James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Google invests $550M in Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com
Google Inc. will invest $550 million in China’s second largest e-commerce firm JD.com, a move that will give the company a bigger presence in the Asian market and potentially bolster its position against Amazon.com Inc. For its investment, Google will receive 27 million newly-issued class A ordinary shares in JD.com, which will give Google a less ...
The man in charge of Facebook’s public image is out of the door
Elliot Schrage, Facebook Inc.’s head of communications and policy, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the company. After more than a decade at Facebook, Schrage (pictured, right, with Mark Zuckerberg) is gone. Lately he has been a lodestone at the company, where he was tasked with dealing with the image of Facebook during numerous scandals ...
Ratcheting up surveillance, China will now track cars with radio chips
China is fast becoming the most closely surveilled country on the planet, with its omnipresent CCTV cameras and the use of facial recognition technology. Now it has decided its citizens’ cars should be monitored. Starting July 1, vehicles in the country will be fitted with radio-frequency identification chips, according to an article in the Wall ...
Facebook promises to get rid of misleading ads by businesses
As part of a long series of adjustments Facebook Inc. has been making to clean up the platform, it might now start banning businesses from running ads if enough people complain about them. In a blog post today, the company talked about how “bad shopping experiences,” such as receiving something different from what was advertised ...
Google say it won’t help weaponize AI, but it won’t quit working with the military
Google Inc. has tried to make it clear just how far it will go in helping the military with technology, following months of brouhaha over its involvement with the Pentagon in creating artificial intelligence surveillance to go through drone video footage. The company lost employees over the Project Maven work, which has become a bone ...
Facebook teams up with major US news media to tackle fake-news problem
Facebook Inc. is taking steps to diminish the criticism it has faced over the proliferation of “fake news” appearing in its news feed. The solution? Create your own news and do it with some of the largest news organizations in the U.S. The company is joining with some of the biggest names in America news ...
Facebook shared data with Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei
It never seems to end: Facebook Inc. is facing yet another storm of criticism regarding data sharing after news broke Tuesday that the company had data-sharing partnerships with about 60 device makers, including one Chinese firm flagged as a possible threat by U.S. intelligence. That firm is Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., which according to intelligence chiefs ...
Apple gets serious about device overuse, especially by kids
Apple Inc. professed concern Tuesday at Tuesday at its Worldwide Apple Developers Conference that people are spending too much time with their devices. The company has been promising for some time that it will introduce features to help maintain a healthy amount of device time, especially for children. Earlier this year major Apple investors let their concerns be known ...
After facing flak over weaponized AI, Google promises not to be evil
Google Inc. is taking steps to create a set of ethical guidelines for how its technology, notably artificial intelligence, might be used for military purposes, according to a report Wednesday in the New York Times. The report doesn’t say what these guidelines will consist of, but that may be revealed in coming weeks. One thing the ...
Struggling with GDPR, big tech girds for another battle: Europe’s proposed electronic communications privacy rules
No sooner than the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation rules went into effect Friday, tech companies are now gearing up for another battle with what has been called even stricter regulation. That would be the “Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications,” or the “ePrivacy Regulation.” The law, approved by the European Parliament, is currently being reviewed ...