoint via a browser using legacy authentication will stop working.

Also being blocked is the FrontPage Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol. Microsoft FrontPage was a web authoring tool that was discontinued almost two decades ago. However, the protocol for remote web authoring has lived on until now. Describing legacy protocols like RPC as "more susceptible to compromise," Microsoft will block them to prevent their use in Microsoft 365 clients.

Finally, third-party apps will need administrator consent to access files and sites. Microsoft said: "Users allowing third-party apps to access file and site content can lead to overexposure of an organization's content. Requiring admins to consent to this access can help reduce overexposure." "While laudable, shifting consent to the administrator could disrupt some workflows," writes The Register's Richard Speed. "The Microsoft-managed App Consent Policies will be enabled, and users will be unable to consent to third-party applications accessing their files and sites by default. Need consent? A user will need to request an administrator to consent on their behalf."

Hackers have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from cryptocurrency holders and disrupted major retailers by targeting outsourced call centers used by American corporations to reduce costs, WSJ reported Thursday. The attackers exploit low-paid call center workers through bribes and social engineering to bypass two-factor authentication systems protecting bank accounts and online portals.

Coinbase faces potential losses of $400 million after hackers compromised data belonging to 97,000 customers by bribing call center workers in India with payments of $2,500. The criminals also used malicious tools that exploited vulnerabilities in Chrome browser extensions to collect customer data in bulk.

TaskUs, which handled Coinbase support calls, shut down operations at its Indore, India facility and laid off 226 workers. Retail attacks targeted Marks & Spencer and Harrods with hackers impersonating corporate executives to pressure tech support workers into providing network access. The same technique compromised MGM Resorts systems in 2023. Call center employees typically possess sensitive customer information including account balances and recent transactions that criminals use to masquerade as legitimate company representatives.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Tech support scammers have devised a method to inject their fake phone numbers into webpages when a target's web browser visits official sites for Apple, PayPal, Netflix, and other companies. The ruse, outlined in a post on Wednesday from security firm Malwarebytes, threatens to trick users into calling the malicious numbers even when they think they're taking measures to prevent falling for such scams. One of the more common pieces of security advice is to carefully scrutinize the address bar of a browser to ensure it's pointing to an organization's official website. The ongoing scam is able to bypass such checks.

The unknown actors behind the scam begin by buying Google ads that appear at the top of search results for Microsoft, Apple, HP, PayPal, Netflix, and other sites. While Google displays only the scheme and host name of the site the ad links to (for instance, https://www.microsoft.com/ the ad appends parameters to the path to the right of that address. When a target clicks on the ad, it opens a page on the official site. The appended parameters then inject fake phone numbers into the page the target sees.

Google requires ads to display the official domain they link to, but the company allows parameters to be added to the right of it that aren't visible. The scammers are taking advantage of this by adding strings to the right of the hostname. The parameters aren't displayed in the Google ad, so a target has no obvious reason to suspect anything is amiss. When clicked on, the ad leads to the correct hostname. The appended parameters, however, inject a fake phone number into the webpage the target sees. The technique works on most browsers and against most websites. Malwarebytes.com was among the sites affected until recently, when the site began filtering out the malicious parameters.

Microsoft is planning to ax thousands of jobs, particularly in sales, as part of the company's latest move to trim its workforce amid heavy spending on AI. From a report: The cuts are expected to be announced early next month [non-paywalled source], following the end of Microsoft's fiscal year, according to people familiar with the matter. The reductions won't exclusively affect sales teams, and the timing could still change, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter. The terminations would follow a previous round of layoffs in May that hit 6,000 people and fell hardest on product and engineering positions, largely sparing customer-facing roles like sales and marketing.

Microsoft is positioning Windows as the primary gaming platform for Xbox, according to Xbox president Sarah Bond. "We're working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming," Bond said in a video announcing a partnership with AMD for next-generation Xbox hardware spanning consoles and handhelds.

