
Microsoft Shuts Down Movies and TV Store, Keeps Access for Existing Buyers
'Downloads will continue to be available on Windows and in HD max resolution,' says Microsoft. However, there's a catch — you'll need to keep using the Movies & TV app on your Xbox or Windows device to watch your library, unless your films are part of the Movies Anywhere program in the US. Also, Microsoft has confirmed that it won't be offering refunds for any existing purchases.
This move doesn't come as a complete shock to loyal users. Many have wondered about the store's future ever since Microsoft discontinued Groove Music in 2017. The journey of Microsoft's video storefront began in 2006 with the Zune Video Marketplace, evolved into Xbox Video in 2012, and eventually became the Movies & TV app and store in 2015. Now, nearly a decade later, it's officially winding down.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Hindustan Times
20 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
What is Pope Leo's favorite pizza? Hint: It was delivered from Chicago to Vatican
Pope Leo XIV got his favorite pizza, all the way from Chicago to the Vatican. The 69-year-old, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, before he became the first American Pope this April, got a special care package from fans, as he was riding through St Peter's Square in Rome on July 30. Pope Leo XIV was making his way through the crowd in the Vatican, when he saw a pizza sign and stopped in his tracks.(AP) The video shows the Pope riding in a vehicle, making his way through the crowd, when he sees a pizza sign and stops in his tracks. What is the Pope's favorite pizza? Seeing the sign of Aurelio's Pizza brought the Pope to a halt and Madeline Daley, the 22-year-old from Cincinnati, who made the trip to deliver the pizza spoke about her experience to NBC News. "When Pope Leo came around, he kept grabbing babies to bless them, but as soon as he saw the pizza, he had babies in his hand, but he's still saying, like, 'Get me that pizza, I want that pizza,' ' she said in a video interview. 'And seeing the logo made him light up, and his smile was from ear to ear and he was extremely excited about it,' she added. Also Read | Pope to bestow one of Catholic Church's highest honors on John Henry Newman John Prevost, the Pope's brother confirmed that he ate the six-inch pepperoni pizza, which was shipped using dry ice, WGN-TV reported. Joe Aurelio, president and CEO of Aurelio's Pizza, meanwhile, told NBC News 'Pope Leo has been a lifetime Aurelio's fan and going to Aurelio's Pizza in Homewood, Ill., since the 1960s. So it's been part of his life and for him to recognize [the pizza] and actually stop there in the audience was amazing.' Daley's friends also told WGN-TV how they were a group of young Catholic influencers who made it their mission to get the Pope this pizza. Jayden Remias of Ohio and Jake Ochave of Virginia went to Chicago to pick it up. Aurelio's is an Illinois restaurant chain that specializes in thin crust varieties of Chicago-style pizzas. The chain has three corporate owned stores and 37 franchised locations in six states.


Indian Express
20 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Big Tech may be breaking the bank for AI, but investors love it
Big Tech is spending more than ever on artificial intelligence – but the returns are rising too, and investors are buying in. AI played a bigger role in driving demand across internet search, digital advertising and cloud computing in the April-June quarter, powering revenue growth at technology giants Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet . Betting that momentum will sustain, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are ramping up spending to ease capacity shortages that have limited their ability to meet soaring AI services demand, even after several quarters of multi-billion-dollar outlays. The results offer the clearest sign yet that AI is emerging as a primary growth engine, although the monetization journey is still in its early days, investors and analysts said. The upbeat commentary underscores how surging demand for the new technology is shielding the tech giants from tariff-driven economic uncertainty hobbling other sectors. 'As companies like Alphabet and Meta race to deliver on the promise of AI, capital expenditures are shockingly high and will remain elevated for the foreseeable future,' said Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights. But if their core businesses remain strong, 'it will buy them more time with investors and provide confidence that the billions being spent on infrastructure, talent and other tech-related expenses will be worthwhile,' she added. Microsoft shares rose 4% on Thursday, with the Windows maker crossing $4 trillion in market value – a milestone only chip giant Nvidia had reached before it. Meta was up even more, rising 11.3% adding around $200 billion to its market value of about $1.75 trillion. Amazon slipped 7% after-market, after rising 1.7% in regular trading, on disappointing cloud computing results. All the companies have faced intense scrutiny from investors over their ballooning capital expenditures, which were expected to total $330 billion this year before the latest earnings. And until a few days ago, the Magnificent Seven stocks were also trailing the S&P 500 in year-to-date performance. Microsoft said on Wednesday it would spend a record $30 billion in the current quarter, after better-than-expected sales and an above-estimate forecast for its Azure cloud computing business showcased the growing returns on its massive AI bets. The prediction puts Microsoft on track to potentially outspend its rivals over the next year. It came after Google-parent Alphabet beat revenue expectations and raised its spending forecast by $10 billion to $85 billion for the year. Microsoft also disclosed for the first time the dollar figure for Azure sales and the number of users for its Copilot AI tools, whose adoption has long been a concern for investors. It said Azure generated more than $75 billion in sales in its last fiscal year, while Copilot tools had over 100 million users. Overall, around 800 million customers use AI tools peppered across Microsoft's sprawling software empire. 