Day: May 9, 2019

Chelsea Manning walked free today for the first time after spending two months in Virginia’s Alexandria Detention Center for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury probing her relationship with WikiLeaks. Gizmodo first reported news that Manning left the facility today. Manning was found to be in contempt of court, remaining in custody until the […]

Cisco announced today that it was open-sourcing the MindMeld conversation AI platform, making it available to anyone who wants to use it under the Apache 2.0 license. MindMeld is the conversational AI company that Cisco bought in 2017. The company put the technology to use in Cisco Spark Assistant later that year to help bring […]

Netflix is further investing in its children’s programming ahead of the launch of a highly anticipated rival: Disney+. The company announced today it has acquired StoryBots — a children’s media company and brand created by JibJab’s founders, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis. The streaming service isn’t disclosing the acquisition price, but CNBC says the price was […]

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Google Play is changing how app ratings work Specifically, Google says it will start giving more weight to reviews that discuss […]

Instagram isn’t just pretty pictures. It now also harbors bullying, misinformation, and controversial self-expression content. So today Instagram is announcing a bevvy up safety updates to protect users and give them more of a voice. Most significantly, Instagram will now let users appeal the company’s decision to take down one of their posts. A new […]

Docpack is offering businesses a simple way to share their documents — particularly with customers at large enterprises that may block services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Founder and CEO Rurik Bradbury said he encountered this issue while serving as the head of conversational strategy at LivePerson (he’s also been an executive and/or co-founder at […]

Blue Origin is hosting a media event later today in Washington, D.C. TechCrunch will be on the ground, reporting live, though details around precisely what will be announced are still pretty minimal. According to new reporting from Reuters, however, boss man Jeff Bezos is set to unveil his plans to help the U.S. government establish […]

Base coined the term “blanding,” but the international branding agency is anything but boring. With clients ranging from AI startup Rival Theory to e-commerce company Kidbox, Base leverages its broad portfolio of clients and designers from all around the world to help startups develop their individual personas. As they celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, […]

The latest call to break up Facebook looks to be the most uncomfortably close to home yet for supreme leader, Mark Zuckerberg. “Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American,” writes Chris Hughes, in an explosive op-ed published in the New York Times. “It is time to break up Facebook.” It’s a long read but worth indulging […]