Microsoft is laying off about 4,800 employees, approximately 2.1 percent of its workforce, with most of the cuts in commercial sales and Xbox.
The Verge reported that about 1,600 Xbox roles are affected immediately, while an Xbox memo says the division plans roughly 3,200 role eliminations through FY27. The Xbox changes include Double Fine and Compulsion Games returning to independent management, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs moving to new ownership, and Arkane entering a French works-council consultation over strategic options; the memo quoted by The Verge says no publicly announced first-party games are being canceled as part of the reductions.
Featured source: The Verge , The Verge layoffs report .
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Agility Robotics plans SPAC listing through Churchill Capital Corp XI
Agility Robotics announced a definitive business-combination agreement with Churchill Capital Corp XI that would take the humanoid-robotics company public at a $2.5 billion pre-money equity value. The company said the transaction is expected to bring more than $620 million in gross proceeds, including about $200 million in PIPE financing, and that proceeds would support customer orders, deployments, and Digit v5 production.
Filed from: TechCrunch , Agility Robotics .
Google will use IP addresses for ads in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland
TechRadar reports that Google will begin using IP addresses for advertising measurement and personalization in the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland from August 2026. BleepingComputer previously reported that Google notified advertisers the change would start on or shortly after August 3, 2026, and said Google plans to register under IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework Feature 3.
Filed from: TechRadar , BleepingComputer , Google EU User Consent Policy .
Even Realities raises $150 million for camera-free smart glasses
Even Realities, a Shenzhen startup founded in 2023 by former Apple engineers, raised a $150 million pre-Series B round led by Meituan and Tencent at a reported $1 billion valuation. TechCrunch reports that the company sells display-first smart glasses without a camera, with its G2 frames controlled by the companion Even R1 ring and priced at $599 before tax.
Filed from: TechCrunch .
Station F expands F/ai with six new partners and a US week
Station F’s F/ai program is adding ElevenLabs, Nebius, Rippling, OpenRouter, HubSpot, and GitHub as partners for its second cohort, TechCrunch reports. Station F’s own announcement says the cohort starts in September 2026 and adds a week in San Francisco for participants to meet US-based partner teams.
Filed from: TechCrunch , Station F .
China web-novel platforms set limits on AI writing
Rest of World reports that Chinese web novel platforms owned by Tencent, ByteDance, and Baidu are restricting AI-generated fiction after reader complaints about low-quality automated stories and author concerns about plagiarism. The story says ByteDance’s Tomato Novel capped daily publishing volume per account and rejected more than 104,000 low-quality submissions in June, including AI-written work.
Filed from: Rest of World .
EY staff fired after alleged access to Australian prime minister’s banking data
The Register reported that EY Australia fired two staff after they allegedly accessed banking details connected to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese while working on a Commonwealth Bank contract. ABC News reported that Australian Federal Police charged two Sydney men in May after the bank allegedly identified unauthorized access to restricted information belonging to a federal politician; both cases were adjourned to August 25.
Filed from: The Register , ABC News .
sqlite-utils 4.0rc3 ships compound foreign-key support
Simon Willison released sqlite-utils 4.0rc3, a release candidate for the Python CLI and library for manipulating SQLite databases. The release notes say the update adds compound foreign-key creation and introspection, changes table.foreign_keys to return dataclass objects, and makes Python API column matching case-insensitive in line with SQLite identifier behavior.
Filed from: Simon Willison , GitHub release .
South Korea’s chip boom reshapes worker pay and status
MIT Technology Review reports that SK Hynix and Samsung workers have received large chip-boom payouts as demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators lifts semiconductor profits. The story says SK Hynix agreed to distribute 10% of operating profits to employees, while Samsung reached a similar payout agreement in May.
Filed from: MIT Technology Review .
Alibaba reportedly bans internal Claude Code use
TechRadar reports that Alibaba told employees to stop using Anthropic’s Claude Code internally from July 10, 2026, and to use Alibaba’s Qoder assistant instead. TechCrunch separately reported on July 4 that Alibaba would ban Claude Code, and TechRadar says neither Alibaba nor Anthropic had publicly commented on the ban at publication time.
Filed from: TechRadar , TechCrunch .
Bentley names its first EV the Torcal
Bentley announced that its first electric vehicle will be called the Torcal, with a London reveal set for September 23, 2026. Ars Technica reports that the vehicle will be Bentley’s fourth model line and will use Volkswagen Group’s PPE electric architecture.
Filed from: Ars Technica , Bentley .
