The Daily Crunch 09/27/16

Could Disney transform the Twitter hellscape into a Magic Kingdom? All that and more in The Daily Crunch for September 27, 2016. And if you can't see behind you, read on for something that might help.

1. Disney is in the Twitter mix

One possible acquirer for Twitter: Disney. The media giant is indeed in talks to possibly pick up the social network, which seems like an odd fit because Twitter is a repository for some of the worst, most vile human behavior I've ever seen.

Yet Disney would make sense from at least one perspective: streaming video. Disney has a big stake in BAMTech, which powers Twitter's live streaming, so they might be a match after all.

2. Microsoft looks to AI for the future

Microsoft is looking to artificial intelligence and deep learning to help it continue to transform the legacy tech giant. That means Cortana everywhere, making everything smarter. Ultimately, Satya Nadella's goal is to create an artificial assistant that can live anywhere people need it, and destroy the world – wait no, not that. I meant increase your overall productivity.

3. Palantir gets sued by the Department of Labor

When the U.S. Department of Labor sues you over racial discrimination in your hiring practices, and the U.S. Government is also one of your top clients, you know there's something wrong. Big data analyst company Palantir now fits that description, after declining to comply with a request from the government to meet its obligations as an equal opportunity employer, required for federal contractors. Palantir said no, so now the government is suing.

4. Keep your conversations private, now on desktop

Keeping conversations truly private can be a challenge, but Signal, an encrypted chat app powered by Open Whisper Systems, manages that and is recommended by Edward Snowden himself. The app is now available as a desktop app via a Chrome extension you authorize on your phone. IMO a standalone app would be better, but it's still better than nothing.

5. Pear's RearVision backup cam has Apple DNA

Want a backup camera without the new car? The Pearl RearVision is designed to give you just that. Created by ex-Apple hardware engineers, the RearVision is a wireless license plate mount that talks to your smartphone and sends it an HD video feed. The picture quality is unmatched among backup cameras, but you have to launch an app manually every time you use it. Still, it's the easiest aftermarket backup camera solution to install out there – but whether that's worth $500 to you is another story.

6. EFF shames HP over ink DRM

The EFF is telling HP to get rid of the stupid ink cartridge DRM it just introduced. HP's move is definitely anti-consumer, but the company is at least hastening our transition to paperless and hopefully speeding along its own demise as a result.

7. How do you Google a sound?

It's one of the eternal philosophical questions, but new startup Deepgram actually makes it easy. It uses neural-net based AI to help match text search terms to uploaded repositories of audio files. The idea is to build an AI that can do this automatically, so there's no manual or strict rules-based transcription of content required.