Midjourney asked a federal court to make Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. disclose more about their own generative-AI use in the studios’ copyright case against the image-generation company.
TechCrunch reported that the filing seeks discovery beyond consumer-facing images and videos. The court filing asks for prompts, outputs, and documents about studio use of Midjourney and comparable AI systems.
Featured source: TechCrunch , Court filing .
Other Stories
Research demo shows Claude Code opening a reverse shell through setup indirection
Mozilla’s 0DIN team published a research demo in which Claude Code was asked to get a normal-looking cloned project running and followed setup instructions that eventually executed a command fetched from a DNS TXT record. The report says the repository itself did not contain the payload; the chain used a setup script, runtime DNS lookup, and a base64-encoded reverse shell command.
Filed from: 0DIN , TechRadar .
Microsoft moves Quantum Safe Program target to 2029
Microsoft said it is accelerating its Quantum Safe Program and now aims to transition products and services to post-quantum cryptography by 2029. Mark Russinovich wrote that Microsoft is also adding post-quantum requirements to its Secure Future Initiative, with work centered on TLS 1.3 adoption, crypto-agility for stored data, and modernized trust chains for signing, certificates, identities, and update systems.
Filed from: Microsoft , TechRadar .
Alibaba reportedly bans Claude Code for employees
TechCrunch reported that Alibaba will ban staff use of Anthropic’s Claude Code starting July 10, citing Reuters and Morningstar reports that the company classified the coding tool as high-risk software. The report says Anthropic already bars Chinese companies and foreign entities owned by them from using its models, while Alibaba is directing employees toward its own Qoder tool.
Filed from: TechCrunch , Reuters .
Nature Communications reports RNA-based gene circuits in human cells
A Nature Communications paper reported a modular RNA-based framework for synthetic gene circuits in human cells, using trans-splicing-based AND gates, hybrid promoters, and synthetic microRNAs to run complex functions with fewer computational layers. The paper says the researchers engineered a three-input combinatorial logic gate, a half adder, a full adder, and a dynamic 3-to-1 multiplexer with a selector-overload status output.
Filed from: Nature Communications , TechRadar .
YOFC says hollow-core fiber trial carried 51.3 Tb/s over 206.5 km
TechRadar reported that Chinese fiber manufacturer YOFC, with China Telecom and Dekoli, completed a field trial of hollow-core fiber transmission reaching 51.3 Tb/s over 206.5 km without signal regeneration. Tom’s Hardware separately reported the same claimed capacity and span, and described the test as using 1.2 Tb/s per wavelength over a live commercial cable.
Filed from: TechRadar , Tom’s Hardware .
TechCrunch tracks almost 90 new VC-backed unicorns in 2026
TechCrunch reported that almost 90 VC-backed startups have reached unicorn status so far in 2026, with AI-related companies making up most of the list and healthcare, crypto, space, security, hardware, and infrastructure companies also represented. The article says its tally uses Crunchbase and PitchBook data and will be updated through the year.
Filed from: TechCrunch , PitchBook .
FT reports OpenAI discussed giving the US government a 5% stake
TechRadar reported the Financial Times account that OpenAI has discussed giving the US government a 5% equity stake, with CEO Sam Altman reportedly raising the idea as a way to share AI’s economic upside through a public-ownership model. The report says there is no agreement, and any arrangement would need political support and legal work before it could happen.
Filed from: TechRadar , Financial Times .
sqlite-utils 4.0rc2 updates transaction behavior before 4.0
Simon Willison released sqlite-utils 4.0rc2, a pre-release of the Python CLI and library for manipulating SQLite databases, after a final review focused on transaction semantics and breaking changes. The release notes say write statements through db.execute() now commit automatically unless an explicit transaction is open, db.query() executes immediately, and several validation and transaction edge cases now raise clearer errors.
Filed from: Simon Willison , GitHub release .
From the Community
Bad Epoll allows unprivileged root through Linux kernel race condition
A race-condition use-after-free in the Linux kernel’s epoll subsystem, reported as CVE-2026-46242, lets an unprivileged process escalate to root on desktops, servers, and Android devices. The project page says the bug was introduced in kernel v6.4 and fixed by commit a6dc643c6931, with a 99% reliable exploit demonstrated on Google kernelCTF targets.
Filed from: GitHub .
Fable publishes a 4D splat format for streaming dynamic 3D scenes
A new file format called .splat4d encodes dynamic 3D Gaussian splat sequences into a single, seekable file designed for HTTP Range requests. The project page says it uses error-bounded quantization and temporal delta encoding to achieve 10-20x compression over per-frame gzip.
Filed from: Project page .
ActiveGraph paper describes event-sourced reactive graphs for agent systems
An arXiv paper describes ActiveGraph, a runtime that makes an append-only event log the source of truth, with the working graph as a deterministic projection of that log and behaviors reacting to graph changes by emitting new events. The paper says the design supports deterministic replay, event-level forking, and lineage from high-level goal to individual model call.
Filed from: arXiv .
ps5-linux-loader enables a custom bootloader on PS5 hardware
The ps5-linux-loader project uses patched hypervisor vulnerabilities to run a custom bootloader on PS5 Phat and Slim consoles on firmware 3.00-7.61. The project page says the payload gives Linux full CPU and GPU access, HDMI 4K60 output, M.2 SSD support, and USB, Ethernet, and Bluetooth connectivity without modifying the internal SSD.
Filed from: GitHub .
Reverse-engineered Claude Design prompt is released as an open-source design tool
A developer published a reverse-engineered system prompt and skill library that turns an LLM into an opinionated, accessibility-aware design collaborator. The MIT-licensed project includes chapters on aesthetic discipline, interaction states, and review workflows, and is calibrated for current Anthropic frontier models.
Filed from: GitHub .
Craig Mod’s essay on fast software circulates again
Craig Mod’s 2019 essay argues that speed in software is its most valuable and least valued asset, contrasting fast tools like nvALT and Sublime Text with slower tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Google Maps. The essay also cites Figma as a browser-based tool that feels fast and responsive.
Filed from: Essay .
