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Microsoft has invested huge amounts of capital and time into making cloud gaming a core part of its gaming offering.

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When Microsoft announced its offer to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, it marked one of the biggest acquisitions in video game history — and the largest-ever deal for the Redmond, Washington-based technology giant.

There were lots of reasons for the U.S. tech giant to buy Activision. Activision owns a multitude of popular game franchises — Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush Saga.

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Microsoft would gain a host of content to add to its Xbox gaming division. And it would add a slew of talent to its in-house game studios that could help with developing new games.

But the key one, and the thing Microsoft is betting its gaming future on, was cloud gaming — and that’s what ultimately threw a spanner in the works for the company’s multibillion-dollar bid to swallow Activision when U.K. regulators chose to block the deal Wednesday.

What is cloud gaming?

Cloud gaming is a technology that lets people play games from any device with an internet connection – a console, PC, smart TV, or a mobile phone — from a far-flung data center.

Traditionally, you’d need some dedicated hardware to play a game, like an expensive console or PC.

Things have gotten better over time with advances in smartphones, and there are now even major studio-quality games that can be played on phones, like Call of Duty Mobile.

But what cloud gaming offers — that makes it a differentiator — is a service on which you can stream a selection of titles in real time from a company’s remote data centers, just like you would a movie or TV show on Netflix.

Microsoft has invested huge amounts of capital and time into making cloud gaming a core part of its gaming offering. The company added cloud gaming as a free perk within its Xbox Game Pass subscription product, which offers people access to a multitude of titles for a monthly fee.

Cloud gaming could benefit consumers in developing markets where consoles and PCs are too expensive to own.

Microsoft has lost ground to console rivals — particularly Sony — over the years. In the last generation of consoles, Sony won the infamous “console wars” with its PlayStation 4 machine, which topped Microsoft’s Xbox One in terms of lifetime sales.

With the current generation of consoles, which were launched in November 2020, it has been more of the same. The PS5 has sold 32 million units to date, according to its latest quarterly numbers.

Microsoft doesn’t publish unit sales in its results, however an estimate from the video game data website VGC places lifetime sales of its Xbox Series X and S consoles just north of 20 million units.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined the vision the company has for cloud gaming and its incorporation of Activision Blizzard in an interview with CNBC’s Tanvir Gill in November.

Watch CNBC's full interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

“We want people to be able to enjoy the games they love on platforms they are playing in. And that’s our goal,” Nadella said.

“We love the console, the Xbox, we love the PC, we love mobile. We love xCloud, which is the streaming service, so that you can even play on your television and what have you.”

“Activision is a fantastic partner of ours today that we want to be able to sort of take all the content and make sure it’s available on every platform,” he added.

Why the CMA is concerned

Activision Blizzard CEO on blocked merger: It was a flawed ruling in every respect

In addition to Xbox, Microsoft also owns Azure, the cloud computing platform, which is used by thousands of companies for their data storage and computing power needs.

“While Microsoft has formed partnerships with third party cloud gaming providers to bring select ABK titles to their services, this does not necessarily mean these companies will be receiving unrestricted access to those games by default,” analyst firm Omdia said in emailed comments to CNBC.

“There will still be licensing terms, fees and conditions that operators have to pay – fees which Microsoft will have absorbed in a different way as part of the acquisition itself.”

“Microsoft also owns the Azure infrastructure that powers Xbox Cloud Gaming and other third party cloud services, who will be paying for every minute and every user provided by the Azure backend,” Omdia added.

“This should ensure that ten years down the line – when cloud gaming has a much larger addressable market – Microsoft will face lower operating costs than competing services.”

Cloud gaming isn’t perfect

Ultimately though, cloud gaming is still in its infancy. The technology requires a strong internet connection to function well, otherwise gamers face drops in performance and latency issues.

Shooters and fighting games are particularly demanding in terms of responsiveness.

Google notably killed its cloud gaming service, Google Stadia, in September only three years after launching it following struggles to find the right product-market fit for the platform.

Cloud gaming also isn’t a huge market. Cloud-enabled gaming services generated $5.1 billion of revenue in 2022, according to data from Omdia, less than 15% of the $35 billion made by console game sales.

But the CMA’s worry is that Microsoft could throttle the industry going forward as it becomes a more mass market technology. Cloud gaming revenues tripled in 2022 year-on-year, according to the CMA.

“What the CMA is doing is taking a forward-looking view on the matter, taking into account concerns of where cloud gaming lands in the future, relative to its small size today,” Omdia said.

