James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Mr. Robot is back with Season 2, and it’s trying to mess with your head
After watching just a couple of episodes of USA Network’s hacking series Mr. Robot, we knew it was going to be outstanding; not only because it would be the first TV show to appease technophiles used to seeing television clumsily portray technology with as much verisimilitude as a scene from the muppets, but because it’s a ...
Microsoft is building a bot that may outshine Google’s virtual assistant
Just as soon as we hear about Google’s virtual assistant, announced this week at Google’s annual I/O conference, we find out that Microsoft is building its own virtual assistant, the ‘Bing Concierge Bot’. The assistant, according to a job posting found by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley, will communicate on a number of platforms. The posting, ...
Now it really looks like the end of the line for Lumia phone
There has been speculation for some time now that Microsoft will put to bed the Lumia phone, and while it’s no secret that the company has been concentrating on other ambitions outside of phones, only just recently following the selling of its feature phone production business to Chinese manufacturing firm Foxconn for $350 million, have ...
Microsoft says Britain should stay in the EU or there could be consequences
Microsoft has spoken out against the possibility of Britain leaving the EU, perhaps the largest company so far to do so. The Redmond-based tech giant is not alone in its opposition to Brexit (British Exit); Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM, among others, have also joined Microsoft in its stance that such a move is bad ...
Change your hapless Xbox Live gamertag and you might start winning again
Ok, so being James99910 for a while now hasn’t done much for your gaming cred while playing Xbox Live. Now is the time to get that great name you’ve always wanted, after Microsoft revealed just now that plenty of names, or gamertags, will be freed-up. “Nearly 1 million previously used XBL gamertags are going to ...
Don’t be fooled by bots hype, but do enjoy the show
2016 so far, within the tech milieu at least, seems to be the year of the bot. Much of the excitement surrounding the rise of the bots is partly a consequence of big companies such as Microsoft and Facebook working on, and investing in, their own personal assistant bots. On top of this there is ...
Microsoft’s Sunrise app will shut down at the end of this summer
Early 2015 Microsoft acquired Sunrise Atelier Inc., maker of the Sunrise calendar app, for a rumored sum of $100 million. Come August 31 Sunrise will be no more, something that won’t come as much of a shock as Microsoft said late last year that its Sunrise calendar technology will be integrated into Outlook mobile apps ...
Here’s what you’ll find in Microsoft’s new Windows 10 preview build
Microsoft has just released its new Preview Build (14342) for Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring. The preview consists of a number of updates to Microsoft’s Edge browser, while there has been a slew of bugs attended to and also some known issues mentioned in the new build. First of all Microsoft said extensions can ...
No, we do not suppress news and manipulate your views, says under-the-hammer Facebook
After a recent report by Gizmodo, filled with a string of stirring allegations that Facebook “routinely suppressed news stories” that weren’t mainstream, or too hard-line, Facebook has come out and denied the charge, stating that it is entirely neutral concerning politics. This is not the first time Facebook’s neutrality, or lack thereof, has come into question. ...
Microsoft customers really dig the Surface range, but Apple still leads overall satisfaction
Since the Surface Pro 3 hit the market, Microsoft seems to have turned a corner in terms of how much customers appreciate its Surface range of hybrid tablets. Both the Surface Pro 3 and the cheaper Surface 3 have been getting fairly good reviews and consistently selling well. Late last year we saw the release of the ...