Research & Development news

• ‘Not Woke’: Pentagon Embraces Elon Musk’s Grok AI Despite Global Backlash

  13-01-2026 20:24 via eweek.com
  The Pentagon is betting on Elon Musk’s Grok… even as the chatbot faces global backlash for generating sexualized images.Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the deal between the Department of Defense and xAI on Jan. 12, according to ABC News. The integration will place Grok alongside technologies like Google’s AI engine, Gemini, in the military’s AI arsenal.This decision signals Musk’s belief in Grok’s utility beyond consumer use, despite the recent co
  
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• Elon Musk Slams Apple-Google AI Deal as ‘Unreasonable’ Power Grab

  13-01-2026 19:54 via eweek.com
  The tech industry has been buzzing over Monday’s blockbuster announcement that Apple and Google have joined forces to power the next generation of Siri.One person who didn’t enjoy the news? Elon Musk.Responding directly to the news on X, the Tesla and xAI CEO didn’t hide his disdain for the partnership, labeling it a dangerous expansion of Google’s influence.“This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that [they] also have Android and C
  
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• 7 Best ChatGPT Image Prompts in 2026: How to Get Better AI Photos

  13-01-2026 19:44 via eweek.com
  In 2026, the difference between a forgettable AI image and one that stops people mid-scroll often comes down to a single thing: how well the prompt was written.Across creative blogs, AI prompt guides, and hands-on experimentation, a new generation of “prompt literacy” is emerging.As image generation inside ChatGPT has matured and become mainstream, users are learning a hard truth: the tool is powerful, but it’s not psychic. The best results come from prompts that are clear, int
  
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• MIT Just Solved AI’s Memory Problem (And It’s Brilliantly Simple)

  13-01-2026 17:37 via eweek.com
  You know that feeling when you’re reading a 300-page PDF, and someone asks about page 47? You don’t re-read everything. You flip to the right section, skim for relevant bits, and piece together an answer. If you have a really great memory (and, more importantly, great recall), you can reference what you read right off the top of your head.Current AI models? Not so smart. They try cramming everything into working memory at once. Once that memory fills up (typically around ~100,000 tok
  
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• Trump Insider Dina Powell McCormick Joins Meta as President

  13-01-2026 16:43 via eweek.com
  Mark Zuckerberg has played his ‘Trump’ card with a new appointment.
  Meta revealed this week that Dina Powell McCormick—former Trump administration insider and Goldman Sachs powerhouse—is joining as president and vice chairman to spearhead a $600 billion infrastructure plan.
  Powell McCormick stepped into this newly created role as Meta simultaneously announced the creation of Meta Compute, a new organization designed to build data centers consuming “tens of gigawatts
  
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• How 1X Is Teaching Its Humanoid Robot to Learn on Its Own

  13-01-2026 16:25 via eweek.com
  The home robot from 1X is taking a step that could change how machines learn everyday skills.This week, 1X unveiled what it calls the 1X World Model (1XWM), a new AI system designed to help NEO understand the physical world and act inside it more naturally. Instead of relying mainly on hand-coded rules or thousands of hours of human-operated robot training, NEO now learns from internet-scale video, much like humans do.According to 1X, this marks a shift away from traditional robot AI systems tha
  
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• Meta Cuts 1,500 Reality Labs Jobs as AI Takes Priority

  13-01-2026 14:57 via eweek.com
  Meta is preparing to eliminate approximately 1,500 positions from its Reality Labs division this week, marking another shift in the tech giant’s strategic priorities.
  The cuts represent roughly 10% of the division’s 15,000-person workforce and signal Meta’s accelerating pivot away from its metaverse ambitions toward AI dominance.
  The New York Times reports that Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth has called an urgent all-hands meeting for Wednesday (Jan. 14), describing it
  
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• OpenAI Strengthens ChatGPT Health Plans With Torch Acquisition

  13-01-2026 12:53 via eweek.com
  OpenAI has acquired Torch, a tiny healthcare startup that’s barely one year old, for a reported $100 million in equity.
  The move comes days after OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT Health. With more than 40 million users already turning to ChatGPT daily for health questions, this acquisition makes perfect sense.
  On X, OpenAI said, “We’ve acquired Torch, a healthcare startup that unifies lab results, medications, and visit recordings. Bringing this together with ChatGPT Health opens up a n
  
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• Chinese Tech Leaders Temper Expectations in Global AI Race

  13-01-2026 10:52 via eweek.com
  China’s AI sector has been portrayed as rapidly closing in on the United States in the race to lead the global AI market, but today’s experts offer a more down-to-earth perspective on whether China will push ahead.The nation’s new models, flashy demos, and bold government targets have fuelled the idea that a turning point is just around the corner. But although China’s AI sector has made rapid strides over the past decade, leading researchers inside the country say there
  
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• Meta Compute Initiative Launches for AI Infrastructure Boost

  13-01-2026 10:38 via eweek.com
  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made an announcement that livens up the AI arms race.
  It was intense enough already, but the tech giant is launching Meta Compute—a dedicated “top-level organization” that will build computing infrastructure measured in hundreds of gigawatts. This is Meta declaring all-out war in the battle for AI supremacy.
  Zuckerberg announced on Threads that Meta plans to construct “tens of gigawatts this decade, and hundreds of gigawatts or more over time.
  
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• Anthropic Just Turned Claude Code Into Cowork — and It’s Not Just for Coders

  13-01-2026 00:28 via eweek.com
  Claude Code, Anthropic’s coding agent, is having a “main character moment” as the first true general-purpose AI agent. Despite the name, people have realized it’s not just a coding tool. It’s an everything tool.Its magic lies in its perfect fit for a software world. Claude Code runs commands locally on your machine with full access to files, browsers, and your command line. It can handle anything a human with computer access could.Well, Anthropic just released Cowor
  
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