James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, many big names in the tech industry expressed their deep regret at the result. Now chief executives from some of the world’s biggest tech companies have called for calm. Facebook Inc. CEO …
President-elect Trump’s victory just turned Silicon Valley’s world black
U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump was never popular with the tech industry. After a $1.25 million donation was made to his campaign by the investor Peter Thiel, an uproar ensued, with seemingly intractable divisions in Silicon Valley. The reaction of tech executives to Trump’s victory …
Life after automation: Elon Musk echoes Karl Marx, but skeptics don’t believe in Silicon Valley’s goodwill
One of Silicon Valley’s most iconoclastic entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, just told us something we’ve heard countless times over the last few years: The likelihood of a robot doing your job in the future is high. The end is far from nigh, though, according …
YouTube to clean up the most vulgar part of the web: its own comments section
“Why are YouTube users so rude?” It’s a question we’ve all likely asked from time to time when startled by the ignorance and verbal violence of YouTube users in the comments section. This has not escaped the attention of the world’s better-natured internet …
Slack cautions Microsoft like a passive-aggressive big brother
No sooner had Microsoft Corp. announced Microsoft Teams, a Slack-like collaboration tool rolled into Office 365, than it got a response from the company Teams apparently is targeting. Slack Technologies Inc. fired back at Microsoft in a full-page ad in the New York Times that began, …
Otonomo raises $12 million to make sense of a new big data generator: cars
In less than four years, there will be a quarter-billion connected vehicles in the world, each generating a huge amount of data, according to Gartner Inc. And according to other reports Google Inc.’s self-driving car creates around a gigabyte of data per second. Add that up, and …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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, …