James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
The BBC says it’s being ‘squeezed out’ by US streaming services
The British Broadcasting Corp. is on the back foot, saying it fears it’s being overtaken by on-demand streaming services such as Netflix Inc., YouTube and Spotify. In its 2018/2019 charter, the BBC talked about how the number of younger viewers is falling because they are going instead to online services. It’s not just a matter ...
Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress, but he won’t be going to the UK
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to testify before the U.S. Congress following the data harvesting scandal that has tainted the company’s reputation and prompted several investigations. According to reports today, Zuckerberg will face the music “within a matter of weeks” and the company is planning a strategy before Zuckerberg meets with the ...
Wal-Mart patents point to a smarter kind of shopping in the future
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. today filed for a range of patents that indicates the retail giant is looking to use new technologies to change the shopping experience altogether. One of those patents is a sensing device that may work with a shopper’s smartphone and a connected shopping cart, helping the shopper find certain items in the store. ...
Video of Uber autonomous car that killed woman shows it didn’t slow down, driver distracted
Video footage has been released of a crash that took place last weekend when one of Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving cars killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, as she was walking her bicycle across the street. And it isn’t pretty. The death of the 49-year-old woman, Elaine Herzberg, has raised questions concerning the safety of ...
Here’s how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to fix that data mess
Updated with Mark Zuckerberg’s post: After a sudden avalanche of criticism over recent revelations of potentially illegal and certainly unexpected use of its user data, Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg today outlined steps he’s planning to take to fix the mess. Whether his response and those steps outlined in a post on his Facebook ...
Cambridge Analytica execs secretly filmed talking about bribes, fake IDs, sex workers and voter manipulation
The U.K.’s Channel 4 television station broadcast a video on Monday showing executives at data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica talking about using sex workers, bribes and other nefarious traps to swing the outcome of elections. The video was the result of a four-month investigation by Channel 4’s undercover team into a company that prides itself ...
Facebook security chief will leave the company amid Russian disinformation scandal
Facebook Inc.’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, will leave the company, according to a report published in the New York Times. It seems Stamos (pictured) had disagreed with other executives at the company over the handling of the Russian misinformation campaign that partly took place on the social network last year. According to the report, ...
Facebook under fire as whistleblower alleges Cambridge Analytica misused data
The pressure is mounting on Facebook Inc. after it was discovered that data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica harvested millions of profiles from the platform without the users’ permission. “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles,” whistleblower Christopher Wylie (pictured) told the U.K.’s Observer. He said his job was to build “models to exploit what we ...
Google Maps now has routes for wheelchair users
Navigating city streets in a wheelchair is notoriously difficult, but that may get slightly easier now that Google LLC has added wheelchair routes to its Maps app. The company said today in a blog post that getting around in the city for people with mobility needs is no easy feat, so it has introduced the ...
Facebook bans leading UK far-right group Britain First
Facebook Inc. said one of the U.K.’s leading far-right groups, Britain First, has crossed the line, and the social network has taken down the official Facebook page. In a blog post Wednesday, the social media giant said expressing political opinions was fine, but inciting hatred wasn’t. Facebook also took down the official pages of the group’s leaders, ...