BRAD SMITH

Microsoft’s charm offensive with the world’s governments is starting to lose some of its luster as the software giant is confronting its toughest antitrust scrutiny since co-founder Bill Gates was in charge.

Microsoft’s Xbox video game division has announced new partnerships with Nintendo and chipmaker Nvidia.

Microsoft has agreed to make the hit video game Call of Duty available on Nintendo for 10 years should its $69 billion purchase of game maker Activision Blizzard go through.

Ukraine is counting on more Western technological support as its war against Russia drags on, with Microsoft pledging to extend its backing for Kyiv through the end of next year.

Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy video game company Activision Blizzard faces an in-depth antitrust investigation in Britain after the tech company refused to offer proposals to ease competition concerns.

Microsoft’s plan to buy video game company Activision Blizzard faces a potential setback after British regulators said their antitrust inquiry needed to take a closer look at the blockbuster deal after identifying competition concerns.

Microsoft’s plan to buy video game giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion could have major effects on the gaming industry, transforming the Xbox maker into something like a Netflix for video games by giving it control of many more popular titles.

Microsoft says “strategic espionage” by state-backed Russian hackers has targeted government agencies, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Ukraine.

A program offering cash incentives for out-of-state workers to move to West Virginia has welcomed its second round of new residents.

Mike Westhoff has always been blunt and brutally honest.

A Senate hearing on Wednesday is likely to produce fireworks as Republicans and Democrats square off over the role that foundations and nonprofits are playing in elections.

Russia has some of the best hackers in the world, but in the early days of the war in Ukraine, its ability to create mayhem through malware hasn’t had much of a noticeable impact.

Internet giants, including social media apps Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, joined some world leaders to issue a global call to better protect children online at a Paris summit on Thursday.

Microsoft has confirmed that executives in 2008 warned Bill Gates to stop sending flirtatious emails to a female employee but dropped the matter after he told them he would stop.

A new effort in Northwest Arkansas offering $10,000 incentives to new residents is part of an increasing number of philanthropy-financed projects trying to spark economic development, promote civic and cultural life, attract skilled workers, and offset declining or sparse populations.

Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year.

When U.S. law enforcement officials need to cast a wide net for information, they’re increasingly turning to the vast digital ponds of personal data created by Big Tech companies via the devices and online services that have hooked billions of people around the world.

Microsoft is pledging to allow business and public sector customers in the European Union keep cloud computing data inside the 27-nation bloc to avert concerns about U.S. government access to sensitive information.

The sprawling hacking campaign came to be known as SolarWinds, for the company whose software update was seeded by Russian intelligence agents with malware to penetrate government and private networks.

Microsoft says it has won a nearly $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with its virtual reality headsets. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)Microsoft won a nearly $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with its augmented reality headsets. Microsoft and the Army separately announced the deal Wednesday. The technology is based on Microsoft's HoloLens headsets, which were originally intended for the video game and entertainment industries. The new contract will enable Microsoft to mass produce units for more than 120,000 soldiers in the Army Close Combat Force.

FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia, SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna and Microsoft President Brad Smith testify during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 in Washington. In the first congressional hearing on the breach, representatives of technology companies involved in the response described a hack of almost breathtaking precision, ambition and scope. “We haven’t seen this kind of sophistication matched with this kind of scale,” Microsoft President Brad Smith told the Senate Intelligence Committee. U.S. national security officials have also said Russia was likely responsible for the breach, and President Joe Biden's administration is weighing punitive measures against Russia for the hack as well as other activities. Officials have said the motive for the hack, which was discovered by private security company FireEye in December, appeared to be to gather intelligence.

This marks the first time in the movement’s nearly eight-year history that BLM leaders have revealed a detailed look at their finances. The foundation said it committed $21.7 million in grant funding to official and unofficial BLM chapters, as well as 30 Black-led local organizations. In its report, the BLM foundation said individual donations via its main fundraising platform averaged $30.76. “Because the BLM movement was larger than life — and it is larger than life — people made very huge assumptions about what our actual finances looked like,” Cullors said. Leaders at the BLM foundation admit that they have not been clear about the movement’s finances and governance over the years.

