In Brief Posted: 1:05 PM PDT · May 15, 2025 Image Credits:Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg / Getty Images Programmers bore the brunt of Microsoft’s layoffs in its home state as AI writes up to 30% of its code Coders were hit hardest among Microsoft’s 2,000-person layoff in its home state of Washington, Bloomberg reports. Over 40% of the people laid off were in software engineering, making it by far the largest category, Bloomberg found based on state filings. Relatively few sales or marketing positions were affected, Bloomberg added.  To be fair, coders are a big chunk of Microsoft’s workforce, although it doesn’t disclose the exact proportion. The cuts are part of recent layoffs at Microsoft affecting about 6,000 people. Still, these cuts come after CEO Satya Nadella said last month that up to 30% of the company’s code was now written by AI.  TechCrunch asked Microsoft if the layoffs were motivated by the rise of AI-assisted coding. The tech giant declined to comment. Microsoft has said the layoffs are aimed at reducing management layers.  Topics

studio closure Report: Microsoft’s experimental Laptop Studio is vanishing without a replacement Surface Laptop Studio 2 is reportedly no longer being manufactured. Andrew Cunningham – May 15, 2025 3:23 pm | 0 The original Surface Laptop Studio. Credit: Andrew Cunningham The original Surface Laptop Studio. Credit: Andrew Cunningham Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Microsoft has continued to design, manufacture, and sell new Surface hardware since longtime team leader Panos Panay left the company for Amazon in late 2023, including both Intel- and Qualcomm-powered Surface Pro tablets and Surface Laptops. New smaller versions of both of these mainstays were introduced just a couple of weeks ago. But the weirder, more unique parts of the Surface lineup have been mostly neglected since Panay's departure. Late last year, Microsoft discontinued the Surface Studio all-in-one desktop, which was never updated consistently and started at a whopping $4,300. But it provided one of the few alternatives to the basic "monitor with a computer inside it" all-in-one design template. Now, The Verge reports that Microsoft stopped manufacturing the Surface Laptop Studio 2 earlier this month and that the PC will disappear after current retail stock is sold. Microsoft reportedly plans to officially announce the end-of-life status of the Laptop Studio 2 in June. The company will support the Laptop Studio with driver and firmware updates as necessary through at least October of 2029, in accordance with its six-year support lifecycle for Surface hardware. The Laptop Studio was originally introduced in October of 2021 alongside the 8th-generation Surface Pro tablet. It was a brand-new design, but it had spiritual predecessors in the form of the Studio desktop and the older Surface Book, a laptop whose screen could be removed entirely from its base to function as a standalone tablet. It was last updated in September of 2023, just after Panay announced he was leaving Microsoft. Like the Surface Studio desktop, the Laptop Studio's odd and innovative exterior was rendered less exciting by a high price and relatively underpowered interior. Before discounts, the Laptop Studio 2 starts at around $2,400 for a basic configuration with a 13th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage—integrated graphics and a fully loaded version with 64GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a GeForce RTX 4060 GPU would normally run you over $4,300. Though experimental Surface designs like the Book and Studio rarely delivered great value for the money, they were at least unique attempts at new kinds of PCs with extra features for designers, artists, and anyone else who could benefit from a big stylus-compatible touchscreen. Microsoft's most influential PC design remains the Surface Pro itself, one of the few tablet PC design templates to outlast the Windows 8 era. It makes sense for Microsoft (or any PC company) to play it safe with established designs, but it does make the PC industry just a little less interesting. Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 0 Comments