Xbox pulls the plug on Ninja Theory

Xbox is closing Hellblade maker Ninja Theory

Anthropic fights the White House over Fable 5

Fox strikes a $22B deal to buy Roku

Last week's memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and content chief Matt Booty warned of a "reset," saying Xbox had "over extended" its studio system. Staff are hoping a buyer steps in.

Xbox spent over $20 billion on content, platform and hardware subsidies in five years, excluding Activision Blizzard King. Annual revenue still fell by nearly half a billion dollars over that time, the memo says.

Kotaku reported that Xbox planned to shut Compulsion Games, maker of the Peabody-winning South of Midnight. Its LinkedIn lists about 90 staff, and a source says leadership is negotiating.

Staff heard the news on a call Monday, just over a week after Xbox revealed a new Hellblade game, Senua, at its June 7 showcase. Senua's future is now unclear.

A US directive barred "any foreign national" from Mythos 5 and Fable 5, even Anthropic's own foreign staff. Anthropic found that disabling the models for everyone was the only way to comply.

Officials called around 1PM ET Friday with a 90-minute ultimatum to shut off access or face export controls. Anthropic executives were talking to the White House within 15 minutes, a source says.

Researcher Katie Moussouris says the trigger was a simple "fix this code" prompt, not a jailbreak, The Register reports. She says she was the only outside expert who read the paper.

Anthropic got the directive at 5:21PM on Friday, June 12. It flew its safeguards and red team leads to Washington, but Monday's talks ended with no resolution.

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch plans to keep the companies separate while adding Fox Sports, news and local stations to Roku. Roku makes most of its money from ads and streaming sign-up commissions.

Roku holders get $96 in cash plus about 0.97 Fox shares each, valuing the offer at $160 a share. That's a 33.7% premium, and Fox shares fell nearly 17%.

Founder Anthony Wood controls more than 55% of Roku's voting rights and stands to make as much as $3 billion, Reuters reported. He'll also get a seat on Fox's board.

Fox announced the deal Monday, and it's expected to close in 2027. Roku's board started the sale process earlier this year, with bankers at Qatalyst Partners contacting buyers.

SpaceX is buying Anysphere, the startup behind AI coding agent Cursor, for $60 billion in stock. The deal should close in the third quarter. SpaceX shares jumped 10% early on, up more than 56% from the $135 IPO price.

DeepSeek raised more than 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) at a valuation over $50 billion, The Information reported. Investors put money into a partnership run by CEO Liang Wenfeng, with a five-year lock-up and no votes. China's state AI fund is the only exception.

Alibaba unveiled its first suite of AI models for robots, as China's tech industry shifts from chatbots to agents. The Qwen-Robot series covers manipulation, navigation and a world model, Gasgoo reports.

SoftBank launched "Patching as a Service," a product to counter AI-enabled breaches, through its Japanese joint venture with OpenAI. Masayoshi Son says it'll help defend critical Japanese infrastructure. About 50 people work on the rollout, growing to about 1,000.

France said its domestic intelligence agency, DGSI, will replace Palantir's tools with French rival ChapsVision. Palantir says its contract remains in force, and its tools stay in use until the switch, which could take years.

The European Commission said it's still in contact with Anthropic about "other issues" and its decision to disable its most advanced models. Anthropic turned the models off for all users after a US order to block foreign nationals.

Google is closing the last loopholes that let old Manifest V2 ad blockers like uBlock Origin run in Chrome, 9to5Google reports. Chrome 150 and 151, due in late June and July, remove the remaining workarounds.

Italy's competition regulator opened an investigation into Apple, saying rival cloud services can't reach the same iOS and iPadOS components as iCloud. It's the watchdog's first probe under the EU's Digital Markets Act. Findings will go to the European Commission.

The UK announced a social media ban for under-16s, covering apps like TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. It could start early next year. Kids also won't be able to talk to strangers in online games.

SpaceX passed Amazon's market value on Tuesday and briefly topped Microsoft's, fueled by frenzied options trading. Shares closed up 4.8% at $201.80, a value of about $2.655 trillion, roughly $10 billion more than Amazon.

Meta said Threads passed 500 million monthly active users, just shy of the app's third birthday. It's taking communities out of beta and launching "Your Algo," which lets people privately tell Threads what to change in their feed.

AI data centers are getting dozens of large off-grid power plants approved fast, often in secret, a Reuters review found. Many skip the usual years of permits and public hearings, and some developers use non-disclosure deals or shell companies.

Verizon unveiled simpler plans and a loyalty program that drops activation and upgrade fees for postpaid customers who opt in. From July, members get 3% back on bills to spend on new phones or brands like Starbucks.

Florida sued TikTok, saying it breaks a state law that bars kids under 14 from opening social media accounts. It also accuses TikTok of downplaying violent and sexual content. TikTok says it told Florida users under 14 their accounts will be suspended.

India blocked Telegram until June 22, saying cheating rackets used it to defraud students before a medical entrance re-exam on June 21. The ban is unprecedented in India, and last month's exam was cancelled over alleged leaks.

MSI confirmed its new Claw 8 EX AI Plus gaming handheld starts at $1,699 at Best Buy, an "early bird" price. Once first batches sell out, MSI expects stores to charge $1,799, like its own US store.