Microsoft

Microsoft Celebrates 20 Years of Xbox and Halo

2021 marks 20 years of Xbox and Halo, as the original Xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved launched in North America on November 15, 2001. Microsoft is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Xbox and Halo starting today and through November 15, 2021. The company wants fans to use #Xbox20 on social media to share their favorite…

Published 4 years ago in
Microsoft Celebrates 20 Years of Xbox and Halo

2021 marks 20 years of Xbox and Halo, as the original Xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved launched in North America on November 15, 2001.
Microsoft is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Xbox and Halo starting today and through November 15, 2021. The company wants fans to use #Xbox20 on social media to share their favorite Xbox moments, stories, friendships, prized possessions, achievements, and more. 
The first wave of 20th anniversary Xbox merchandise is available on the Xbox Gear Shop, as well as free anniversary-themed wallpapers. You can register for  Xbox FanFest to participate in 20th anniversary FanFest activities. Xbox Series X|S owners can use a new dynamic theme based on the original Xbox main menu.

Read the Xbox Wire post below:
Do you remember where you were when you played your first Xbox game?
It may be hard to believe, but this year will mark the 20th anniversary of Xbox. I’m proud to have been a member of Team Xbox for 17 of those 20 years!  The original Xbox console was released in North America on November 15, 2001, followed by many more launches all around the world including Japan, Australia, Europe, Latin America, China, and more! 
Twenty years ago, playing on Xbox meant hooking up your console with three (or more!) cables to a standard definition CRT TV.  You had to pre-order the hottest new games and stand in line at your favorite retail shop to pick them up. Games were played in 640×480 resolution, and you only had 8GB of storage and 64MB of memory to enjoy them with. And you either played alone or with a friend sitting next to you on the couch.
Two Decades of Gaming
The Xbox experience today, as shaped by you, is wildly different. You can now jump into your favorite games on your Xbox Series X|S console (imagine showing your past self a 4K HDR game!), on PC, or on mobile*. You and your friends can play with and against the more than 100 million players who log into Xbox every month from around the world. And there’s no more convincing every person in the group to go out and buy a big game. If you all have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can pick the destination from a variety of games in the catalog and just start playing. We love this gaming future.
Thanks to game creators and players like you, we have a greater variety of games and diverse characters  – with more worlds to explore, stories to tell, heroes and villains to meet, and achievements to unlock – in the 7 thousand games that have been released across the Xbox platform. Do you remember unlocking your first Xbox achievement? To-date, you and the Xbox community together have racked up nearly 1 trillion total Gamerscore. Most importantly, you’ve worked together to change the face of gaming by welcoming players from all walks of life, everywhere in the world. 

The Game That Started It All
This year not only commemorates 20 years of Xbox, but it also marks the 20th anniversary of the Halo franchise. That magical moment when the Master Chief first stepped on to a mysterious ringworld has long been a hallmark of the Xbox experience, and over the last 20 years, Halo has become deeply embedded into the Xbox DNA. We’re thrilled to celebrate this milestone, as well as the launch of Halo Infinite, with our players this Fall.
Celebrating Together
As we approach the 20-Year mark, it has never been clearer that the heart of Xbox is you. And we are excited to celebrate this milestone together. 

The celebration starts today and continues through November 15, 2021. 

#Xbox20: This celebration is all about you, and we want to hear what Xbox means to you. Use #Xbox20 on social media to share your favorite Xbox moments, stories, friendships, prized possessions, achievements… anything! We’ll be asking loads of questions on Xbox social channels and spotlighting your answers through November 15, so keep an eye out.
Check out the Xbox Gear Shop for the first wave of Xbox 20th Anniversary official gear.
Show off your Xbox and Halo love with free anniversary-themed wallpapers.
Register today for Xbox FanFest to participate in 20th Anniversary FanFest activities including exclusive sweepstakes, FanFest gear, and digital experiences.
Personalize your Xbox experience: check out the new 20-Year gamerpic and “The Original” profile theme in your “Customize Profile” menu.  For Xbox Series X|S owners, “The Original” dynamic background is available in the Personalization menu. 
Looking for something new to play? Check out this collection featuring some of the greatest games that have marked Xbox history. You can also find the game collection on your Xbox console by searching for “Xbox Anniversary” in the Store.
Join us today at Twitch.tv/Xbox at 11am PT / 2pm ET to kick off the celebration with our livestreaming hosts as they reminisce about two decades of gaming while playing the game that started it all – Halo: Combat Evolved via the Halo: Master Chief Collection.
We’ll keep the fun going through November with more announcements, activities, and ways to celebrate.  Visit xbox.com/20Years for up-to-date details on anniversary activities throughout the year.