“Our projection is that cloud gaming is growing rapidly, with revenue more than doubling by 2026.”

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Tesla must pay portion of $329 million in damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

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Tesla must pay portion of 9 million in damages after fatal Autopilot crash, jury says

A jury in Miami has determined that Tesla should be held partly liable for a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash, and must compensate the family of the deceased and an injured survivor a portion of $329 million in damages.

Tesla’s payout is based on $129 million in compensatory damages, and $200 million in punitive damages against the company.

The jury determined Tesla should be held 33% responsible for the fatal crash. That means the automaker would be responsible for about $42.5 million in compensatory damages. In cases like these, punitive damages are typically capped at three times compensatory damages.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys told CNBC on Friday that because punitive damages were only assessed against Tesla, they expect the automaker to pay the full $200 million, bringing total payments to around $242.5 million.

Tesla said it plans to appeal the decision.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had asked the jury to award damages based on $345 million in total damages. The trial in the Southern District of Florida started on July 14.

The suit centered around who shouldered the blame for the deadly crash in Key Largo, Florida. A Tesla owner named George McGee was driving his Model S electric sedan while using the company’s Enhanced Autopilot, a partially automated driving system.

While driving, McGee dropped his mobile phone that he was using and scrambled to pick it up. He said during the trial that he believed Enhanced Autopilot would brake if an obstacle was in the way. His Model S accelerated through an intersection at just over 60 miles per hour, hitting a nearby empty parked car and its owners, who were standing on the other side of their vehicle.

Naibel Benavides, who was 22, died on the scene from injuries sustained in the crash. Her body was discovered about 75 feet away from the point of impact. Her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, survived but suffered multiple broken bones, a traumatic brain injury and psychological effects.

“Tesla designed Autopilot only for controlled access highways yet deliberately chose not to restrict drivers from using it elsewhere, alongside Elon Musk telling the world Autopilot drove better than humans,” Brett Schreiber, counsel for the plaintiffs, said in an e-mailed statement on Friday. “Tesla’s lies turned our roads into test tracks for their fundamentally flawed technology, putting everyday Americans like Naibel Benavides and Dillon Angulo in harm’s way.”

Following the verdict, the plaintiffs’ families hugged each other and their lawyers, and Angulo was “visibly emotional” as he embraced his mother, according to NBC.

Here is Tesla’s response to CNBC:

“Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial.

Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash.

This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver – from day one – admitted and accepted responsibility.”

The verdict comes as Musk, Tesla’s CEO, is trying to persuade investors that his company can pivot into a leader in autonomous vehicles, and that its self-driving systems are safe enough to operate fleets of robotaxis on public roads in the U.S.

Tesla shares dipped 1.8% on Friday and are now down 25% for the year, the biggest drop among tech’s megacap companies.

The verdict could set a precedent for Autopilot-related suits against Tesla. About a dozen active cases are underway focused on similar claims involving incidents where Autopilot or Tesla’s FSD— Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — had been in use just before a fatal or injurious crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initiated a probe in 2021 into possible safety defects in Tesla’s Autopilot systems. During the course of that investigation, Tesla made changes, including a number of over-the-air software updates.

The agency then opened a second probe, which is ongoing, evaluating whether Tesla’s “recall remedy” to resolve issues with the behavior of its Autopilot, especially around stationary first responder vehicles, had been effective.

The NHTSA has also warned Tesla that its social media posts may mislead drivers into thinking its cars are capable of functioning as robotaxis, even though owners manuals say the cars require hands-on steering and a driver attentive to steering and braking at all times.

A site that tracks Tesla-involved collisions, TeslaDeaths.com, has reported at least 58 deaths resulting from incidents where Tesla drivers had Autopilot engaged just before impact.

Read the jury’s verdict below.

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Crypto wobbles into August as Trump’s new tariffs trigger risk-off sentiment

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Crypto wobbles into August as Trump's new tariffs trigger risk-off sentiment

A screen showing the price of various cryptocurrencies against the US dollar displayed at a Crypto Panda cryptocurrency store in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. 

Lam Yik | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The crypto market slid Friday after President Donald Trump unveiled his modified “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries.

The price of bitcoin showed relative strength, hovering at the flat line while ether, XRP and Binance Coin fell 2% each. Overnight, bitcoin dropped to a low of $114,110.73.

The descent triggered a wave of long liquidations, which forces traders to sell their assets at market price to settle their debts, pushing prices lower. Bitcoin saw $172 million in liquidations across centralized exchanges in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, and ether saw $210 million.

