Radar – by nexxworks: Disney-in-Sora, DeepSeek & the Great Humanoid Hunger Games

AI promised us rocket fuel and handed us… a 4,700-slide Keynote that rage-quits.

In this end-of-year Q&A episode of Radar – by nexxworks, Steven Van Belleghem, Peter Hinssen and Pascal Coppens trade rapid-fire questions, big-picture predictions, and just enough geopolitics to make your coffee taste like a defense budget.

They kick off with Disney’s rumored OpenAI partnership—because nothing says “family brand stewardship” like giving the internet access to Mickey and Minnie (with “guardrails,” aka a legal department the size of Luxembourg). From there, they jump to Australia’s under-16 social media ban and the obvious question: will teens comply, or will they simply evolve thumbs capable of bypassing any rule known to man?

Then it’s on to Taiwan tensions (is March 2026 a trip, or an accidental history documentary?), Europe’s recurring role as the world’s most beautifully regulated turtle, and the tech that’s actually underhyped for 2026: AI glasses, driverless cars finally leaving their 2011 hype cocoon, and humanoid robots shifting from “lab demo” to “factory coworker who never calls in sick.”

To close, they each pick their indelible 2025 moment—from OpenAI’s user explosion, to Steven’s 75-year-old mom adopting ChatGPT like it’s a new hobby, to Trump–China trade dynamics and Pascal’s conviction that DeepSeek will still be a headline in a decade.

Underneath all of this runs a bigger story:

What happens to loyalty when the interface becomes the decision-maker—when your kid’s social life runs on one app, your economy runs on supply chains, and your future coworkers might be shipped in crates?

If you’re trying to make sense of Disney + OpenAI, Australia’s social media crackdown, Taiwan, Europe’s speed problem, AI glasses, Waymo, humanoid robots, energy bottlenecks, DeepSeek, and what 2025 will mean in hindsight—this episode is your slightly sarcastic, fully human guide through the chaos.

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Takeaways

• Disney + OpenAI is a brand opportunity… and a brand-risk speedrun (guardrails incoming).  
• Australia’s under-16 social media ban raises a brutal practicality question: enforcement vs. migration to “not-on-the-list” platforms.  
• Taiwan talk is heating up, but “ready by 2027” doesn’t automatically mean “war by 2027.”  
• Europe’s strategic problem isn’t talent—it’s tempo (and a habit of playing defense while others sprint).  
• AI glasses are creeping toward “next mainstream interface,” especially as Big Tech re-enters the category.  
• Driverless cars are quietly crossing the chasm from “cool demo” to “normal city infrastructure.”  
• Humanoid robots look like China’s next mass-production flex: not sci-fi, not a lab toy—industrial scale.  
• Energy becomes the unsexy boss level of AI progress (solid-state batteries, new grid thinking, nuclear alternatives).  
• OpenAI’s growth curve is the kind that makes historians circle dates with a red pen.  
• DeepSeek isn’t just “a model”—it’s a signal flare about where AI power (and confidence) is shifting.  

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