| Microsoft and Jawbone have bad news this week, and a surprise smartphone announcement piques curiosity, but likely won't change the world. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for July 7, 2017. Triple sevens on your short week Friday: good luck everyone. 1. Microsoft confirms thousands of layoffs coming Microsoft is refocusing on its cloud business and that's going to result in a lot of lost jobs in the near-term: between 3,000 and 5,000 layoffs are expected, based on various reports and sources. The changes are coming as it reorganizes to focus its sales arm on Azure, which will change considerably the expertise it requires to do business, with a new head of sales who isn't happy with how things were being run. 
2. Jawbone is done This should come as a surprise to exactly no one, but wearable and Bluetooth hardware company Jawbone is being liquidated. It's going to try to recoup value for investors by focusing on winning its ongoing legal battle with Fitbit, but really, there are no winners here. 3. Qualcomm goes after Apple again seeking iPhone import ban This legal battle over patent licensing agreements is probably not going to go away anytime soon. Qualcomm has now accused Apple of infringing on six of its patents related to smartphone battery life. 4. RED's weird expensive holographic smartphone should be interesting RED cameras are already much-coveted by filmmakers, and now the company is hoping to extend that appeal to smartphones. It's forthcoming Hydrogen smartphone claims some fancy VR and AR features and 4K shooting, but it's probably going to be a boondoggle that doesn't impact the market in any serious way. 5. Tesla is going to build the world's largest battery in Australia Tesla is building a massive energy storage facility for a wind farm in South Australia. This will definitely help Tesla prove that it can offer alternative energy storage at scale to global customers, and investors seem to be liking it in early market activity today. 6. Comma.ai is back with a hardware product Self-driving software startup Comma.ai, founded by famous iPhone hacker George Hotz, is back with a consumer hardware product called the Panda. It's a device for your vehicle's OBD-II port, which aims to help the company fuel data collection efforts to advance its self-driving system design. 7. Google's Blocks easily make pretty low-poly VR worlds Blocky actually works in VR, especially for mobile, and now the Blocks app from Google helps people create immersive realms with relative ease on either HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. This could spur the development of more VR content. | 
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