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AI & Enterprise

Disney moves to hire most staff at bankrupt chatbot startup Character.AI

Disney plans to hire most employees of AI chatbot startup Character.AI, which has sought bankruptcy protection, as it looks to strengthen its in-house AI capabilities. Disney agreed to make job offers to at least 60 staff with total annual compensation estimated at about $60 million. Court filings show most recipients accepted. Disney also agreed to buy some Character.AI assets for $20 million, though the deal is not final and could change in the bankruptcy sale.

Telecommunications & Media

Final unveils 40-gram ultralight wireless on-ear headphones, Porta

Japanese audio company Final has unveiled Porta, a 40-gram ultralight wireless on-ear headphone. The product targets users who want a light wireless option but find earbuds or clip-on models uncomfortable. Final is taking preorders on its online store for 12,800 yen, with deliveries starting Oct. 23. Porta uses USB-C charging, offers up to 8 hours per charge, supports Bluetooth 5.4 and SBC/AAC codecs, and has an IPX4 rating but no active noise cancelling.

AI & Enterprise

Stanford, Meta develop AI inference technique to boost speed and cut costs

A research team from Stanford University, Together AI, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Meta introduced a new AI inference technique that processes intermediate reasoning in an internal latent space rather than generating text tokens. The approach combines latent and text modes and uses a HybridLink to keep reasoning continuous. In tests on Qwen3-based models, it reduced token generation and increased inference speed, while improving problem-solving performance. The work has not been peer-reviewed.