Australias Parliament will debate making Google and Facebook pay for news after a Senate committee on Friday, Feb. 12, 2021 recommended no changes to the world-first draft laws. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)CANBERRA – Australia’s Parliament will debate making Google and Facebook pay for news after a Senate committee on Friday recommended no changes to drafts of the world’s first such laws. Australia's proposed code aims to make Google and Facebook pay Australian media companies fairly for using news content the tech giants source from news sites. AdBut Google is resisting the Australian plan because it would have less control over how much it would have to pay. Google announced last week that it had begun paying seven Australian news websites under its own model, Google News Showcase.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also welcomed the support of Google rival Microsoft, which has touted Australia’s proposed laws that would make Google and Facebook pay as an example for the rest of the world. Google regional director Mel Silva told a Senate hearing last month that the company would likely make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the so-called News Media Bargaining Code forced Google and Facebook to pay for Australian news. While Google and Facebook have condemned the legislation as unworkable, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his business would be willing to pay for news if its search engine increased Australian market share. The law would initially only apply to Google and Facebook, but the government could add other platforms in the future if Google abandoned Australia. AdAlthough Bing is Australia’s second most popular search engine, it has only a 3.6% market share.

Microsoft says it supports Australia's plans to make the biggest digital platforms pay for news and would help small businesses transfer their advertising to Bing if Google quits the country. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)CANBERRA – Microsoft said on Wednesday it supports Australia’s plans to make the biggest digital platforms pay for news and would help small businesses transfer their advertising to Bing if Google quits the country. Morrison this week confirmed he had spoken to Nadella about Bing replacing Google in Australia. There are no plans to make smaller search engines such as Bing pay for linking users to Australian news, but the government has not ruled that option out. AdBut Google is resisting the Australian plan because it would have less control over how much it would have to pay.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, arrives for the opening of the first virtual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit, hosted by Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)KUALA LUMPUR – Leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, including U.S. President Donald Trump, pledged Friday to work toward free, open and non-discriminatory trade and investment to revive their coronavirus-battered economies. The APEC leaders’ meeting was the first since 2018 after last year’s host, Chile, canceled the annual summit due to violent domestic protests. Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his remarks, urged countries to “defend multilateralism” and called for the establishment of an “Asia-Pacific free trade zone at an early date." APEC leaders adopted the Putrajaya Vision 2040, a new 20-year growth vision to replace the Bogor Goals named after the Indonesian town where leaders agreed in 1994 to free and open trade and investment.

But a $750 million commitment by a partnership backed in part by Microsoft's affordable housing initiative helped do the trick. Urban Housing Ventures is cutting rents at 40% of the units in three buildings as part of an effort to make sure teachers, nurses and other middle-income professionals can live in the communities where they work. In August, Baker moved into her new apartment in one of three complexes recently purchased by Urban Housing Ventures, a partnership backed in part by Microsoft's affordable housing initiative. But building new affordable housing takes time. Urban Housing Ventures is immediately cutting rents for residents who earn 60% to 80% of the area's median income.

(AP Photo/Hans Pennink)BOSTON – Microsoft said it has detected attempts by state-backed Russian and North Korean hackers to steal valuable data from leading pharmaceutical companies and vaccine researchers. Chinese state-backed hackers have also been targeting vaccine-makers, the U.S. government said in July while announcing criminal charges. Two others were North Korea’s Lazarus Group and a group Microsoft calls Cerium. The Lazarus Group posed as job recruiters while Cerium targeted spear-phishing emails that masqueraded as missives from World Health Organization representatives, Microsoft said. Optimism about a COVID-19 vaccine has grown since pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced earlier this week that preliminary data showed its vaccine to be 90% effective.

Microsoft has announced plans to build three data centers in greater Athens, providing a badly needed investment of up to $1 billion to the Greek economy which has been hammered by the pandemic. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)ATHENS – Microsoft has announced plans to build three data center sites in greater Athens, providing a badly needed investment of up to $1 billion to the Greek economy which has been hammered by the pandemic. "The creation of a data center upgrades a country as an investment destination ... Greece has the sun and now it’s getting a cloud.”Microsoft currently has data centers in 26 countries, including seven in the European Union. Microsoft officials said the timetable for the development of the data center in Greece was still being worked out, but added added that the process in other countries typically took about two years. Greece, the officials said, would comply with Microsoft's pledge to run all its data centers worldwide on renewable energy sources by 2025.

Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it wont sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM. Weve decided we will not sell facial recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology, Smith said. Smith said Thursday that Microsoft currently doesn't sell its face recognition software to any U.S. police departments. Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are calling on Congress to set national rules over how police use facial recognition something that's now being considered as part of a police reform package sparked by the protests following Floyd's death. "We need Congress to act, not just tech companies alone.