Research & Development news

• More Tech Layoffs: Jack Dorsey Cuts Block’s Workforce Nearly in Half, Blames AI

  27-02-2026 19:35 via eweek.com
  Image: AP Photo/Richard Drew
  It was a brutal Thursday at Block.Block, the payments firm behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay, announced it will cut more than 4,000 employees, about 40% of its workforce. The move reduces headcount from over 10,000 to just under 6,000.CEO Jack Dorsey shared the news in a lengthy note to staff posted on X:“today we’re making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we’re reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,00
  
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• ChatGPT Nears 1 Billion Weekly Users in Record Growth Surge

  27-02-2026 19:32 via eweek.com
  OpenAI is on track to hit the kind of global scale most tech products only fantasize about.
  The AI giant just announced that ChatGPT now has around 900 million weekly active users — and it’s aiming squarely at the 1 billion weekly user milestone. The company also noted how it now boasts more than 50 million consumer subscribers.
  “Subscriber momentum accelerated meaningfully to start the year, with January and February on track to be the largest months for new subscribers in our
  
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• Pentagon Weighs Blacklisting Anthropic, Amodei Says ‘Threats Do Not Change Our Position’

  27-02-2026 18:11 via eweek.com
  A standoff over battlefield AI is now headed toward a federal blacklist.The Pentagon is moving toward blacklisting Anthropic over how its Claude AI can be used inside classified military systems, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatening to label the company a “supply chain risk” unless it drops key safeguards. According to Axios, the administration has set a firm deadline and is weighing both a formal blacklist and the use of the Defense Production Act to compel changes,
  
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• Microsoft’s Copilot Enters Its ‘Second Chapter’ With Autonomous Task Execution

  27-02-2026 17:42 via eweek.com
  Microsoft is pushing Copilot past conversation and into execution.The company has introduced Copilot Tasks, an agent-like system designed to carry out assignments rather than simply respond to prompts. According to the Copilot team, the feature runs in the background using its own browser to plan, coordinate across apps, and complete actions on a user’s behalf as part of a limited research preview.The second chapter beginsCopilot Tasks is presented as the start of a new phase for Microsoft
  
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• Burger King’s New AI Assistant Guides Staff, Tracks Politeness

  27-02-2026 17:35 via eweek.com
  Burger King has quietly slipped artificial intelligence into its headsets along with the lunch rush.The fast-food chain is experimenting with a new generation of AI tools inside its restaurants that will act as a sort of digital coworker for employees. The company has begun testing AI-powered headsets for its workers, which can offer coaching, monitor restaurant operations, and even track staff politeness during customer interactions.The pilot program, now running in about 500 US restaurants, pi
  
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• OpenAI Discovers Mass Shooter’s Secret ChatGPT Account

  27-02-2026 16:46 via eweek.com
  Lightning struck twice in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia earlier this month.
  First in the eerie stillness of a classroom where eight lives were stolen. Then, in Ottawa’s halls of power where officials demanded answers from Silicon Valley about what a chatbot knew and when it knew it.
  As Canada grapples with one of the worst school shootings in its history, the focus has shifted from forensic investigations to the digital trail left on ChatGPT. The company at the center of today’s de
  
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• 6 Best Nano Banana 2 Prompts in 2026: How to Generate Smarter AI Images

  27-02-2026 16:02 via eweek.com
  Last summer, Nano Banana went viral. In November, the Pro version raised the bar for quality. Now Google is trying to merge both worlds.Nano Banana 2, officially Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, promises Pro-level intelligence at Flash-level speed. It adds real-world knowledge, cleaner text rendering, stronger character consistency, and production-ready 4K output. Instead of listing specs, we tested it the practical way: with prompts designed to push its speed, reasoning, layout control, and multilingual
  
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• Why TIN Mismatches Are a Bigger Risk Than Most Finance Teams Realize

  27-02-2026 11:55 via eweek.com
  CTC e-invoicing, VAT reporting, and SAF-T are not isolated compliance tasks. They are different regulatory views of the same underlying transaction data. As tax authorities align real-time controls, periodic filings, and audit expectations, inconsistencies between them become harder to defend and more costly to resolve.Organizations managing multiple tax compliance obligations often look to unified platform architectures to reduce system sprawl. While solutions exist that support indirect tax fr
  
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