James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
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 ...
Updated: Trump administration mulled a nationalized 5G network, but FCC chair opposes it
Updated Monday: President Donald Trump’s national security team is mulling the creation of a high-speed 5G wireless network within the next three years in an effort to guard against China, according to a report in Axios on Sunday. Axios claimed it has seen documents that revealed security officials stating that the U.S. needs a centralized ...
SUNDANCE 2018
A Columbine massacre survivor uses virtual reality to create empathy for tragedy
Brooks Brown was a former friend of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two shooters responsible for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. He survived only because Harris told him to leave before the shootings began. Now, Brown (pictured today) is using virtual reality to let people experience tragedy for themselves. The global director ...
Uber CEO says self-driving cars will be picking up passengers in 18 months
Speaking today at Uber Technologies Inc.’s #TheYearAhead event, Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi revealed that the company is confident that autonomous ride-hailing is coming sooner than you think. In an interview with Bloomberg’s Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait, Khosrowshahi admitted that true, reliable, autonomous vehicles for wide use certainly face a few more obstacles to overcome, but ...
Facebook opens up on whether social media is good or bad for democracy
After mounting pressure on Facebook Inc. regarding its role in the world, the company today attempted to address the issue of what impact it might have on democracy. In the latest of its periodic “Hard Questions” series, this one on social media and democracy, Facebook will invite its own staff and guest speakers to tackle ...
Facebook crowdsources ratings to decide which news is ‘trustworthy’
Facebook Inc. finally moved Friday to crack down on the dissemination of dubious news and clickbait by letting its users decide what news is trustworthy. “Starting next week, we will begin tests in the first area: to prioritize news from publications that the community rates as trustworthy,” Facebook wrote in a press release. The company ...
Spotify launches new multimedia format called Spotlight
Spotify Ltd. signaled on Thursday that it’s getting more serious about podcasting, unveiling a new visually enhanced format called Spotlight that will cover news, culture, politics, sports and entertainment. The world’s biggest paid music service is teaming up with the likes of Buzzfeed News, Refinery29, Cheddar, Crooked Media, Lenny Letter, Gimlet Media, Genius and The ...
