The Stack — July 28, 2026

Today's technology briefing highlights significant developments across AI/ML, industry moves, infrastructure, and the developer world.

AI/ML

Legal and ethical concerns in AI are at the forefront with a lawsuit against an AI meme generator for using copyrighted material without consent. This case underscores the ongoing legal challenges surrounding AI-generated content. Additionally, ChatGPT is now blocking requests to mimic specific authors' styles to avoid potential legal issues related to intellectual property rights.

In AI model advancements, a new model named FeyNoBg has been introduced for automatic background removal, showing strong performance in benchmarks. Accompanying this is an open-source library, NoBg, which allows for training similar models, reflecting the trend toward open-source accessibility in AI development.

Industry

In the industry sector, Enigma has raised $71 million in a seed round to enhance human-robot interaction, demonstrating the growing investment in robotics and AI interfaces. Meanwhile, Safe Superintelligence has partnered with Nvidia to boost its research capabilities, focusing on developing safe artificial superintelligence.

Infrastructure

Verizon's $1 billion deal involving dark fiber for Google data centers marks a significant move in telecommunications infrastructure. This deal is expected to support AI-related revenue growth through enhanced data center capabilities.

Cybersecurity remains a critical focus, highlighted by a significant vulnerability in the My Eicher fleet management platform, which was quickly addressed after being exploited. This incident emphasizes the ongoing need for robust cybersecurity measures in connected systems.

Developer World

In the developer realm, Misago's shift from React.js to HTMX for UI interactivity is notable. This transition aims to simplify code maintenance and improve performance by reducing JavaScript reliance, reflecting a broader trend toward optimizing web development frameworks.

Additionally, self-contained Python distributions are being developed to enhance portability and minimize dependencies, utilizing the PyOxidizer project to integrate Rust code, illustrating the ongoing evolution in programming language ecosystems.