The United States Justice Department today announced charges against a Chinese hacker and his hacking team member for their alleged role in the 2015 massive data breach at health insurance giant Anthem and three other unnamed American companies. Fujie Wang (王 福 杰) and another hacker named John Doe with three different aliases—Deniel Jack, Kim…
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…
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…
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…
Facebook’s VP of VR product Hugo Barra is out after some leadership changes at the top of the Oculus organization. He’ll be stepping down into a new role leading global AR/VR partnerships, while Eric Tseng, Facebook’s director of product management, will be replacing Barra with a new title as head of VR product management. Barra…
Existing approaches to blocking malicious advertising aren’t working — at least according to digital ad veteran Seth Demsey. That should resonate with anyone who’s ever encountered an ad that immediately redirected them to a website filled with annoying gift card offers. And it’s the issue that the startup Demsey co-founded, clean.io, is working to address. Today,…
More dismal news from the smartphone number crunchers. New figures out of Canalys put the North American smartphone market at five year low for the first quarter of 2019. That’s…bad. But also, pretty inline with what we’ve been seeing globally. The market has stagnated, and while manufacturers aren’t in full on panic mode, there’s certainly…
During her keynote at TNW’s 2019 conference today, Dropbox‘s Carmen Pop was quick to denote the differences between diversity and inclusion, and how both companies and individuals can promote both in Silicon Valley. Pop, who is Dropbox‘s Chief of Staff at Global Channel, spoke of what it means for her, a woman who’s worked in tech…
For the second time in just over a year, the city of Baltimore has been hit by a ransomware attack, affecting its computer network and forcing officials to shut down a majority of its computer servers as a precaution. Ransomware works by encryption files and locking them up so users can’t access them. The attackers…
This week, we caught up with Sean Culey, Author of “Transition Point: From Steam to Singularity” and Keynote Speaker on Thriving in the Digital Age: The Need for a Copernican Business Revolution at the upcoming Internet of Manufacturing UK event, taking place in Farnborough, May 14-15. Sean is a global keynote speaker on the topic…
