James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
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 ...
Experience floating in space from your living room with world’s first virtual reality satellite
Imagine drifting through space and not having to leave the cloisters of your familiar armchair. That could soon be a reality following a deal struck up between SpaceVR and NanoRacks LLC – a company that develops products and offers services for the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceVR, whose mission is to bring space tourism to ...
Pokémon Go won the West, but will struggle with world domination
If we look at the stupendous rise of Pokémon Go in the U.S., we might have thought the mobile game would experience a similar meteoric ascent in the rest of the world. Nothing that good could surely not catch on, right? Nonetheless, the numbers right now are telling us Pokémon Go is pretty much a U.S. ...
