James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Australian academics say Microsoft Excel is messing up many scientific research papers
According to a recent report, Microsoft’s spreadsheet software, Excel, is to blame for numerous errors in academic papers. The report states that when the software has been used to name genes in the study of genetic science, the default settings in Excel have been converting the correct names into dates and floating point numbers. An example ...
As robots take driving jobs, who will pick up the pieces?
Since the advent of improved artificial intelligence a lot has been said about a future of mass unemployment, often under the perhaps hyperbolic umbrella threat of ‘The Robots are Coming!’. The robots might be coming to take your job, but there are limits to what occupations a computer can handle. Nonetheless, the automobile industry is sure to ...
The race is on: Two companies have joined together to create a self-driving car system that can be put in any vehicle
Two companies have recently joined together to create an autonomous car system for any vehicle, which should be ready, they believe, sometime in 2019. The companies are Delphi Automotive PLC, a U.K.-based high-tech auto-parts provider, and Mobileye NV, an Israeli advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving technology provider – responsible for Tesla Motors, Inc.’s autonomous driving system. ...
Microsoft is in trouble again over Windows 10 upgrade and privacy concerns
This time last month a report by the French Data Protection Authority in no uncertain terms blasted Microsoft for what it called excessive data collection on its Windows 10 operating system. Microsoft was given three months to comply with the French Data Protection Act, otherwise the company could face a sanction. The smoke has hardly died ...
You’re dreaming if you think anytime soon robot taxis will be taking you to work
With the news of Uber Technologies Inc. about to put self-driving cars on the streets of Pittsburgh, we are already hearing wolf-whistles heralding a fantasy-esque near future in which redundant humans in the making parade around town chauffeured by a robot. On the back of Uber’s announcement tech pundits are now talking about the “endgame,” the telos of tech wherein ...
Following years of damning criticism for employee abuse, Amazon will reinvent the work week
It’s been said that working at Amazon can be hellish for some people, with the company at times treating employees “like cattle” and doing unconscionable things such as putting women with breast cancer on performance-improvement plans, according to various exposes. In one instance that became headline news, it was reported that 15 factory employees in ...
Microsoft-Intel ‘mixed reality’ partnership will be more than interesting
Mixed reality, merged reality, augmented reality. Everyone is talking about it, not least because a game called Pokémon Go seemed to render the abbreviation AR (augmented reality) mainstream. But lest we forget, a long time before Pikachu started rearing his cute head from the Empire State building all the way to Trafalgar Square, Microsoft had ...
Killing one bird with two stones: Twitter’s woes continue with scathing report
Following a report recently released by Buzzfeed, “A Honeypot For Assholes: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment,” which details Twitter Inc.’s decade-long struggle to fend off trolls on its white-man-managed platform, the company has responded saying the report is inaccurate. A statement by Twitter said, “We feel there are inaccuracies in the details and unfair ...
Intercepted IoT: The unsecure sex toy that snitches on its users
The security of a sex toy is very serious business. This is the conviction of a New Zealand hacker that goes by the name of Follower. The hacker, speaking at a talk named Breaking the Internet of Vibrating Things at Def Con in Las Vegas earlier this month, is talking about the We-Vibe 4 Plus ...
Google Now wants to get personal, experiments with touching second base
Google’s digital assistant for Android, Google Now, might not have been given a proper human-sounding name — but in terms of intimacy it could soon be graduating to another level. Google Now is already at the very least an adequate app that can pull up information for you on demand, such as flight times, can buy movie tickets and ...