Research & Development news

• ChatGPT’s Free Ride Is Over — Here’s the Bill

  23-03-2026 20:52 via eweek.com
  Every time you ask ChatGPT a question, it costs about a third of a cent to answer. Multiply that by a trillion queries a year, and you’re looking at $3 billion in electricity costs alone before salaries, data centers, or research.That math is why ads are now showing up in ChatGPT.After testing ads with select US users, ads for free and Go-tier users in the US will roll out in the coming weeks. They appear at the bottom of answers when there’s a “relevant sponsored product or se
  
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• Microsoft Launches MAI-Image-2, Its Most Advanced AI Image Model Yet

  23-03-2026 19:15 via eweek.com
  Microsoft has introduced MAI-Image-2, its latest in-house text-to-image model designed to generate more realistic and usable visuals for creative work. The release marks the company’s second major step in building its own image-generation technology, following MAI-Image-1.Microsoft is positioning MAI-Image-2 as a tool built for real-world creative workflows rather than just visual experiments. According to the company, the model focuses heavily on photorealism and usability.“MAI-Imag
  
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• Humanoid Robots Are Learning Tennis — and It’s a Big Leap for Real-World AI

  23-03-2026 18:58 via eweek.com
  Teaching robots to play tennis might sound like a stunt, but it’s quickly becoming a test of real-world intelligence.Chinese researchers have developed a new way to teach robots how to play tennis, one that allows them to react in real time rather than follow fixed programming. Using a new system called LATENT, the team trained a robotic model to perform complex, fast, and dynamic tasks with notable accuracy by breaking movements such as strokes and footwork into smaller, learnable compone
  
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• Google Maps Hidden Button Could Make Location Sharing Easier

  23-03-2026 17:06 via eweek.com
  Google Maps may soon make location sharing easier with a more visible shortcut on Android. Google is testing a floating button that could let users share their current location without first tapping the blue dot and opening a secondary panel.
  The change has not been widely rolled out, and it may never ship in its current form. But if Google keeps it, the update would make one of Maps’ less obvious features much easier to find for quick meetups, pickups, and day-to-day coordination.
  A
  
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• Elon Musk Eyes $2.9B Solar Equipment Purchase from China, Report Says

  23-03-2026 16:30 via eweek.com
  Tesla is in discussions to purchase about $2.9 billion worth of solar manufacturing equipment from Chinese firms, as the company ramps up plans to expand solar production in the United States, according to a Reuters report citing people familiar with the matter.The equipment would be used to build solar panels and cells, forming a key part of CEO Elon Musk’s push to scale up energy production.Among the companies in talks are Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, a major player in solar manufacturin
  
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• Super Micro Execs Charged in $2.5B Scheme to Ship Nvidia AI Servers to China

  23-03-2026 16:24 via eweek.com
  Federal prosecutors say a company co-founder, a Taiwan-based manager, and a contractor known as a “fixer” orchestrated an elaborate plot to sneak cutting-edge American technology to Chinese customers.New York federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday charging three men tied to Super Micro Computer with conspiring to illegally ship billions of dollars’ worth of AI-powered servers to China, in violation of strict US export controls.The accused are Yih-Shyan “Wally
  
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• China’s New Surgical Robot Matches Surgeons While Speeding Brain Imaging Procedures

  23-03-2026 15:33 via eweek.com
  Brain imaging is not known for being quick or easy. It demands steady hands, long hours under radiation, and absolute precision. Now, a Chinese surgical robot is stepping in to take some of that pressure off, and it is doing the job faster than humans. Researchers say the system can cut procedure time by nearly 30% while matching the performance of experienced surgeons. Early clinical results suggest the robot could streamline one of the most delicate imaging procedures in medicine, wh
  
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• 8 Claude Prompts Professionals Use to Eliminate Repetitive Tasks

  23-03-2026 14:59 via eweek.com
  Most of your workday probably isn’t the exciting stuff you signed up for. It’s the follow-up emails, the meeting notes that need organizing, the same questions you answer every week, and the mental energy spent trying to remember what you were supposed to do next.In this day and age, I’ve realized that the secret to productivity isn’t working faster; it’s making sure you only do the things an AI can’t.Tools like Claude AI are not just for answering questions;
  
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• Cursor AI Admits Composer 2 Was Built on Moonshot’s Kimi Tech

  23-03-2026 11:38 via eweek.com
  Cursor has confirmed that its new Composer 2 coding model was built on top of Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2.5 after users spotted references to Kimi and pressed the company for an explanation.
  Cursor VP of developer education Lee Robinson said only about a quarter of the compute behind the final model came from the base model, with the rest coming from Cursor’s own training.
  Cursor left Kimi out of the launch
  TechCrunch reported that Cursor executives acknowledged that Composer 2 started wit
  
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