NEWS YOU CAN’T MISS

Every 90s Kid’s Dream

For the first time ever, you don’t just have to watch Disney characters - you’ll be able to make your own Disney scenes with them.

Mickey. Moana. Darth Vader. Elsa. Yoda. The whole crew. 🍿✨

Disney is taking a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and officially bringing more than 200 characters into Sora, the viral AI video generator. Starting next year, you can type a sentence… and a custom Disney clip appears. Some fan-made videos will even make it onto Disney+.

This means you could soon create:

• A 10-second Frozen scene for your kid’s birthday

• A Toy Story-style adventure starring your family

• A pep talk from Yoda before your big presentation

For a company that spent decades guarding its characters like treasure, this is a huge shift. Disney is basically handing fans a magical digital toy box and saying: go play.

Why the shift? Disney knows younger audiences today spend more time creating short videos on TikTok and YouTube than watching traditional shows. AI tools like Sora exploded this year, with people already making unofficial Disney-style clips. Rather than chase them, Disney wants to join the trend and set the rules.

OpenAI, meanwhile, gets the chance to power videos inside one of the most beloved storytelling universes on Earth.

Disney has spent a century making worlds that feel magical. Letting fans create their own moments inside those worlds might be the most magical twist yet.

(source: New York Times reporting by Brooks Barnes and Cade Metz)

AI Santa’s Calling… Will You Pick Up?

Santa’s coming to town… via video call.

AI startup Tavus just launched its AI Santa - a super-chatty, ultra-attentive, emotion-reading version that kids can video call like he’s live from the North Pole’s wifi lounge.

And people aren’t just stopping by… they’re talking to him for hours every day.

This year’s Santa is more expressive, remembers everything you tell him, and can even do tasks on his own - like searching the web for gift ideas or helping you draft emails. He’ll smile when you smile, ask follow-up questions about your favorite games, and apparently never gets tired of hearing about Christmas lists.

Families are loving it, but some parents are wondering how much time kids should spend with a Santa who’s powered by code - not cookies.

(source: Tech Crunch reporting by Lauren Forristal)

AI Around the World

In the US, a woman in San Francisco gave birth inside a Waymo robotaxi on the way to the hospital. Waymo’s remote team spotted “unusual activity” and called 911, but the car still arrived before emergency services - marking the company’s second mid-ride birth after one in Phoenix.

In the UK, Google’s DeepMind is opening its first “automated research lab,” where AI and robots will run experiments to help discover new materials for chips and medical tech. The lab opens next year and gives UK scientists early access to DeepMind’s most advanced AI tools as the country pushes to grow its AI research and attract investments.