Science & Technology — July 12, 2026

Apple sued OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft. Apple alleged this week that OpenAI's senior leadership directed a scheme to steal hardware secrets via poached employees, calling the AI firm's nascent hardware business "rotten to its core."

According to TechCrunch, the lawsuit marks a rupture between two companies that had been high-profile partners. Apple's complaint centers on former employees who joined OpenAI, claiming senior leadership at the AI firm directed them to bring proprietary hardware information with them as OpenAI builds out a device business of its own.

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China landed a rocket booster for the first time. A Long March 10B rocket launched a satellite to orbit Friday and landed at sea, making China the second nation after U.S. companies to recover an orbital-launch booster.

The milestone came on the Long March 10B's first-ever flight, according to Space.com, with the vehicle completing its primary satellite delivery before the booster touched down at sea. Until now, recovering a booster from an orbital launch had been accomplished only by U.S. companies, placing China in a group of two.

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OpenAI launched GPT-5.6 after government greenlight. The Trump administration approved the release after a U.S. government review held it back; OpenAI debuted the flagship model family this week alongside "ChatGPT Work," a workplace AI suite.

The release had been delayed while the model family underwent a U.S. government review, according to The Verge, and only proceeded once the Trump administration signed off. That approval process signals a new layer of federal oversight on frontier AI releases. Alongside the flagship models, OpenAI is pushing further into enterprise territory with a dedicated workplace suite, positioning the products for business customers rather than solely consumer use.

The Verge · Read more →