AI
Netflix Paid $587M for Ben Affleck's Film AI Startup
SEC filings confirm Netflix spent $587 million on InterPositive, Affleck's AI startup that builds film-specific models for post-production work.
The Revision · Today
Stories worth finishing.
Tech news, decoded. The day's tech press, decoded and rewritten in one voice. Updated hourly.
Thursday, July 30, 2026Today: Netflix Paid $587M for Ben Affleck's Film AI Startup
Latest
Security
Florida Man, 21, Allegedly Hid Malware in Eight Steam Games
The FBI says Zyaire Wilkins and co-conspirators distributed eight Steam games that infected roughly 8,000 users' computers.
AI
Apple Puts 40 OpenAI Hires on Legal Notice in Trade Secrets Fight
Apple has sent preservation letters to roughly 40 former employees now at OpenAI, signaling the trade secrets lawsuit may be far from over.
Security
FBI Arrests Student Who Hid Crypto Malware in Steam Games
A 21-year-old student allegedly uploaded fake games to Steam that infected thousands of players and drained cryptocurrency from some of their wallets.
Security
ClickLock Stealer Badgers Mac Users Into Handing Over Passwords
A new macOS infostealer skips exploits entirely, instead spamming password prompts every 210ms until victims give up their credentials.
Security
Florida Man Charged After Steam Malware Drained $220K in Crypto
A 21-year-old allegedly uploaded eight malware-laced games to steal from roughly 8,000 devices and 80 crypto wallets over nearly two years.
Security
GoSerpent Backdoor Spent Five Years in APAC Government Networks
Kaspersky's GoSerpent analysis reveals a five-year APAC government campaign where attackers waited weeks before deploying data-theft tools.
Policy
Apple and DOJ Are Talking Settlement in Antitrust Case
Apple has proposed multiple offers and entered early talks with the Justice Department to resolve a 2024 antitrust suit over its iPhone platform controls.
Security
Treasury Sanction Took Down Telegram's t.me Links for 19 Hours
A Treasury sanction targeting a cybercriminal VPN accidentally pulled Telegram's t.me domain from global DNS, darkening shortlinks for roughly a billion users.
Security
Florida Man Charged Over $220K Steam Malware Scheme
Zyaire Wilkins, 21, faces up to 10 years in prison after the FBI tied stolen Bitcoin to Uber Eats gift cards purchased at his home address.
Security
Apple Sued Over Hide My Email After Feature Flaw Report
A proposed class action claims Apple's Hide My Email failed to protect users' real addresses, though the exact nature of the flaw remains unconfirmed.
AI
Suno Hack Reveals Millions of Songs Scraped from YouTube and Deezer
A breach of Suno's database exposed internal files showing the AI music tool scraped over two million YouTube clips and hundreds of thousands of hours of audio.
Security
Two Scattered Spider Members Get 5-Plus Years for TfL Hack
Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers were sentenced to five years and six months each for the 2024 TfL cyberattack, which cost the transit agency $39 million.
Software
AWS Billing Glitch Shows $1.7 Billion Charges for Normal Accounts
A bug in AWS estimated billing data sent some users into a panic over nine-figure invoices that had no basis in their actual usage.
Policy
Apple Targets 40 OpenAI Staffers in Trade Secret Fight
Apple sent legal preservation letters to roughly 40 former employees now at OpenAI, widening its trade secret suit beyond the original defendants.
Security
Researchers Build a Self-Replicating Worm for AI Agent Networks
Researchers built a self-replicating worm that spread across AI agent frameworks with a 63% success rate and found critical defenses missing in production.
Security
LLM Agents Have a Memory Poisoning Problem
A new benchmark finds that standard write-time defenses stop simple memory attacks but fall apart against multi-record and trigger-based corruption.
AI
The Prover Is the Judge for AI-Written Security Code
Researchers used formal verification to let AI agents write bare-metal security software in Ada/SPARK, cutting supervision cost by up to 40 times.
AI
How One Line of Text Disables an AI Safety Guard
Researchers found that a short prefill phrase like "Sure, here is" bypasses AI refusals without erasing the model's internal harm awareness.
Policy
India Fines HP $14.4M for Bid Rigging on Ink and PCs
India's Competition Commission found HP India colluded with resellers to inflate government contract bids and lock out rival ink suppliers.
Policy
EU Forces Google to Share Search Data and Open Android AI
The European Commission has issued binding DMA measures requiring Google to open Android's AI stack to rivals and share search data with competitors.
Hardware
Hyundai Workers Strike Over Humanoid Robot Plans
Thousands of unionized workers at Hyundai's Ulsan plant staged early walkouts after 15 rounds of talks over humanoid robot deployment collapsed.
AI
S&P Cuts Oracle to One Step Above Junk
A $250 billion data-center buildout has pushed Oracle to BBB-, making it the second-largest non-financial corporate debt issuer in the US.
