Research & Development news

• Meet ‘Atlas’: Boston Dynamics’ New Robot Takes First Real Factory Job at Hyundai Plant

  05-01-2026 19:26 via eweek.com
  Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot, Atlas, has taken a significant step beyond flashy lab demos. For the first time, the AI-powered robot is being tested in a real factory, learning how to do actual industrial work.CBS’s 60 Minutes was invited to Hyundai Motor Group’s new auto plant near Savannah, Georgia, where Atlas was put to work inside a parts warehouse. The visit offered a rare look at how close humanoid robots are to joining human workers on factory floors.Standing 5 feet,
  
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• 10 Essential AI Terms Every Beginner Should Learn Today

  05-01-2026 18:30 via eweek.com
  Artificial intelligence is everywhere now, powering search engines, rewriting emails, and even seeping into the apps you use every day. But for anyone just stepping into the space, the language around AI can feel like a wall of unfamiliar terms: tokens, models, hallucinations, and more. The tech isn’t hard to follow, but the jargon is. Once you decode the vocabulary, the entire field becomes far less mysterious and far more usable.Here are the 10 AI terms that give beginners the clear
  
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• Elon Musk Pushes Grok Beyond X With New Business, Enterprise AI Offerings

  05-01-2026 17:57 via eweek.com
  Grok is stepping out of the public timeline and into the office.Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has launched Grok Business and Grok Enterprise, two new paid tiers designed to bring its flagship AI assistant into workplaces, from small teams to large global organizations. The move marks xAI’s clearest push yet to compete for enterprise customers already weighing tools from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.In a post announcing the launch, xAI said it’s making Grok available to employee
  
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• 170 Million New Jobs, 92 Million Lost: Inside the AI Employment Paradox

  05-01-2026 17:26 via eweek.com
  The question is no longer whether AI will disrupt jobs, but how many and how fast. For much of the past two years, analysts and labor studies have warned of a looming job apocalypse, particularly for entry-level roles that once served as the primary on-ramp for new college graduates. That near-dystopian narrative has been reinforced by sustained layoffs across sectors through 2025, including technology, media, finance, consulting, and corporate retail operations, even as companies acce
  
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• Meet Pickle 1: The ‘Soul Computer’ AR Glasses That May Be Ahead of Reality

  05-01-2026 16:46 via eweek.com
  A Y Combinator startup just launched a new pair of AI-powered AR glasses they’re calling the world’s first “soul computer.” The name? Pickle 1.Yep. A company named after a preserved vegetable wants you to strap always-on cameras to your face to capture your “soul.”Here are the details
  The Pickle 1 went live for pre-orders on New Year’s Day with a $799 price tag ($200 deposit, Q2 2026 delivery).Founder Daniel Park, a medical school dropout turned e-commer
  
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• Plaud Pursues Plaudits With AI Note-Taking Wearable Launch

  05-01-2026 13:34 via eweek.com
  Farewell, my lovely memory. If you decide to have a ‘big sleep’ in a meeting, fear not, a wearable could come to the rescue.
  Plaud has revealed its laudable ambitions with the unveiling of two products that could redefine how professionals capture and use information from conversations.
  On show is the upgraded wearable device, the Plaud NotePin S, alongside a new desktop application, Plaud Desktop. Together, the company positions the releases as the first unified AI note-taking syste
  
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• Google AI Overviews Put Health Searches and Patients at Risk

  05-01-2026 12:51 via eweek.com
  When a search result starts sounding like a diagnosis, the stakes change fast. Google’s AI Overviews are under scrutiny after experts warned that the tool is surfacing misleading health information that could put patients at risk.According to an investigation by The Guardian, the generative AI summaries shown at the top of Google Search have produced inaccurate and potentially harmful medical guidance across health topics, raising fresh concerns about trusting AI-generated health answ
  
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• Embrace AI as ‘Cognitive Amplifier’ Urges Microsoft CEO

  05-01-2026 12:05 via eweek.com
  Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has declared the industry needs to abandon “slop vs sophistication” debates and embrace AI as humanity’s new “cognitive amplifier.”
  In his brief “Looking Ahead to 2026” post, Nadella said, “We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our ‘theory of the mind’ that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate
  
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• AI Inflation Crisis Could Derail 2026 Economic Boom

  05-01-2026 09:38 via eweek.com
  The love for AI could be a dangerous thing.
  Global stock markets that surged to record highs on enthusiasm for AI and easier monetary policy may be overlooking a growing risk that could derail the rally: a renewed upswing in inflation driven in part by the technology investment boom itself.
  U.S. stock indexes posted double-digit gains in 2025, with just seven major technology groups accounting for roughly half of total market earnings. Optimism surrounding AI adoption, combined with expectations
  
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