James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
After Florida school shooting, Russian bots used Twitter to talk gun control, conspiracy video topped YouTube
Shortly after news broke about the high school massacre in Parkland, Florida, Twitter Inc. bots suspected of being of Russian origin took up the divisive debate of gun control in the U.S., according to experts. Two companies that track disinformation found that within just an hour of the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 17 ...
Boring Co. gets green light to do some Hyperloop digging in Washington DC
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk’s Boring Co. has been issued a permit from Washington D.C.’s Department of Transportation to start digging in the city. This doesn’t, however, mean that a Hyperloop tunnel will be getting very far. The permit, issued in November but only noticed Friday, allows the digging to take place only on ...
UK and US put the blame on Russia for last year’s NotPetya cyberattacks
The U.K. and U.S. governments are united in blaming Russia for last year’s NotPetya cyberattacks that caused havoc around the world. British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said Wednesday that such attacks were “undermining democracy.” The attacks were first aimed at the Ukraine, but caused considerable financial damage globally. Williamson was forthright with his words, but only ...
CIA, FBI and NSA all say Huawei phones could be Chinese spying devices
The heads of the CIA, FBI and NSA are advising Americans not to use phones made by Chinese firm Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. because they could be used for espionage. According to a report Wednesday by CNBC, six intelligence chiefs from the agencies told a Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that there was a danger in ...
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 ...