Crypto-linked stocks suffered deeper losses. Coinbase led the way, down 15% following its disappointing second-quarter earnings report. Circle fell 4%, Galaxy Digital lost 2%, and ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion was down 8%. Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy was down by 5%.

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Bitcoin falls below $115,000

The stock moves came amid a new wave of risk off sentiment after President Trump issued new tariffs ranging between 10% and 41%, triggering worries about increasing inflation and the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut interest rates. In periods of broad based derisking, crypto tends to get hit as investors pull out of the most speculative and volatile assets. Technical resilience and institutional demand for bitcoin and ether are helping support their prices.

“After running red hot in July, this is a healthy strategic cooldown. Markets aren’t reacting to a crisis, they’re responding to the lack of one,” said Ben Kurland, CEO at crypto research platform DYOR. “With no new macro catalyst on the horizon, capital is rotating out of speculative assets and into safer ground … it’s a calculated pause.”

Crypto is coming off a winning month but could soon hit the brakes amid the new macro uncertainty, and in a month usually characterized by lower trading volumes and increased volatility. Bitcoin gained 8% in July, according to Coin Metrics, while ether surged more than 49%.

Ether ETFs saw more than $5 billion in inflows in July alone (with just a single day of outflows of $1.8 million on July 2), bringing it’s total cumulative inflows to $9.64 to date. Bitcoin ETFs saw $114 million in outflows in the final trading session of July, bringing its monthly inflows to about $6 billion out of a cumulative $55 billion.

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Google has dropped more than 50 DEI-related organizations from its funding list

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Google has dropped more than 50 DEI-related organizations from its funding list

Google CEO Sundar Pichai gestures to the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 20, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google has purged more than 50 organizations related to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, from a list of organizations that the tech company provides funding to, according to a new report.

The company has removed a total of 214 groups from its funding list while adding 101, according to a new report from tech watchdog organization The Tech Transparency Project. The watchdog group cites the most recent public list of organizations that receive the most substantial contributions from Google’s U.S. Government Affairs and Public Policy team.

The largest category of purged groups were DEI-related, with a total of 58 groups removed from Google’s funding list, TTP found. The dropped groups had mission statements that included the words “diversity, “equity,” “inclusion,” or “race,” “activism,” and “women.” Those are also terms the Trump administration officials have reportedly told federal agencies to limit or avoid.

In response to the report, Google spokesperson José Castañeda told CNBC that the list reflects contributions made in 2024 and that it does not reflect all contributions made by other teams within the company.

“We contribute to hundreds of groups from across the political spectrum that advocate for pro-innovation policies, and those groups change from year to year based on where our contributions will have the most impact,” Castañeda said in an email.

Organizations that were removed from Google’s list include the African American Community Service Agency, which seeks to “empower all Black and historically excluded communities”; the Latino Leadership Alliance, which is dedicated to “race equity affecting the Latino community”; and Enroot, which creates out-of-school experiences for immigrant kids. 

The organization funding purge is the latest to come as Google began backtracking some of its commitments to DEI over the last couple of years. That pull back came due to cost cutting to prioritize investments into artificial intelligence technology as well as the changing political and legal landscape amid increasing national anti-DEI policies.

Over the past decade, Silicon Valley and other industries used DEI programs to root out bias in hiring, promote fairness in the workplace and advance the careers of women and people of color — demographics that have historically been overlooked in the workplace.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to end affirmative action at colleges led to additional backlash against DEI programs in conservative circles.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order upon taking office in January to end the government’s DEI programs and directed federal agencies to combat what the administration considers “illegal” private-sector DEI mandates, policies and programs. Shortly after, Google’s Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi told employees that the company would end DEI-related hiring “aspirational goals” due to new federal requirements and Google’s categorization as a federal contractor.

Despite DEI becoming such a divisive term, many companies are continuing the work but using different language or rolling the efforts under less-charged terminology, like “learning” or “hiring.”

Even Google CEO Sundar Pichai maintained the importance diversity plays in its workforce at an all-hands meeting in March.

“We’re a global company, we have users around the world, and we think the best way to serve them well is by having a workforce that represents that diversity,” Pichai said at the time.

One of the groups dropped from Google’s contributions list is the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which provides training, assistance, and public awareness campaigns on the issue of violence against women, the TTP report found. The group had been on Google’s list of funded organizations for at least nine years and continues to name the company as one of its corporate partners.

Google said it still gave $75,000 to the National Network to End Domestic Violence in 2024 but did not say why the group was removed from the public contributions list.

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