The statement, PCWorld points out, aligns with Microsoft's recent "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign, which promotes phones, PCs, televisions, and traditional consoles as Xbox devices. The company's newly announced Xbox Ally X handheld runs Windows beneath its Xbox interface, allowing access to multiple game stores unlike Valve's Steam Deck.

Microsoft has shifted strategy following weak Xbox console sales compared to PlayStation, spending billions to acquire publishers including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard while expanding Xbox Cloud Gaming services across multiple device types.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has a long history of being criticized for coming up with clunky product names, and for changing them so often it's hard for customers to keep up. The company's own employees once joked in a viral video that the iPod would have been called the "Microsoft I-pod Pro 2005 XP Human Ear Professional Edition with Subscription" had it been created by Microsoft. The latest gripe among some employees and customers: The company's tendency to slap "Copilot" on everything AI.

"There is a delusion on our marketing side where literally everything has been renamed to have Copilot it in," one employee told Business Insider late last year. "Everything is Copilot. Nothing else matters. They want a Copilot tie-in for everything." Now, an advertising watchdog is weighing in. The Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division reviewed Microsoft's advertising for its Copilot AI tools. NAD called out Microsoft's "universal use of the product description as 'Copilot'" and said "consumers would not necessarily understand the difference," according to a recent report from the watchdog.

"Microsoft is using 'Copilot' across all Microsoft Office applications and Business Chat, despite differences in functionality and the manual steps that are required for Business Chat to produce the same results as Copilot in a specific Microsoft Office app," NAD further explained in an email to BI. NAD did not mention any specific recommendations on product names. But it did say Microsoft should modify claims that Copilot works "seamlessly across all your data" because all of the company's tools with the Copilot moniker don't work together continuously in a way consumers might expect.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: OpenAI executives have discussed filing an antitrust complaint with US regulators against Microsoft, the company's largest investor, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, marking a dramatic escalation in tensions between the two long-term AI partners. OpenAI, which develops ChatGPT, has reportedly considered seeking a federal regulatory review of the terms of its contract with Microsoft for potential antitrust law violations, according to people familiar with the matter. The potential antitrust complaint would likely argue that Microsoft is using its dominant position in cloud services and contractual leverage to suppress competition, according to insiders who described it as a "nuclear option," the WSJ reports.

The move could unravel one of the most important business partnerships in the AI industry -- a relationship that started with a $1 billion investment by Microsoft in 2019 and has grown to include billions more in funding, along with Microsoft's exclusive rights to host OpenAI models on its Azure cloud platform. The friction centers on OpenAI's efforts to transition from its current nonprofit structure into a public benefit corporation, a conversion that needs Microsoft's approval to complete. The two companies have not been able to agree on details after months of negotiations, sources told Reuters. OpenAI's existing for-profit arm would become a Delaware-based public benefit corporation under the proposed restructuring.

The companies are discussing revising the terms of Microsoft's investment, including the future equity stake it will hold in OpenAI. According to The Information, OpenAI wants Microsoft to hold a 33 percent stake in a restructured unit in exchange for foregoing rights to future profits. The AI company also wants to modify existing clauses that give Microsoft exclusive rights to host OpenAI models in its cloud. The restructuring debate attracted criticism from multiple quarters. Elon Musk alleges that OpenAI violated contract provisions by prioritizing profit over the public good in its push to advance AI and has sued to block the conversion. In December, Meta Platforms also asked California's attorney general to block OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit company.

Meetings starting after 8 p.m. are up 16% compared to a year ago, and at 10 p.m. almost a third of active workers are still monitoring their inboxes, according to research from Microsoft. Bloomberg: The company's annual work trends study, which is based on aggregated and anonymized data from Microsoft 365 users and a global survey of 31,000 desk workers, also found that almost 20% of employees actively working weekends are checking email before noon on Saturdays and Sundays [non-paywalled source], while over 5% are active on email again on Sunday evenings, gearing up for the start of the work week.

[...] Meetings are often spontaneous. Some 57% of the gatherings tallied by Microsoft came together without a calendar invite, and even 10% of scheduled meetings were booked at the last minute. [...] Mass emails, those which loop in more than 20 participants, are on the rise, climbing 7% from last year.