Research & Development news

• OpenAI Debuts GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, a Near-Instant AI for Real-Time Coding

  13-02-2026 16:53 via eweek.com
  OpenAI has released a research preview of GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, a lightweight version of its latest Codex system built specifically for real-time coding. The model is designed to deliver rapid responses for tasks such as editing functions, refining logic, or adjusting interfaces inside development tools. According to OpenAI, the model is optimized to feel “near-instant” and can produce more than 1,000 tokens per second when running on ultra-low-latency hardware.At launch, Codex-S
  
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• Elon Musk Slams Anthropic AI as ‘Evil’ After $380B Valuation

  13-02-2026 19:54 via eweek.com
  Anthropic should have been popping champagne. The AI startup recently announced a massive $30 billion funding round that reportedly values the company at roughly $380 billion, cementing its place among the most valuable private AI players in the world.
  But instead of applause, the company got a public broadside from Elon Musk.
  In a sharply worded post on X, the xAI founder accused Anthropic’s models of being “misanthropic and evil,” igniting yet another high-profile clash in th
  
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• Waymo Begins Deploying Next-Gen Ojai Robotaxis in the US

  13-02-2026 18:01 via eweek.com
  Waymo is putting its most advanced self-driving system yet on the road.The Alphabet-owned company announced on Feb. 12 that it has begun fully autonomous operations with its sixth-generation Waymo Driver system. The new fleet, built on base vehicles from Chinese automaker Geely, represents the company’s most aggressive push yet to scale its technology while driving down costs.“This latest system serves as the primary engine for our next era of expansion, with a streamlined configurat
  
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• Hackers Try to Clone Google’s Gemini With 100,000+ AI Probes

  13-02-2026 17:49 via eweek.com
  Google built Gemini to answer questions. Now attackers are using questions as lockpicks.In a surge of more than 100,000 carefully engineered prompts, threat actors have been hammering Google’s Gemini chatbot in what the company calls “model extraction” or “distillation” attacks. By systematically probing the system, adversaries attempt to reverse engineer the model’s underlying logic, reasoning patterns, and chain of thought to build rival AI systems without p
  
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• ByteDance Launches Seedance 2.0 AI Video Model to Rival OpenAI, Google

  13-02-2026 17:31 via eweek.com
  ByteDance just fired a starting pistol in the AI video race… and it is not aiming for second place.The TikTok parent rolled out Seedance 2.0, a video model that quickly went viral in China, and highlighted major upgrades to its Seedream image tools. The company has designed Seedance 2.0 for professional film, e-commerce, and advertising production, signaling its latest foray into multimodal generative AI. The launch puts ByteDance into direct competition with OpenAI, Google, and Alib
  
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• Figure Launches Humanoid Robot Upgrade Helix 02 for Full-Body Autonomy

  13-02-2026 14:36 via eweek.com
  Figure has introduced Helix 02, its most advanced humanoid AI yet, designed to control an entire robot’s body as a single coordinated system. The new model allows a humanoid to walk, handle objects, balance, and adapt continuously without human input, marking a significant step toward practical robot autonomy. The company says the system moves beyond short demonstrations and scripted motions, enabling robots to perform real-world tasks from start to finish.To showcase the upgrade, Hel
  
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• China Launches World’s First Humanoid Robot Combat League

  12-02-2026 20:42 via eweek.com
  Robot fighting has arrived in Shenzhen. China has launched what it calls the world’s first commercial humanoid robot free combat league, complete with spinning kicks, aerial rotations, and a 10-kilogram gold championship belt worth about $1.44 million.But there’s more to it than just the spectacle. The new Ultimate Robot Knock-out Legend, or URKL, is basically a testing ground for embodied AI. The inaugural season kicked off on Feb. 9 and will run through December, with teams co
  
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• Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt Fight Each Other in Viral AI Video

  12-02-2026 17:45 via eweek.com
  Mission: Impossible scale. Fight Club force. All AI.A hyper-realistic AI video showing Tom Cruise trading blows with Brad Pitt has rattled the industry, prompting Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriter Rhett Reese to declare, “It’s likely over for us,” and admit he’s terrified by what he’s seeing.Responding directly to the viral Cruise-Pitt clip, Reese warned that Hollywood could be “revolutionized/decimated,” suggesting the technology is moving faster an
  
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• New Siri Delayed Again as Apple Preps Broader AI Changes for iOS 27

  12-02-2026 17:27 via eweek.com
  Apple’s high-stakes Siri revamp is reportedly running late… again.For anyone keeping track since the grand reveal in June 2024, the “new era” of Siri feels like it’s been perpetually just around the corner. We were initially looking at a March release with iOS 26.4, but according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is hitting the brakes.According to Gurman, Apple’s “long-planned upgrade to the Siri virtual assistant has run into sn
  
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• Meta’s $10B AI Bet: Why This Indiana Data Center Matters

