James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Study: If you’re black or female, Uber and Lyft drivers may cancel your trip or charge more
Ride-sourcing services such as Uber Technologies Inc. or Lyft Inc. discriminate against customers with African-American-sounding names, as well as female customers, according to a new study released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study produced some detailed data concerning how black customers were treated. The study, “Racial and Gender Discrimination in Transportation Network ...
Uber: Get ready for fleets of semi-self-driving flying cars
Uber Technologies Inc. says we could get to work in one of its flying cars within the decade. In a 98-page report Uber said that it planned to cut down on long commute times by developing the vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, part of what the company calls Uber Elevate. Jeff Holden, Uber’s chief product ...
Apple’s new TV app doesn’t have Netflix and Amazon streaming
The app that goes by the name of “TV” could be very useful in helping you sort through and organize the huge amount of content available on Apple TV. Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook has called it a game-changer. Even though Cook says the future of TV is apps, Apple’s new TV app won’t include ...
Microsoft Paint now works in 3D, making it ripe for virtual reality
One of the most iconic of Microsoft Corp.’s apps is Microsoft Paint, the much loved 2D digital sketcher that’s been around since the company introduced the world to Windows 1.0 in 1985. There have been various iterations of the app since then, but only now has the painting feature truly been transformed. Paint 3D, revealed ...
Apple using former Blackberry engineers in Canada to develop self-driving car systems
Apple Inc. is working on an operating system for a self-driving car with the help of a new set of Canadian engineers, according to a recent Bloomberg report. The recently hired engineers previously worked at BlackBerry Ltd. and are presently still working on home turf in a suburb close to the capital city of Ottawa. The ...
Twitter’s woes continue as report says 300+ staff about to be laid off
Twitter Inc. may lay off as many as 300 people this week in the wake of a failed attempt to find a buyer, according to a new report. The job cuts were reported by Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources. The social media platform will lose around 8 percent of its total workforce of 3,860 employees, almost ...
This AI predicts the outcome of human rights trials
An artificial intelligence system has already successfully predicted the outcome of hundreds of cases at the European Court of Human Rights, according to rsearchers from the University College London and the universities of Sheffield and Pennsylvania who developed it. According to reports, the AI “judge” examined data sets for 584 cases, with all cases either ...
Mark Zuckerberg fires back at critics opposing Peter Thiel’s Trump support
“We care deeply about diversity,” wrote Facebook Inc.’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (above) in what is believed to be an internal Facebook post to employees. Zuckerberg was addressing criticism aimed at Facebook for its board member, Peter Thiel’s $1.25 million donation to Republican candidate Donald Trump. The donation caused a stir of grievance in what seems ...
Bill Gates, Tim Cook targeted by Clinton campaign as potential running mates
A WikiLeaks email dump has revealed that two of tech’s biggest names, CEO of Apple Inc. Tim Cook and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, were part of list made-up of 39 people viewed as potential running mates for Hillary Clinton. The list was compiled by Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. Podesta had arranged the list into what ...
A future of ad drones could be annoying – and effective
There has been much speculation over the possibility of a near future in which drones zipping around above heads in all directions becomes normal, whether it’s the burrito dropping drone earlier this year or CNN’s recent mission to see how useful news gathering drones could be. But it’s Uber Technologies Inc. that now has showcased a use of drones that ...