Tech News — 2026-07-15#

Story of the Day#

Google and Epic Games have abruptly withdrawn their antitrust settlement, meaning Google is now forced by a court injunction to host third-party app stores inside Google Play starting July 22. This marks a seismic shift for the Android ecosystem, effectively breaking the long-standing network-effect advantage of Google’s walled garden.

Top Stories#

Stripe and Advent Offer to Buy PayPal For More Than $53 Billion · TechCrunch Payments giant Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have submitted a joint $60.50-per-share bid to acquire PayPal, valuing the company at roughly $53.4 billion. Backed by $50 billion in committed bank financing, this mega-merger would dramatically reshape the digital payments landscape as PayPal continues to bleed market share.

Hack Reveals Suno AI Music Generator Scraped YouTube, Deezer, and Genius · Slashdot A hacker infiltrated AI music generator Suno and leaked internal source code confirming the company trained its models by scraping decades of audio from YouTube Music, podcasts, and other platforms. This rare look into AI training datasets severely undercuts Suno’s “fair use” defense against the Recording Industry Association of America’s ongoing copyright lawsuits.

Apple Intelligence approved for launch in China with Alibaba’s Qwen AI · TechCrunch Apple has finally secured regulatory approval to launch its Apple Intelligence suite in China through a partnership with Alibaba. By leaning on Alibaba’s local Qwen AI models, Apple can legally bypass Chinese restrictions on foreign AI tech, preserving a crucial competitive feature in one of its largest global markets.

FCC to repeal 39% TV ownership cap in boost for Trump-friendly news orgs · Ars Technica The Republican-led FCC plans to vote in August on eliminating the rule preventing any single broadcaster from reaching more than 39 percent of US households. Chairman Brendan Carr argues the cap is obsolete in the streaming era, but the repeal sets the stage for massive broadcast consolidation and a likely court battle over the agency’s authority to ignore a congressional limit.

Book Publishers Sue Google For Copyright Infringement Over Gemini AI Training · Slashdot Major publishers, including Hachette and Elsevier, sued Google for allegedly copying millions of copyrighted books to train its Gemini AI. The plaintiffs claim Google brazenly repurposed texts supplied exclusively for services like Google Books, recognizing the internal legal risks while proceeding anyway to compete in the generative AI arms race.

Microsoft patches record number of security vulnerabilities, citing its use of AI · TechCrunch Microsoft pushed out a staggering 570 security fixes in its latest Patch Tuesday, blaming the surge on AI tools that accelerate vulnerability discovery. On the very same day, an aggrieved security researcher dropped a zero-day exploit for Windows, underscoring the relentless whack-a-mole the company faces despite its AI-assisted patching efforts.

Meet GPT-Red: an LLM super-hacker OpenAI built to make its models safer · MIT Technology Review OpenAI has developed “GPT-Red,” a specialized LLM trained through self-play loops to relentlessly execute cyberattacks and prompt injections against other models. The automated red-teaming tool has reportedly discovered entirely new vulnerabilities, like “fake chain of thought” injections, which were subsequently patched in the recently released GPT-5.6.

Also Worth Knowing#

• OpenAI launches a physical keypad for controlling agents (Engadget): OpenAI collaborated with boutique hardware maker Work Louder to release the Codex Micro, a $230 specialized macro pad for monitoring AI coding agents.
• Daylight saving time is on track to become permanent in the US (The Verge): The US House passed the Sunshine Protection Act, advancing legislation that would abolish the twice-yearly clock change, though its Senate future remains uncertain.
• Astronauts Take First X-Rays In Space (Slashdot): The crew of SpaceX’s Fram2 mission successfully operated an off-the-shelf digital X-ray machine in orbit, marking a significant milestone for extraterrestrial medical diagnostics.
• xAI sues a man for using Grok to generate CSAM ‘deepfakes’ (The Verge): Elon Musk’s xAI is suing a South Carolina man, alleging he deliberately bypassed safeguards in the Grok chatbot to generate and distribute child sexual abuse material.
• Starlink’s new V5 home dish is smaller and more energy-efficient (Engadget): SpaceX has launched its V5 residential internet dish, featuring a lighter footprint and better power efficiency than the V4 model.