  12-02-2026 17:16 via eweek.com
  A gigawatt is not a rounding error.
  It’s a location decision.
  Meta has started construction on a new 1GW data center campus in Lebanon, Indiana, calling it one of the company’s largest infrastructure investments and putting the spend at more than $10 billion.
  The announcement underscores a shift that’s getting harder to ignore: at AI scale, the constraint is not just the model. It’s the mix of land, power, and buildable infrastructure that lets you expand quickly.
  A gigaw
  
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• Cisco Silicon One G300 Targets AI’s Data Center Bottleneck

  12-02-2026 16:05 via eweek.com
  AI is running into a data center bottleneck, and Cisco wants to be the fix.
  Cisco announced the Silicon One G300, a 102.4 Tbps switching chip, plus new systems and optics aimed at scaling AI data centers for what it calls the agentic era.
  Cisco’s move is a reminder that AI buildouts are becoming an infrastructure problem, not just a model problem. The company is positioning G300-powered switching platforms as part of a coordinated stack meant to keep large AI environments fed with data as
  
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• OpenAI Brings ChatGPT to Pentagon as Military Pushes for Expanded AI Access

  12-02-2026 15:44 via eweek.com
  OpenAI announced Monday that it is bringing a custom version of ChatGPT to GenAI.mil, the Department of War’s secure enterprise AI platform, making its flagship product available to all 3 million civilian and military personnel across the armed services.The partnership marks the latest commitment by a major AI company to integrate generative tools directly into the daily workflow of America’s fighting force.“We believe the people responsible for defending the country should hav
  
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• Snap, Shop, Done: Uber Launches AI Cart Assistant for Groceries

  12-02-2026 15:26 via eweek.com
  Uber is turning the tedious task of online grocery shopping into a snap-your-fingers affair with a new AI feature that can scan your handwritten shopping list and fill your cart in seconds.The ride-hailing and delivery giant announced Wednesday the launch of Cart Assistant, an AI-powered tool now available in the Uber Eats app that promises to shave minutes off grocery ordering by letting customers build their carts using simple text commands or photos.To use this feature, shoppers search for a
  
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• Claude Cowork Is the ‘Intern’ We’ve Been Waiting For

  12-02-2026 15:12 via eweek.com
  Yesterday, we mentioned Claude Cowork as one of the top agents you need to try if you haven’t yet. It’s a relatively new mode for the Claude desktop app that transforms the AI from a chatbot into an active agent capable of managing files, controlling your browser, and executing complex workflows on your computer.
  It’s not just chat: Unlike the standard web interface, Cowork lives on your desktop and acts as a “doer” rather than just a chatter. It can access local fo
  
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• Six xAI Co-Founders Exit Amid Grok Controversy, SpaceX Merger

  12-02-2026 14:37 via eweek.com
  Half of the founding team at xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, has left less than three years after its founding.The departure announcements by co-founders Yuhuai (Tony) Wu and Jimmy Ba this week bring the total number of exits to six, five of which have occurred in the past 12 months.In both announcements, the co-founders spoke positively about their time at xAI, with Ba thanking Musk in his post: “Enormous thanks to @elonmusk for bringing us together on this incredi
  
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• eSpeaks MIT xPRO on Building Smarter Professionals for the AI Era

  11-02-2026 22:48 via eweek.com
  In this episode of eSpeaks with Corey Noles, Dr. Luke Hobson, Senior Instructional Designer at MIT xPRO, offers a rare look into both sides of the AI learning equation: why it’s urgently needed in today’s workplace, and how MIT builds courses that meet that demand with precision and purpose.
  The post eSpeaks MIT xPRO on Building Smarter Professionals for the AI Era appeared first on eWEEK.
  
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• OpenAI’s Profitability Challenge: Can the AI Giant Make Its Business Model Sustainable?

  11-02-2026 21:53 via eweek.com
  OpenAI has become the face of the generative AI boom, yet behind its viral success is a harder business question: can explosive growth translate into sustainable profits?
  Revenue is rising fast, but so are the costs of building and running frontier AI systems. The company’s long-term viability does not hinge on whether the technology works. It hinges on whether the economics do.
  Recent reporting based on investor materials suggests OpenAI’s annual revenue has surged into the billions
  
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• Alibaba Launches RynnBrain AI Model for Robots

  11-02-2026 21:39 via eweek.com
  Robots are getting smarter, and Alibaba wants to help power their brains. The Chinese tech giant this week introduced RynnBrain, a new artificial intelligence model designed to help machines understand and act in the physical world. The launch signals how fast the AI race is expanding beyond chatbots and cloud software into factories, warehouses, and humanoid machines. With RynnBrain, Alibaba is aiming to compete with Nvidia, Google, and Tesla in what industry executives describe as a multi
  
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• Meta Rolls Out AI-Animated Profile Pictures on Facebook

