WW 838: Dabbling with Farclas - FTC double-defeated, ASUS saves the NUC, Gates on AI concerns

It's happening! Microsoft will absolutely acquire Activision Blizzard

An amazing (ahem) blizzard of activity on the acquisition front leaves Microsoft on the verge of consummating this deal. It's amazing how much has happened since last week.

FTC appealed its court loss and was immediately defeated again

UK CMA extends deadline for its review of Microsoft's new concessions

Microsoft and Sony agree to a Call of Duty deal (!) - not clear if it's for 10 years

UK court formally pauses CMA block of AB acquisition so the two sides can negotiate

Microsoft and Activision agreed to extend the acquisition deadline to October 18 to accommodate the CMA

Windows

Windows 11 23H2 will be deployed as an enablement package, virtually providing our theories that 23H2 = Moment 4.

Tied to this, Microsoft finally explains how it updates Windows now, literally 8 years after the release of Windows 10. It's easy to be cynical, but a Microsoft whitepaper offers a lot of overdue transparency about updating

Insider Program: New Dev build today. Passwordless for Windows Hello Business, local file sharing improvements, Outlook now an inbox app

Insider Program: New Beta and Release Preview builds out last week.

Beta is 23H2. Galley view in Explorer, new Paint app

Release Preview is 22H2, just fixes

The NUC lives!

Microsoft has a new font

An AI told you so

Microsoft announces Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing (for commercial) and it is exactly as expensive as we warned

Bing Chat adds visual search support

Bill Gates dismisses the dangers of AI. "We've done this before."

FTC is investigating OpenAI

Xbox

Xbox Game Pass Core to replace Xbox Live Gold in September

The next Game Pass titles for July

Game Pass Friends and Family Preview is ending in August

More fun retro gaming as Anstream Arcade is coming to Xbox on July 21

Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Enable passkeys in GitHub

Book of the week: John Romero wrote a book

RunAs this week: Securing Sprawling Services with Karinne Bessette

Brown liquor pick of the week: Glenfarclas 12

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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