'It's the kind of result that quickly silences any doubts about cloud or AI demand,' said Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro. 'Microsoft is more than justifying its spending.' Amazon, for its part, said it expected second-half spending roughly at the same clip as its second-quarter total of $31.4 billion, suggesting it would spend around $118 billion for the full year. Analysts had projected about $100 billion. Other AI companies have also attracted a clutch of users. Alphabet said last week its Gemini AI assistant app has more than 450 million monthly active users. OpenAI's ChatGPT, the application credited with kicking off the generative AI frenzy, has around 500 million weekly active users. Meta, meanwhile, raised the bottom end of its annual capital expenditure forecast by $2 billion, to a range of between $66 billion and $72 billion. It also said that costs driven by its efforts to catch up in Silicon Valley's intensifying AI race would push 2026 expense growth rate above 2025's pace. Better-than-expected sales growth in the April-June period and an above-estimate revenue forecast for the current quarter, however, assured investors that strength in the social media giant's core advertising business can support the massive outlays. 'The big boys are back,' said Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which holds shares in all three major U.S. cloud providers. 'This simply proves the Magnificent Seven is still magnificent at this moment in time.'

The Hindu
20 minutes ago
- The Hindu
CEO Tim Cook says Apple ready to open its wallet to catch up in AI
Apple CEO Tim Cook signaled on Thursday the iPhone maker was ready to spend more to catch up to rivals in artificial intelligence by building more data centers or buying a larger player in the segment, a departure from a long practice of fiscal frugality. Apple has struggled to keep pace with rivals such as Microsoft and Alphabet's Google, both of which have attracted hundreds of millions of users to their AI-powered chatbots and assistants. That growth has come at a steep cost, however, with Google planning to spend $85 billion over the next year and Microsoft on track to spend more than $100 billion, mostly on data centers. Apple, in contrast, has leaned on outside data center providers to handle some of its cloud computing work, and despite a high-profile partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI for certain iPhone features, has tried to grow much of its AI technology in-house, including improvements to its Siri virtual assistant. The results have been rocky, with the company delaying its Siri improvements until next year. During a conference call after Apple's fiscal third-quarter results, analysts noted that Apple has historically not done large deals and asked whether it might take a different approach to pursue its AI ambitions. CEO Cook responded that the company had already acquired seven smaller companies this year and is open to buying larger ones. "We're very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap. We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature," Cook said. "We basically ask ourselves whether a company can help us accelerate a roadmap, and if they do, then we're interested." Apple has tended to buy smaller firms with highly specialized technical teams to build out specific products. Its largest deal ever was its purchase of Beats Electronics for $3 billion in 2014, followed by a $1 billion deal to buy a modem chip business from Intel. But now Apple is at a unique crossroads for its business. The tens of billions of dollars per year it receives from Google as payment to be the default search engine on iPhones could be undone by U.S. courts in Google's antitrust trial, while startups like Perplexity are in discussions with handset makers to try to dislodge Google with an AI-powered browser that would handle many search functions. Apple executives have said in court they are considering reshaping the firm's Safari browser with AI-powered search functions, and Bloomberg News has reported that Apple executives have discussed buying Perplexity, which Reuters has not independently confirmed. Apple also said on Thursday it plans to spend more on data centers, an area where it typically spends only a few billion dollars per year. Apple is currently using its own chip designs to handle AI requests with privacy controls that are compatible with the privacy features on its devices. Kevan Parekh, Apple's chief financial officer, did not give specific spending targets but said outlays would rise. "It's not going to be exponential growth, but it is going to grow substantially," Parekh said during the conference call. "A lot of that's a function of the investments we're making in AI."