James Farrell

James Farrell is the former editor-in-chief of Chiang Mai CityNews, where he wrote and managed daily news, features, op-eds and blogs on a diverse range of topics. Prior to this, in the same city of Northern Thailand where he lives, he was the longstanding deputy editor of the monthly magazine Citylife. He has written on culture, politics, travel, tech, business, human rights, for local, national, and international news services and magazines. He has a keen interest in the role technology is playing in the transformation of society, culture and politics, especially in developing nations. This is reflected in his not-so-successful first novel.

Latest from James Farrell

Twitter’s permanent ban of internet “supervillain” Milo Yiannopoulos beckons a fiery stand-off in the free speech debate

He may have been called “one of the rising stars of libertarian and conservative media” but the Breitbart blogger, Milo Yiannopoulos, is now verily persona non grata on Twitter Inc. The British journalist, who tweeted as @Nero, received a permanent ban from Twitter for continual abuse of Leslie Jones relating to her role in the ...

Microsoft and Boeing team-up to advance digital aviation

Microsoft have teamed-up with The Boeing Company in a move set to bring Boeing’s digital solutions to the Azure Cloud Platform, greatly improving the aviation applications that the aerospace behemoth has already built for more than 300 airlines with its subsidiaries AerData B.V. and Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc.. The collaboration aims to help airlines to become more intelligence ...

Warrant denied: Historic victory for digital privacy in Microsoft vs. US government case

In an ongoing case in which the U.S. government has been trying to force Microsoft to allow it access to data stored on its servers in Dublin, Ireland, Redmond just won a landmark appeal. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the Stored Communications Act cannot be used by U.S. investigators ...

Pokémon Go! and Pokémon Stay! How the game has sparked infuriation while businesses are licking their lips

Pokémon Go, the game that’s shocked the world seems to have divided the people and critics alike. On the one side of the schism, the majority perhaps, we hear about a wonderful piece of entertaining technology that gets people out of the house, off the couch, and at the same time introduces them to them ...

Google moves closer to building its futurist fantasy-campus following a massive property deal with LinkedIn

Two tech behemoths of Silicon Valley, Google and LinkedIn Corp., in spite of past rivalry over land in the area have just come to an agreement in which the companies will hand over property to the other. The land swap consists of 1 million square feet of sites already developed – including LinkedIn’s present headquarters ...

Is Mr. Robot really serious about the issues it exposes?

“Do you think you’re free? You’re not free. Your lives are not your own.” The latter was put to us as part of a Facebook Live stream, apparently coordinated by the hacker group, fsociety, for USA Network’s award-winning series Mr. Robot. We are reminded in the clip that the function of consumerism under capitalism is ...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella likes Pokémon Go, but has much bigger ideas for augmented reality

Following the record-breaking success of the augmented reality gaming app, Pokémon Go, in an interview Microsoft’s forward-thinking CEO Satya Nadella stated he thought it was “fantastic” such apps were being built, but he also believes such a thing will translate into more diverse interests in augmented reality, specifically with Microsoft’s own AR headset HoloLens. Pokémon Go’s success, however, ...

Microsoft’s highly embarrassing attempt to be hip and woo interns results in apology

There’s nothing as cringe-worthy in the eyes of the young generation as watching their elders attempt to be hip, either by mimicking the slang of their generation, or perhaps asserting themselves on the dance floor doing moves they clearly have no right to do. Yes, we’ve all winced from time to time at such a spectacle, and this ...

Wheelchair avatars come to Xbox One only for disabled people to call them ugly and unfashionable 

Microsoft is taking its Gaming for Everyone Xbox One slogan seriously, recently adding wheelchair avatars as an option for players. This comes as part of Microsoft’s attempt to implement new features to the console that embrace diversity and inclusion. Recently Xbox chief Phil Spencer was asked on Twitter about the idea of having disabled avatars ...

‘Robot journalists’ are now covering baseball, but what next?

If you’re a journalist — particularly a sports journalist — and are wondering if, given the small but impressive rise of automated journalism, you will be out of a job soon, we don’t think you have much to worry about. On the other hand, if you’re the kind of journalist that can only crunch out ...