James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Spotify sued for $1.6 billion by major publisher Wixen Music
Music streaming firm Spotify AB is being sued for a massive $1.6 billion by Wixen Music Publishing, even as it reportedly made a confidential filing for an initial public offering. The IPO filing, according to Axios, could happen in the first quarter. But the suit by Wixen, which handles more than 2,000 clients that include The Doors, ...
Jewish journalist says Twitter sided with neo-Nazis
A senior journalist for Tablet magazine, Yair Rosenberg, says Twitter Inc. took the side of neo-Nazis after a bot he had helped create to expose bigoted trolls was banned by the platform. Rosenberg described the events leading up to the banning in the New York Times on Wednesday, explaining that the bot he created with ...
Energous brings full wireless charging one step closer to reality
Boosting your device’s battery out of thin air is closer to becoming a reality after the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday approved an “over the air, power at a distance” wireless charging technology. The company behind it, San Jose-based Energous Corp., had its first-generation WattUp Mid Field transmitter certified, which could mean a door opening to an ...
Apple admits to throttling the performance of older smartphones – to avoid sudden shutdowns
Apple Inc. admitted something Wednesday that some of its smartphone users had feared for a while: The company purposely slows down its older phones. Although the conspiracy theory has turned out to be true, it turns out that Apple was doing it for the right reasons, at leasts according to Apple and some of its supporters. ...
Facebook accused of enabling potential age discrimination with targeted ads
Facebook Inc. has in the past been found guilty of abetting race discrimination by how it allowed its users to be targeted with advertising. A new investigation released today revealed that the company also allows advertisers potentially to discriminate by age. The investigation by The New York Times and ProPublica revealed that numerous companies’ ads for employment would not ...
Microsoft ends arbitration in sexual harassment cases
Microsoft Corp. is taking steps to eliminate the contractual requirement that employees pursue sexual harassment claims through arbitration rather than through the courts, a move that comes on the back on numerous sexual harassment claims in the tech industry and other industries. President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said that although Microsoft had never ...
U.S. puts blame on North Korea for WannaCry cyberattack
The U.S. administration says North Korea was behind the WannaCry cyberattack this year that caused mayhem across the globe by infecting more tha 300,000 computers and causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage. The accusation was made today by President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, Thomas Bossert, whose medium was an op-ed in The Wall ...
Mozilla gets on the wrong side of users with mysterious browser plug-in
Mozilla Corp. has managed to rankle many people using its Firefox browser after slipping in a plug-in promoting the TV series, Mr. Robot. The plug-in, called “Looking Glass,” was not turned on by default. Nonetheless, people concerned about their privacy didn’t take kindly to something appearing in their browser that they had not installed. To ...
Twitter’s response to Russian Brexit meddling is ‘totally inadequate,’ says British MP
The British MP who began an investigation into Russian interference during the EU referendum Thursday called Twitter Inc.’s response to provide the U.K. government with information “totally inadequate.” In November, the U.K.’s head of digital, culture, media and sport committee, Damian Collins, asked Twitter and Facebook Inc. to help with a “Fake News Inquiry” regarding ...
FCC votes to repeal net neutrality rules – and lawsuits are on the way
Updated with FCC vote and lawsuits: The Federal Communications Commission today voted to repeal so-called net neutrality rules, rolling back a regulatory regime that barred broadband providers from charging for high-quality service or blocking websites. The rules were put in place in 2015 by the Obama administration with the intention of keeping the internet an open ...