James Farrell
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UK government says its AI can spot online extremist propaganda with 94% accuracy
The British Home Office unveiled a new technology Tuesday that it said can detect extremist content on any online platform with a high degree of accuracy. Tests have shown this new tool can automatically detect 94 percent of Daesh [an acronym for ISIS] propaganda with 99.995 percent accuracy,” said a government press release. “It has ...
Report: How Rupert Murdoch put pressure on Facebook to change its news publishing strategy
Media titan and News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch was never very happy as he watched Facebook Inc.’s rise as the place to go to find news, according to a report Monday in Wired. According to the report, Murdoch (pictured) saw Facebook as a threat to the traditional publishing industry, taking advertising revenue from news media that ...
As Twitter chalks up first profit, its 280-character tweet expansion proves a success
Last September Twitter Inc. took what looked like a giant step when it doubled the character limit on its news and social networking site from 140 to 280. At the time, the media sentiment on the move was that all hell would break loose on the social media site, further encouraging abuse or simply driving away ...
Study explains why male Uber drivers are paid more than female drivers
Male drivers for Uber Technologies Inc. earn about 7 percent more than their female counterparts, according to a collaborative study taken by the company, the University of Chicago and Stanford University. The study, which measured some 1.8 million trips over two years, found that women earn $1.24-per-hour less than men, and $130 less than men ...
Report: Facebook employed a pollster to measure Mark Zuckerberg’s approval ratings
While Mark Zuckerberg was on a 50-state tour last year following revelations that Russia-backed organizations had used Facebook to seed division in the runup to the U.S. elections, the company hired a pollster to monitor the public perception of Facebook Inc.’s chief executive. That’s according to a report in The Verge today, which outlined how one Tavis ...
Former Silicon Valley execs form coalition to warn about the tech they helped create
Ex-employees of Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Google LLC have come together to warn against some of the ill effects tech may have on people’s lives. “Technology is hijacking our minds and society,” the new group, called the Center for Humane Technology, says on its website, echoing what a lot of people have said for a ...
After an executive shuffle, Airbnb says it won’t go public in 2018
Airbnb Inc. Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi has left the building, leaving investors wondering when the company will go public. Apparently, that won’t be this year after all. The San Francisco property rental marketplace, which rose to fame in a similar timeline to Uber Technologies Inc., lost its CFO after reportedly butting heads with Chief ...
Chinese kids get new ears that are 3-D printed, then grown in lab
Five children in China have been blessed to receive new lab-grown ears, and scientists have said the fact that the ears have not been rejected by the body is quite a feat. The kids, aged six to 10, were born with a deformed ear or ears. Known as microtia, the deformity “can seriously influence the ...
Apple is now under US investigation for that iPhone slowdown
Apple Inc. is reportedly now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and also the Securities and Exchange Commission for its deliberate slowdown of the iPhone. Late last year Apple admitted throttling the speed of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone SE , something that naturally didn’t sit well with consumers. The company said ...
Elon Musk’s flamethrower sales are blazing, worrying some and puzzling everyone else
Elon Musk’s Boring Co. reportedly has sold 10,000 flamethrowers at $500 a pop, hauling in $5 million in the first 24 hours that the weapons were on offer. The high-tech fire-spitting machines were announced on Sunday via Twitter. At that time, Musk wrote, “Guaranteed to liven up any party! World’s safest flamethrower!” He added that they might ...