Samwise Tech/AI/Robotics Newsletter
Sunday, July 5, 2026
The browser wars aren’t about search anymore — here are the best alternatives to Chrome and Safari
The browser wars have entered a new phase — no longer just about search, but about which company’s AI gets to act on your behalf. TechCrunch’s review of leading Chrome and Safari alternatives finds OpenAI’s Atlas lets users query ChatGPT about search results and browse websites within the chatbot; Perplexity’s Comet is available to $200/month Max plan subscribers; Opera’s Neon runs $19.90/month; and The Browser Company’s Dia remains in invite-only beta. Meanwhile, Ladybird, an open-source browser built from scratch, is targeting an alpha release in 2026. Each contender is betting that deeply integrated AI assistance is the next browser battleground.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Midjourney wants Hollywood studios to reveal the details of their AI usage
Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros. have sued Midjourney over alleged AI-generated copyright infringement, claiming the startup’s image models can reproduce studio-owned characters such as Bart Simpson and Darth Vader. In its latest court filing, Midjourney is fighting back — seeking to overturn a ruling that limited what AI-usage documentation the studios must disclose. Midjourney argues the restriction lets studios “cherry-pick only those documents they believe support their market harm claims” while withholding evidence that “would reveal whether, behind closed doors, they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.” The studios’ lead attorney says they “simply want Midjourney to stop copying their movies and TV shows.”
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Alibaba reportedly bans employees from using Claude Code
China’s Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code starting July 10, classifying it as “high-risk software” and directing staff to use the company’s own Qoder tool instead. The decision follows reports that a version of Claude Code could secretly identify Chinese users. Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar acknowledged this was “an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation,” adding the team had “landed stronger mitigations since then.” The experiment has since been removed. Anthropic already prohibits Chinese companies from using its models and has been actively working to close access loopholes.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
What is Mistral AI? Everything to know about the OpenAI competitor
France’s Mistral AI is having a moment. With annual recurring revenue reportedly above $400 million as of February and rumored to be raising $3.5 billion at a $23.15 billion valuation, the decacorn is pursuing what TechCrunch describes as “the Palantir playbook” — forward-deployed engineers helping governments and enterprises deploy and customize AI on their own infrastructure. CEO Arthur Mensch says a new open-weight model is arriving this summer, with early access opening in July. Mistral has acquired infrastructure startup Koyeb and physics-AI firm Emmi to accelerate its cloud ambitions, and plans to invest €4 billion in data centers in France and Sweden.
Sources: TechCrunch Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
How America’s 250th birthday became a test of AI-powered collective intelligence
On America’s 250th birthday, 277 randomly selected Americans — drawn from every region and a diverse mix of political demographics — participated in a twenty-minute online deliberation inside Thinkscape, a hyper-communication platform built by Unanimous AI. Their task: identify the top three innovations the U.S. has contributed to the world. The group converged on the Internet (born through academic and government research, scaled globally), advances in medicine (American vaccines eradicating diseases, prolonging hundreds of millions of lives), and democracy (the U.S. Constitution as a blueprint for representative government worldwide). Author Louis Rosenberg notes the AI’s role was “to connect people, not replace them.”
Sources: VentureBeat Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Quarterhill discusses transport modernization as U.S. marks 70 years of federal highways
As the U.S. marks the 70th anniversary of its federal highway system, The Robot Report spoke with Quarterhill’s head of ITS product about the challenges of autonomous freight. Companies including Kodiak and Aurora are already running commercial freight corridors, while the American Trucking Association projects a driver shortfall of 82,000 in 2026. Quarterhill’s expert argues effective autonomy will “complement the existing freight ecosystem rather than replace it,” but warns that public agencies will shoulder increased roadway wear and complexity as autonomous trucks scale — requiring virtual weigh-station screening, traffic monitoring, and compliance infrastructure to manage mixed fleets of autonomous and conventional commercial vehicles.
Sources: The Robot Report Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
X Square Robot builds a full-stack approach to embodied AI and general-purpose robotics
Shenzhen-based embodied AI startup X Square Robot has completed four consecutive financing rounds culminating in a Series C, now valued at over RMB20 billion. The company’s WALL family of embodied AI foundation models — including the recently open-sourced WALL-OSS and WALL-WM — powers hardware including the QUANTA X1 Pro and X2 robots and the Artixon dexterous hand. Its QUANXTA Zero Series data collection platform achieves “nearly 100 demonstrations per hour — more than double the efficiency of conventional teleoperation methods.” X Square has deployed robots in eldercare, automotive (Jinbei Auto), and logistics. CEO Wang Qian: “progress will depend on close integration between models, data and robotics.”
Sources: Robotics & Automation News Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Tech Pulse
Top Frontier Models (SWE-bench Pro): Claude Opus 4.8 (69.2%) | GPT-5.5 (58.6%) | Gemini 3.1 Pro (54.2%)
Top Open Source Models (SWE-bench Pro): GLM-5.2 (62.1%) | Qwen3.7 Max (60.6%) | MiniMax M3 (59.0%)
Top Small Models (15–50B, MMLU): Qwen2.5-32B (79.7%) | Llama 4 Scout (79.6%) | Gemma 3 27B (78.6%)
Top Edge Models (0–15B, MMLU): Phi-4 (84.8%) | Phi-4-mini (67.3%) | Mistral 7B (60.1%)
AI Leaders: NVIDIA $5.2T | Alphabet $4.7T | Microsoft $3.1T
Robotics Leaders: ABB $197.4B | Intuitive Surgical $142.5B | Teradyne $57.8B
Every newsletter preserved and searchable
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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