We’ll have more fun to share as we get closer to the November 15th anniversary date. Keep an eye out here on Xbox Wire or at xbox.com/20years for the latest updates.
Looking Ahead
Whether you have been an Xbox fan since day one or joined Xbox for the first time this week, we are humbled and excited to be a part of the Xbox community with you. As we reminisce together about the memories we’ve shared over 20 years, we also can’t help but be excited about what’s next for Xbox. Imagine what we will do together over the next 20 years! 

*Where available, requires Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let’s Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.Full Article – https://www.vgchartz.com/article/448764/microsoft-celebrates-20-years-of-xbox-and-halo/
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Microsoft

Market Veteran Raoul Pal Predicts Ethereum Comeback Against Bitcoin with Donald Trump’s Victory

Crypto market expert Raoul Pal believes Trump could create a more favorable regulatory environment, which might help Ethereum outperform Bitcoin. Pal compares Ethereum to Microsoft in its early days, saying its reliability and widespread adoption make it a top choice for traditional finance institutions. Pal acknowledges that while Ethereum has strengths…

Published 1 week ago in
Market Veteran Raoul Pal Predicts Ethereum Comeback Against Bitcoin with Donald Trump’s Victory

Crypto market expert Raoul Pal believes Trump could create a more favorable regulatory environment, which might help Ethereum outperform Bitcoin.
Pal compares Ethereum to Microsoft in its early days, saying its reliability and widespread adoption make it a top choice for traditional finance institutions.
Pal acknowledges that while Ethereum has strengths…
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Microsoft

Microsoft’s decision on Bitcoin could trigger shareholder lawsuit

Key Takeaways Microsoft shareholders will vote in December on a proposal driven by the NCPPR regarding Bitcoin investment. NCPPR warns that Microsoft’s decision not to invest in Bitcoin could lead to shareholder litigation if Bitcoin’s value rises. Share this article Microsoft shareholders will vote in December on whether the company should assess investing in Bitcoin

Published 2 weeks ago in
Microsoft’s decision on Bitcoin could trigger shareholder lawsuit

Key Takeaways

  • Microsoft shareholders will vote in December on a proposal driven by the NCPPR regarding Bitcoin investment.
  • NCPPR warns that Microsoft’s decision not to invest in Bitcoin could lead to shareholder litigation if Bitcoin’s value rises.

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Microsoft shareholders will vote in December on whether the company should assess investing in Bitcoin, a proposal driven by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR).

According to a report by Cointelegraph, the NCPPR warns that Microsoft could face shareholder litigation if it decides against Bitcoin investment and the digital asset’s value subsequently rises.

“If Microsoft publicly decides it’s not in shareholders’ best interest to buy Bitcoin, and then Bitcoin’s value rises, shareholders may have grounds to sue,” Ethan Peck, deputy director of NCPPR’s Free Enterprise Project, told Cointelegraph.

Microsoft’s board has recommended shareholders vote against the proposal, stating they already evaluate a “wide range of investable assets,” including Bitcoin.

In its proposal to Microsoft, the NCPPR highlighted MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin investment strategy, noting that it has outperformed Microsoft by over 300% this year despite conducting a fraction of Microsoft’s business volume.

The research center also highlighted increasing institutional adoption through spot Bitcoin ETFs.

In October alone, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF reportedly acquired $4.6 billion in Bitcoin, bringing the ETF’s total valuation to $31 billion, according to data from Farside Investors and Arkham.

Collectively, Bitcoin ETFs now hold over $72 billion in market cap, underscoring the growing interest from institutions.

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With Decentralized AI and Tokenized Ownership, We Can Fight ‘The Six’

Opinion Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email With Decentralized AI and Tokenized Ownership, We Can Fight ‘The Six’ Orthodox venture capital will never provide the resources for decentralized AI to take on Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, et al. The only way is to supplant equity financing with user-owned, token-based

Published 4 weeks ago in
With Decentralized AI and Tokenized Ownership, We Can Fight ‘The Six’
Opinion

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With Decentralized AI and Tokenized Ownership, We Can Fight ‘The Six’

Orthodox venture capital will never provide the resources for decentralized AI to take on Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, et al. The only way is to supplant equity financing with user-owned, token-based systems, says Michael J. Casey, Chairman of The Decentralized AI Society.

