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Tech Beat · 5 PM Update

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Character dot AI's brief run as an independent startup appears to be over. After the company filed for bankruptcy, Disney has agreed to bring on the majority of its workforce, following a twenty million dollar asset deal. It's a striking move — and not a coincidental one, given that Character dot AI's former CEO recently became Disney's first ever Chief Technology Officer.

Shifting to a story about surveillance and pushback, MapQuest has quietly added a new map layer showing drivers the locations of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras across the country. It's an opt-in feature, but its arrival signals something bigger — a growing public discomfort with how quietly this kind of infrastructure has spread into everyday roads and neighborhoods.

And on the gaming side, there's a surprisingly nuanced case for limiting your frame rate rather than chasing the highest possible output from your graphics card. Uncapped frame rates can drive up GPU temperatures, increase power draw, and introduce screen tearing — meaning sometimes telling your hardware to slow down actually produces a smoother, more stable experience overall.

Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.

Sources

  1. https://www.engadget.com/2286478/limit-frames-per-second-gaming-when-makes-sense/
  2. https://www.engadget.com/2289782/tiktok-reportedly-bans-ads-for-musk-documentary-before-its-wider-us-release/
  3. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/10/18/wall-street-freaked-out-friday-vix-and-bitcoin-say-it-may-not-last
  4. https://decrypt.co/381255/mapquest-shows-drivers-where-flock-cameras-watching
  5. https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/18/disney-agrees-to-hire-the-majority-of-character-ais-workforce/
  6. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-endorses-israel-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu-reelection/
  7. https://www.engadget.com/2286431/how-to-fix-scaling-app-size-issues-samsung-galaxy-z-fold-8/
  8. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/angie-nixon-florida-democratic-senate-candiate-face-the-nation-transcript-10-18-2026/
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