  11-02-2026 18:18 via eweek.com
  Facebook is now letting users animate their profile photos… with the help of AI.Meta announced Tuesday that it’s rolling out new AI-powered features across Facebook designed to add more flair to how people present themselves on the platform. The centerpiece is animated profile pictures, which use Meta AI to add motion to still photos in seconds.The profile picture animation feature includes preset options such as “natural,” “wave,” “heart,” &ldquo
  
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• Amazon Eyes AI Content Marketplace as Publishers Seek Fair Pay

  11-02-2026 15:30 via eweek.com
  Amazon is in active discussions with publishing executives to launch a new marketplace that would act as a bridge between media companies and AI developers. According to a report from The Information, the goal is to create a one-stop shop where publishers can list their articles, photos, and archives for sale to companies looking for high-quality data to train their artificial intelligence.The move comes as the relationship between AI developers and content creators has become a legal and e
  
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• Chinese Humanoid Robots Perform Kung Fu, Stir Awe and Anxiety Online

  11-02-2026 15:13 via eweek.com
  Metal meets meditation as humanoid robots join monks in martial arts practice.A group of humanoid robots has been filmed practicing kung fu alongside Shaolin monks at China’s famous Shaolin Temple. The videos, which began circulating widely in early February, show the machines mirroring monks’ movements inside the historic temple complex in Henan province. The robots were developed by Shanghai-based robotics company AgiBot. In the clips, they appear to closely follow the monks&r
  
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• 5 AI Tools That Transform AI Overwork Into Automation Power

  11-02-2026 15:02 via eweek.com
  Yesterday, we showed you Harvard’s research proving AI makes work harder. More tasks, blurrier boundaries, constant context-switching.Today: it’s time to learn the toolkit that flips the script. If you’re just getting started with AI or still copying and pasting content directly in the web app, it’s time to upgrade your stack. Each tool below maps to a compound engineering principle from yesterday’s story.
  Cowork (Anthropic, free for Pro users, now on Windows) plans
  
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• COSMIC Desktop Is Preparing a Striking New Visual Feature

  11-02-2026 13:01 via eweek.com
  COSMIC Desktop is experimenting with new visual effects as developers tease frosted glass UI work and more animations.
  The post COSMIC Desktop Is Preparing a Striking New Visual Feature appeared first on Linux Today.
  
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• How to Set Time, Timezone and Sync Server Clock in Linux

  11-02-2026 12:36 via eweek.com
  In this article, learn how to set time, timezone, and synchronize your Linux system clock with NTP using timedatectl, systemd-timesyncd, and chrony.
  The ‘timedatectl‘ command is a utility for RHEL-based and Debian-based distributions, and it is a part of the ‘systemd‘ system and service manager, serving as a replacement for the old traditional date command used in ‘sysvinit‘ daemon-based Linux distributions.
  The timedatectl command allows you to query and chan
  
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• How to Install Let’s Encrypt on AlmaLinux 10

  11-02-2026 12:29 via eweek.com
  SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol that functions to secure communication between clients and servers over the Internet. SSL protects sensitive data such as login information, credit card numbers, and other personal information sent over the internet. Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, works by using encryption techniques, namely changing the data sent into a form that cannot be read by unauthorized parties. This is done by encrypting the data on the sender’s side and decrypting
  
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• How to Use GPG to Encrypt and Decrypt Files in Linux

  11-02-2026 12:25 via eweek.com
  In this article, we show you how to encrypt files with GPG in Linux, generate key pairs, share encrypted files securely, and decrypt them.
  In computing, encryption is a popular and most often the recommended technique of hiding information in a secretive format. GnuPG is one of the useful tools for encrypting information (files) on Linux systems.
  GnuPG (also known as GNU Privacy Guard or simply GPG) is GNU’s tool used to encrypt data and create digital signatures that contribute to overall
  
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• Drowning in AI slop, cURL Ends Bug bounties

  11-02-2026 12:22 via eweek.com
  Daniel Stenberg, founder and lead developer of cURL, has had enough of AI slop and is closing down its bug bounty program.
  The post Drowning in AI slop, cURL Ends Bug bounties appeared first on Linux Today.
  
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• This OS Quietly Powers all AI – and Most Future IT jobs, Too

  11-02-2026 12:19 via eweek.com
  Without Linux, there is no ChatGPT. No AI at all. None. Here’s why.
  The post This OS Quietly Powers all AI – and Most Future IT jobs, Too appeared first on Linux Today.
  
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• Arch the Easy Way, With Manjaro 26.0

  11-02-2026 12:16 via eweek.com
  Manjaro 26.0 aims to deliver Arch speed with fewer sharp edges; here’s how it handles installation, performance, and everyday tasks.
  The post Arch the Easy Way, With Manjaro 26.0 appeared first on Linux Today.
  
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• Open Invention Network Shifts to Tiered Funding and Expands Linux System

  11-02-2026 12:15 via eweek.com
  After two decades of endowment‑backed patent defense, Open Invention Network is moving to a tiered funding model and expanding its Linux System coverage.
  The post Open Invention Network Shifts to Tiered Funding and Expands Linux System appeared first on Linux Today.
  
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