Policy
EU Gives Google One Year to Open Android AI Access
The European Commission ordered Google to let rival AI apps use the same Android features as Gemini, giving the company until August 2027 to comply.
Security
Sandworm Adopts Clickfix to Hit Ukrainian Networks
Ukraine's CERT warns that Sandworm, the GRU's elite hacking unit, is using fake-CAPTCHA attacks to install malware on Ukrainian networks.
AI
Torvalds Draws a Line on AI in Linux
Linus Torvalds says Linux will embrace AI tools and anyone who disagrees is free to fork the project or leave.
Policy
EU forces Google to open Android AI and share search data
Under the Digital Markets Act, Google must give rival AI assistants the same Android access Gemini enjoys and hand search data to competitors.
Policy
China and 28 Nations Sign a Treaty to Create a Global AI Body
China and 28 other nations signed a founding treaty for WAICO, a new intergovernmental body meant to govern global AI development.
Dev Tools
Linus Torvalds Draws a Line on AI in Linux Code Review
The kernel's creator backed an AI-assisted review tool and told skeptics to fork the project or leave, marking a clear shift from his 2024 skepticism.
Startups
Fireworks Raises $1.5bn to Sell the Build-Your-Own AI Pitch
Fireworks AI closed a $1.5bn Series D at a $17.5bn valuation, betting enterprises will build their own models rather than rent from OpenAI or Anthropic.
Consumer Tech
OnePlus Pulls Out of US and European Phone Markets
OnePlus has confirmed it will no longer release phones in North America or Europe, leaving the OnePlus 15 as the last device for Western buyers.
Security
A Hacker Used Gemini CLI to Run an Eight-Device Botnet
A Russian threat actor ran a small botnet targeting a dental clinic by feeding Google's AI tool a fake pen-tester cover story.
Hardware
Tower Semiconductor Bets $3B on Japan Photonics Push
The Israeli specialty foundry will revive a dormant Panasonic-era fab and expand a running plant, targeting $3.6 billion in revenue by 2028.
Security
Two Scattered Spider Members Jailed for London Transit Hack
Owen Flowers and Thalha Jubair pleaded guilty and received five-and-a-half-year sentences for breaching London's metropolitan transit system.
Software
Mozilla Finds Stardust Period Tracker Shares Health Data
Mozilla's review of period-tracking apps found sharp privacy gaps, with Stardust sharing user health data with an analytics firm.
Security
TriWest Breach Hits 12,000 TRICARE Military Beneficiaries
An April cyberattack on TriWest Healthcare exposed DoD Benefits numbers and some Social Security numbers belonging to 12,000 TRICARE members.
Policy
NTSB: Driver Floored It Before Fatal Tesla Crash, Not Autopilot
Preliminary federal findings confirm the driver pressed the accelerator to 100 percent, contradicting his claim that Full Self-Driving caused the crash.
Security
Zoom Fixes Critical Account-Takeover Bug in Windows Clients
A 9.8-severity input validation flaw in Zoom's Windows desktop client and VDI products could have let attackers hijack accounts remotely.
AI
Japan Tenders a National AI Factory Built on 27,500 Nvidia Rubin GPUs
The Noetra consortium won a government contract worth up to $6.1 billion to build a 140MW AI facility targeting robotics and industrial automation.
Hardware
TSMC Adds $100B and Four More Arizona Fabs to Its US Bet
TSMC's latest $100 billion pledge lifts its total US commitment to $265 billion and puts Arizona on track for 10 fabs, with no timeline attached.
Policy
EU Orders Google to Share Android and Search With Rivals
Two DMA rulings give competing AI assistants and search engines access to Google's platforms, with deadlines running into 2027.
Security
Siemens SICAM 8 Patched for Four ICS Vulnerabilities
Siemens has fixed four flaws in its SICAM 8 power-grid hardware, including a CVSS 7.2 privilege escalation bug affecting energy infrastructure worldwide.
Security
Rockwell PLC Network Modules Vulnerable to Denial-of-Service Flaw
A flaw in Rockwell Automation's 1756-series EtherNet/IP modules lets any network attacker knock industrial connections offline with crafted packets.
Security
Four Rockwell Arena Flaws Let Attackers Run Arbitrary Code
CISA flagged four out-of-bounds write bugs in Rockwell Automation Arena V17 and earlier; a malicious file is all it takes to trigger code execution.
Security
Rockwell PLC Flaws Put Factory Floors at Risk of Shutdown
Three buffer overflow bugs in Rockwell PLCs let unauthenticated remote attackers crash industrial controllers into an unrecoverable fault.
AI
Meta AI Now Alerts Parents When Teens Discuss Self-Harm
Meta's AI chatbot now notifies parents when a teen's conversation touches on suicide or self-harm, under regulatory pressure to protect minors.
AI
Japan and Nvidia Build a 140MW AI Factory for Robots
A Japanese industrial consortium is deploying 27,500 Rubin GPUs and 13,750 Vera CPUs across 140 megawatts of data center capacity dedicated to physical AI.