Artist sues AI meme generator for selling deeply personal comic as ad template

Artist sues AI meme generator for selling deeply personal comic as ad template

fivenewscrypto    juillet 28, 2026   

Artist Elmer Saflor, who goes by the online handle “Superelmer,” loves that millions of people have shared his “Running Away Balloon” comic since it became a popular meme in 2017.

However, just because lots of people have copied it, that doesn’t mean it’s OK for an AI meme generator to commercialize his copyrighted meme as a template for who knows how many ads, he told Ars. That’s why he’s fighting to stop one of the biggest meme generators currently leveraging AI to rapidly scale the allegedly illegal use.

"Running Away Balloon" comic by Elmer Saflor, aka "Superelmer." Credit: via Saflor / Superelmer

Elmer Saflor, the original artist who made the "Running Away Balloon" comic. Credit: via Saflor

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, Saflor, a digital creator and artist in the Philippines, alleged that Memes Apps, LCC—which operates the content creation platforms Memes.ai and Memes AI Studio—violated copyright law by selling paid subscriptions to an ad generator that spits out copies of his comic without permission.

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First teaser for Apple TV's Neuromancer debuts at SDCC

First teaser for Apple TV's Neuromancer debuts at SDCC

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

Apple TV is fast eclipsing HBO as the go-to platform for prestige TV, especially science fiction, with standout fare like Slow Horses, Severance, Foundation, For All Mankind, Murderbot, Silo, Pluribus, and Widow's Bay, among others. Add the upcoming Neuromancer series to that list, an adaptation of William Gibson's hugely influential 1984 cyberpunk novel of the same name. The streaming platform released a short teaser during San Diego Comic-Con, and visually it looks fantastic, even based on one minute of footage.

Saturday's various SDCC panels also gave us a teaser for Prime Video's Carrie; trailers for Dark Matter S2 and Matchbox: The Movie; and a bit of Marvel casting news.

Fans of Gibson's book already know the Neuromancer story; we'll have to wait to see how closely the series will adhere to the novel. Per the official logline, the series "follows a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage with his partner, Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets." Callum Taylor, best known as Theseus Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, stars as Case, alongside Briana Middleton (The Inheritance) as Molly.

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SDCC teaser gives us our first good look at Blade Runner 2099

SDCC teaser gives us our first good look at Blade Runner 2099

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

It has been nearly five years since Ridley Scott first announced his plans for a TV spinoff of his sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner (1982) and the 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049. It's finally here—or almost, anyway. Prime Video debuted the first teaser for the new 10-episode series, Blade Runner 2099, at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. We also got a teaser for the third season of Prime Video's Rings of Power and a new trailer for HBO's Lanterns.

Co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) joined show runner Silka Luisa (Shining Girls) onstage for the big reveal, which also included an exclusive clip shown to the audience. Luisa told Entertainment Weekly that the series stays true to the original's "noir principles... and there's a mystery at the heart of the show that looks both forwards and backwards in terms of mythology." An uprising has occurred and the humans lost, which means they are now the hunted second-class citizens. "The show is really imagining what comes after us, and what does it mean to be human in a world where humanity is no longer relevant," said Luisa.

Per the official synopsis:

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SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight

SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

SpaceX was more than lucky Friday, sending its 13th full-scale Starship test flight halfway around the world from South Texas to an on-target, intact splashdown in a remote section of the Indian Ocean.

Starship has made precise splashdowns before. This time, however, the ship gently tipped over and came to rest floating in a remote stretch of ocean west of Australia. Previous splashdowns ended with conflagrations, an outcome SpaceX officials have come to expect with each water landing of Starship.

The buoyant Starship looked to be in fine shape after reaching the Indian Ocean. SpaceX engineers flew drones over the vehicle to inspect its heat shield, getting their best look yet at how more than 18,000 ceramic tiles insulating the ship's stainless steel airframe weathered the trip to space and back. The tiles withstood temperatures up to 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius) as Starship streaked back into the atmosphere at the end of its hourlong flight from Starbase, Texas.

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With help from data, art museums are reframing the visitor experience

With help from data, art museums are reframing the visitor experience

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

Giovanni Kanter goes to at least one art museum whenever he visits a new city. That’s on top of his regular exploration of galleries in New York, where the 25-year-old ICU nurse lives and studies. He typically discovers new artists and gallery openings through word of mouth, though he has recently started curating his social media feed to serve relevant content (he’s currently in what he terms a “surrealism phase”).

He was raised on visual art; he's the son of painter Marianne Gargour and nephew of mixed-media artist Heather Hutchison and painter-printmaker Mark Thomas Kanter. His “exposure-oriented education” featured childhood visits to galleries and shows in and around Dallas, where he grew up, and in France, where he spent time with his grandparents.

But Kanter is an exception. Many other young people have a less immersive artistic education, perhaps shaped by occasional school trips or family visits to museums. If they haven’t internalized an instinct for what Kanter calls “moving through the art and absorbing it,” the museum experience is central to how they learn about and understand art.

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Big Tech accused of stonewalling European social media researchers

Big Tech accused of stonewalling European social media researchers

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

In the final weeks before Romania’s presidential vote in November 2024, TikTok accounts that had previously spent years posting about manicures or fashion suddenly started promoting a little-known politician named Calin Georgescu.

His posts, espousing hard-line views on immigration and anti-Semitic tropes, were viewed 120 million times before the vote. Georgescu, who had previously been polling in the single digits, stunned observers by winning the election’s first round with 23 percent of the vote.

In the Netherlands, Adriana Iamnitchi was watching closely. As chair of computational social sciences at Maastricht University, she leads the research into disinformation campaigns. She wanted to know how pro-Georgescu content was being monetized on TikTok through hidden influencer marketing and livestreamed political content.

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Wildfire forces evacuation of NASA's Deep Space Network complex in Spain

Wildfire forces evacuation of NASA's Deep Space Network complex in Spain

fivenewscrypto    juillet 27, 2026   

A fast-moving wildfire, one of many raging across Spain, bore down on the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex on Friday, forcing an evacuation and temporarily suspending operations at one of NASA's most important tracking stations.

The tracking station is part of NASA's Deep Space Network, operating in concert with similar facilities in California and Australia to provide global coverage as Earth's rotation brings the planets, stars, and deep space probes in and out of view. The network supports more than 40 missions from the Moon to the edge of the Solar System, including Artemis, the James Webb Space Telescope, and NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft.

A NASA spokesperson confirmed the tracking station in Spain, located in the hills nearly 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of central Madrid, was evaluated Friday "due to ongoing wildfires in the region. Photos and video from the area showed flames and smoke plumes rising over the ground station's antenna array, anchored by a 230-foot-diameter (70-meter) radio dish and a collection of smaller 112-foot (34-meter) antennas.

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