By Michael J. Casey|Edited by Benjamin Schiller
Updated Nov 1, 2024, 7:20 p.m. Published Nov 1, 2024, 7:16 p.m.
(Pixabay)

The past two days’ share price moves for the six most heavily capitalized companies in the U.S. tell you all you need to know about why we must urgently decentralize the artificial intelligence economy.

The first headlines were that the third-quarter profits and revenue from Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Meta and Amazon all beat or met expectations. Yet, with the exception of Amazon’s on Friday, Big Tech’s shares all sold off in response to their earnings announcements, dragging down with them chip-maker Nvidia, the sixth member of the group, whose quarterly reporting is scheduled a month later.

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What spooked investors were some daunting capital expenditure numbers on AI computing power and model development. Alphabet, for one, said it did $13 billion in capex last quarter and expects to do the same in this one while Meta upped its full-year projected spending to $38-40 billion. The giants are in a spending war as each tries to outrace the others toward AI supremacy. Each one of them stands to lose profit margins if it gets out of control.

Let’s be clear: between them, The Six are booking $1.8 trillion in annual revenues, a number that would put their combined inflows in 10th place of global country rankings if we viewed them as a proxy for national GDP – just behind the gross output of Brazil’s 220 million people. Meanwhile, The Six have a combined market capitalization of $15 trillion, capturing an astounding one third of the entire S&P 500 index. Despite – or perhaps because of – this unprecedented scorecard, these companies are relentlessly competing for world domination. Doing what great American companies have always done, they’re unleashing a competitive instinct that, in a normal capitalist economy of diversified goods and services, is the core driver of technological progress.

So, don’t worry about The Six. Worry about us. Because our problem amid the dizzying advance of AI is definitely not one of a shortfall in technological progress. It’s that this particular form of technological progress comes with risks to human autonomy and safety. And to mitigate them, the question of who controls AI’s development and whether their incentives are aligned with the broadest base of humanity is fundamental.

Just as was the case for Alphabet’s Google, Meta’s Facebook and Amazon’s marketplace, the development of these six companies’ large language models (LLMs) and other AI machinery is occurring within closed, black-box systems.They’ve ingested the troves of data we all unwittingly poured into internet sites, and have built highly complex codebases into which no one has visibility. Between them, they dominate all layers of the AI stack: the storage (Amazon Web Services), the chips for computation (Nvidia), the AI models (Microsoft, with its investment in Open AI), the data (Alphabet and Meta) and the devices we use to interact with AI services (Apple). They might be competing with each other, but they form a vertically diversified oligopoly. Or rather, given the undeniable power that their technology can wield over people’s lives, they’re an oligarchy. Indeed, the secrecy around the means by which they exercise that power is characteristic of most oligarchical dictatorships.

Toward the latter phase of the Web2 era, people eventually came to understand Bruce Schneier’s memorable observation that we are not the internet platforms’ customers; we are their products. With that awareness, we’re now also finally opening our eyes to how these companies have long been incentivized to modify people’s behavior in unhealthy ways to maximize shareholder returns. It is no longer controversial to talk of the psychological harm done by the algorithms of Facebook, YouTube, Tik Tok and their ilk, which were blatantly designed to exploit dopamine releases to encourage continued, addictive engagement.

When Frank McCourt and I published Our Biggest Fight in March 2024, we were overwhelmed by parents’ horror stories of the harm social media had done to their kids. And then a Harris Poll coordinated by NYU Professor Johathan Haidt found that young people are just as concerned: nearly half of Gen Z wishes that TikTok and X (Twitter) never existed, even as 83% of the same cohort said they spend four hours a day or more on social media.

So, if we now know of the harms, why on earth would we extend the same oligopolistic control structure into the AI era? AI will put the Web2 oligopoly on steroids.

This is why I believe the creation of distributed, collectively owned open-source AI is a vitally important use case for Web3 and blockchain technology. It’s the only way to avoid the problem of misaligned incentives.

