James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Bill Gates is building his own smart city in Arizona
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is investing $80 million dollars to build a smart city replete with high-tech infrastructure, data centers and autonomous vehicles. According to reports, the city will be a hub for small businesses hoping to set up in an ultramodern environment that will be situated on 25,000 acres of land 45 minutes ...
Missouri attorney general begins investigation into Google’s business practices
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley today announced the issuing of an investigative subpoena into Google LLC’s business practices regarding a possible violation of the state’s antitrust laws. The investigation will attempt to ascertain if Google violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, the state’s principal consumer-protection statute, and Missouri’s antitrust laws. Google’s alleged transgressions relate to ...
With a little help from the cloud, Alibaba sees record-breaking sales on China’s Singles’ Day
The Alibaba Group reported sales of $25.3 billion for Singles’ Day Nov. 11, a annual celebration of being single but even more of the country’s rampant consumerism. That sum was 40 percent higher than on Singles’ Day in 2016. Although Singles’ Day is a decade old, only in 2009 did the e-commerce giant help to transform ...
Amid controversy, Twitter hits the pause button on account verifications
Twitter Inc. today announced it’s putting a hold on the verification process as it attempts to figure out why some dubious accounts were verified. “Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance,” Twitter said in a tweet. “We recognize that we have created ...
Don’t blame the robot: Truck hits Las Vegas self-driving shuttle bus on first day of service
It wasn’t a good first day at work for the world’s first self-driving shuttle bus, which collided with a vehicle with a human at the wheel within a few hours of starting its shift in Las Vegas. According to reports by Nevada’s KSNV News 3, the robot-driven vehicle made by French startup Navya Technologies SAS ...
Facebook wants your nude pictures to tackle revenge porn. Really.
To reduce the instance of revenge porn appearing on its platform, Facebook Inc. has come up with a novel plan: It’s asking people to send in nude pictures of themselves so it can ensure they won’t be posted online. The pilot is only taking place in Australia at the moment, according to the Australian Broadcasting ...
Apple found a new tax haven in Jersey after Ireland crackdown, according to Paradise Papers
Following scrutiny over Apple Inc.’s tax affairs in Ireland, the company moved some of its operation to Jersey, part of the Channel Islands off the coast of the U.K. This was one of the revelations in the recently released Paradise Papers, detailing how companies as well as scores of wealthy people have managed to avoid paying ...
YouTube takes steps to become more child-friendly
YouTube announced on Thursday a slew of new features for its safe-viewing YouTube Kids mobile app, following numerous complaints that the app wasn’t safe enough. The updates mean that parents can now customize the channel based on the child’s age, so a 5-year-old won’t see as much text as an 8-year-old. YouTube will also use ...
Tech companies get behind American ‘Dreamers’ once again
Some of the world’s largest tech Wednesday again gave their support to 840,000 “Dreamer” immigrants in the U.S. whose status is under threat. The immigrants, part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, presently stand in no man’s land as the Trump administration attempts to end the program. Initiated under former President ...
Congress grills tech companies on Russian political disinformation
Tech executives stood in front of Congress on Tuesday for the first of three hearings to discuss the inadvertent role their platforms played in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Although execs from Facebook Inc., Google LLC and Twitter Inc. were all on the stand, Facebook was the main focus of criticism. Perhaps that was not ...