A nonprofit called Current AI is working to build publicly accessible AI infrastructure modeled on the early World Wide Web — free, open, and available to anyone. The organization, founded in…
Google announced in July 2026 that it is open-sourcing its 3D emoji set, making the files freely available for public use as part of World Emoji Day on Friday, July 18.
The company is releasing raw…
DOJ told executive-branch employees they may download TikTok onto government devices again, reversing the 2022 ban, in a July 2026 memo (Reuters), subject to agency discretion and workplace policies. The change hinges on U.S. operations moving to an Oracle–Silver Lake–MGX joint venture, with Oracle as security partner and ByteDance retaining 19.9%.
Mozilla’s July 2026 audit says astrology period tracker Stardust sends users’ reproductive health data (birth control, pregnancy status, moods, symptoms) to third parties immediately on app open, including RudderStack with a persistent ID and Facebook ad identifiers; it scored 2/10. Nonprofit Euki scored 10/10 by keeping data on-device.
TikTok is testing a new opt-in tool that scans for AI-generated content using a creator’s likeness and allows them to report unauthorized uses to the company. The tool was first spotted in 2026 by…
ICE plans to renew Thomson Reuters Special Services access up to $25M/yr for up to five years (from $24M total over the prior five-year deal), disclosed July 17, 2026. The filing cites “multiplied” data demand to identify unaccompanied minors and government-funds fraud, including vetting sponsors via CLEAR’s public records and license-plate reader data.
Patreon announced in July 2026 that it is moving beyond passive requests to actively block AI bots that scrape creators’ content for model training purposes. The membership platform is working with…
Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers woke up on Friday, July 18, 2026, to alarming billing estimates claiming they owed millions or even billions of dollars for cloud services they had never used….
Federal agents arrested Zyaire Wilkins, 21, on July 14, 2026, accusing him of using eight malware-infected Steam games (May 2024–Feb 2026) to steal at least $220,000 in cryptocurrency. The scheme allegedly infected ~8,000 devices, accessed 80 wallets, and one title, BlockBlasters, accounted for over $150,000 stolen.
General Compute, an AI inference cloud startup, has secured a $400 million loan from tech investment firm Upper90, in what may be the first financing deal to use inference-specific chips as…
Trump Media will monetize real-time access to Truth Social via “Truth API,” announced July 17, 2026, launching Aug. 1 for Wall Street. It’s billed as “in milliseconds,” operating 24/7 with post archives back to 2022; pricing wasn’t disclosed, and the Trump family is the largest shareholder in the publicly traded company.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google in July 2026 over 13 AI “nudify” face-swap apps, citing California law against deepfake pornography and nonconsensual nude images. Google says it removed five Android apps flagged by his office plus “hundreds” of similar apps.
