James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai will give Texas its first self-driving cars
California-based Drive.ai announced Monday that it will soon launch a pilot program for self-driving cars in Frisco, Texas, that will allow users to order a ride via its smartphone app. The program will start in July and run for six months, offering rides to up to 10,000 people within a geofenced area comprising of retail, ...
Criminal gang used drone swarm to foil FBI raid
In what sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie, the FBI reported this week that last year a hostage raid was undone when criminals employed a swarm of drones to get in officers’ faces. According to Joe Mazel, the head of the FBI’s Operational Technology Law unit, this is a new way that criminals ...
Cambridge Analytica shuts down, but probes of its Facebook data use continue
Cambridge Analytica, the company behind the data harvesting scandal that affected as many as 87 million Facebook users, Wednesday announced it will cease all operations in the U.K. and the U.S. The British political consulting company said in a press release that because of what had happened, it had been “vilified” in the media, although ...
Oculus Go and its new features: enough to take VR mainstream?
The hotly anticipated Oculus Go became available to the public on Tuesday, a standalone virtual reality headset that might induce the average consumer to take the plunge and finally get into VR. The reason for that is a low price of just $199 and also the fact that you don’t need to hook it up to ...
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum leaves, allegedly over data privacy clash with owner Facebook
Jan Koum, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook Inc.-owned messaging giant WhatsApp, will leave the company amid reported disagreements over data privacy, advertising and encryption. Koum will also vacate his spot on Facebook’s board of directors, a position he filled when the social media giant bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. The exact ...
UK committee disappointed with Facebook CTO, wants to question Zuckerberg
Facebook Inc. Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer Thursday was grilled in front of a U.K. parliamentary committee over the recent data harvesting scandal and the impact of the social network on society, but he left the politicians wanting much more: namely, his boss. Schroepfer (pictured) faced what most media believed was a more testing line ...
The Department of Justice is now going after Huawei
The U.S. Justice Department is now investigating Chinese smartphone maker Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. for potential violations of sanctions on Iran. “It’s unclear how far the Justice Department probe has advanced and what specific allegation federal agents are probing,” said a report published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal. The paper said it had spoken ...
Facebook starts to take user privacy very seriously as GDPR looms
Following weeks of controversy regarding what data Facebook collects and how it’s used, the company is jacking up efforts to make users feel more comfortable. The moves come weeks before the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect. GDPR sets guidelines for the how people’s personal data is collected and used, with big penalties for companies ...
Facebook’s data privacy control changes ahead of GDPR don’t thrill everyone
Facebook Inc. has announced new privacy protections on the platform to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR that will go into effect next month. However, it’s aiming to exempt 1.5 billion users in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America, or about 70 percent of its user base worldwide, from its new terms of service created to ...
New Cambridge Analytica revelations: ICO plans and more data harvesting quizzes
The research company behind Facebook Inc.’s massive data harvesting scandal, Cambridge Analytica, was trying to create its own cryptocurrency and raise money through an initial coin offering. Reuters reported that the firm was trying to raise as much as $30 million. The plan was to develop a platform for users to use blockchain to store and possibly ...