Sure, there are technical challenges, such as the latency that, for now, makes distributed machine learning inefficient, the capacity limits of on-chain data, or the privacy risks inherent to public blockchains. But innovators are already hard at work on outside-the-box solutions to these problems, motivated by the huge economic and reputational payoff promised by overcoming them. And when they do, the inherent information advantages enjoyed by open systems over closed systems will give decentralized AI a fighting chance. Achieve that, and “DeAI” will represent not only the right moral path but also the economic winner.

Here’s the rub: time is not on our side. And the fight is heavily lopsided. As cited above, The Six have an unprecedented $15 trillion war chest. In the 2000s, Facebook and Google learned that their high-value share prices gave them a currency with which to relentlessly acquire startups that could either enhance or threaten their dominance. Now, The Six have even greater capacity to buy up and integrate whatever breakthroughs in AI are coming, be it in independent AI agents or more efficient systems of compute. Their financial clout means that the most important innovations, those that offer the best hope for a more decentralized AI economy, are at risk of being subsumed into their centralized system. Remember, they’re competing with each other and are incentivized to do whatever it takes to win.

To fight their centralized approach, we must flip the paradigm. Orthodox venture capital will never provide anywhere near enough resources for decentralized competitors to take on the big guys. The only way is to supplant equity financing models with full user-owned, token-based systems. In the future, when your home devices provide the compute and deliver your privacy-preserved data into open-source models that are proven to act in your interests, you will earn tokens for that work. And, with that currency, you will pay for all the cool services delivered by your personal AI agent. It’s a new, distributed financing and payments system for a new, decentralized AI economy. It is the only way.

Yet, to succeed, the crypto and blockchain industry has to reimagine itself. If startup founders see DeAI merely as a new source of get-rich-quick token-pump opportunities, or if the leaders of the Layer 1 platforms now turning to the field are fixated more on applications that temporarily drive up the dollar value of their tribe’s cryptocurrency rather than on those that address real, economy-wide problems, this movement will fail. To win this fight, this industry must become more interoperable. It must become more collaborative.

This is not to say we should squash the competitive instincts that are vital to innovation. But it is to acknowledge a need for better cross-industry organization. Through collaborative bodies such as the new Decentralized AI Society, different stakeholders can work with each other to advance common interests around standards, reference architectures, taxonomies, policy objectives and open-source, cross-chain protocols that everyone can use regardless of the token they hold. We’re not building to pump our bags or take our token “to the moon.” We’re building to create a new decentralized AI economy for the benefit of all humanity.

Come join the fight.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.

Opinion
Michael J. Casey

Michael J. Casey is Chairman of The Decentralized AI Society, former Chief Content Officer at CoinDesk and co-author of Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age. Previously, Casey was the CEO of Streambed Media, a company he cofounded to develop provenance data for digital content. He was also a senior advisor at MIT Media Labs’s Digital Currency Initiative and a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to joining MIT, Casey spent 18 years at The Wall Street Journal, where his last position was as a senior columnist covering global economic affairs.

Casey has authored five books, including “The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money are Challenging the Global Economic Order” and “The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything,” both co-authored with Paul Vigna.

Upon joining CoinDesk full time, Casey resigned from a variety of paid advisory positions. He maintains unpaid posts as an advisor to not-for-profit organizations, including MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative and The Deep Trust Alliance. He is a shareholder and non-executive chairman of Streambed Media.

Casey owns bitcoin.

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Michael J. Casey

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Metaplanet Exceeds 1,000 Bitcoin Holdings After Latest Purchase

TLDR Metaplanet purchased 156 additional BTC, bringing total holdings above 1,000 BTC Company stock rose 6.06% following the announcement Metaplanet achieved 116% Bitcoin yield in October 2023 Company raised 10 billion Yen through Stock Acquisition Rights Microsoft considering Bitcoin investment, subject to shareholder approval Metaplanet, Asia’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder…

Published 1 month ago in
Metaplanet Exceeds 1,000 Bitcoin Holdings After Latest Purchase

TLDR Metaplanet purchased 156 additional BTC, bringing total holdings above 1,000 BTC Company stock rose 6.06% following the announcement Metaplanet achieved 116% Bitcoin yield in October 2023 Company raised 10 billion Yen through Stock Acquisition Rights Microsoft considering Bitcoin investment, subject to shareholder approval Metaplanet, Asia’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder…
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