James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
A drone selfie? Welcome to the Twitter drone
It’s a little too early to say how this will pan-out (pun intended) but Twitter has recently filed for a patent for a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that will be able to take photos and videos while being controlled via people’s Twitter accounts. How does it work? Twitter says that the drone’s location and the ...
Intelligently designed TV: Highly anticipated tech series coming in 2016
The portrayal of computer technology on television, either of those that create it, work in it, or of the manifestation of it in our lives, is suddenly at a point where we can feel content it’s being depicted with intelligence and thoughtfulness. Geeks are not so outlandish these days, they’ve been humanized, just as hackers ...
Now if you say ‘Hey Cortana’ on your Android phone you’ll no longer be heard
Following Microsoft’s introduction of its digital assistant, Cortana, for Android devices earlier this month, there has recently been quite a setback: your device will no longer understand you when you say, “Hey Cortana”. According to WinBeta this stems from problems relating to the microphone and, “incompatibilities with Google’s own ‘OK Google’ feature of Google Now.’ It ...
Here’s why Mr. Robot wasn’t just the best tech series of 2015, but maybe the best ever
We were aware after watching the first few episodes of USA Network’s hacker series Mr. Robot that in terms of a show depicting how computer technology has transformed our lives, for better and sometimes for worse, that we were looking at something groundbreaking. Not only was the hacking itself verisimilitudinous to the point of geeks ...
Cortana can now help you find what to watch on Netflix with revamped Windows 10 app
Microsoft reports that 110 million devices are currently running Windows 10 for, “billions and billions of hours” each month. Many of those hours were spent on Netflix, one of the first, and most downloaded and frequently used Windows 10 apps, according to Microsoft. We can now expect that frequency to rise after Microsoft reported that ...
An improved Skype for Business comes to Android
Microsoft’s Skype for Business app is now out of preview and available from Google Play. Android users that were previously using Lync 2013 will receive an automatic update to the Skype for Business app based on their device’s settings, says Microsoft. Having spent a few months in preview based on feedback Microsoft has made some changes, one of which ...
A timely gift for people that need it: Facebook rethinks its much criticized real-name policy
Since Facebook laid the hammer down and started to get on some people’s nerves by implementing a real-name policy more than a year ago, the social-media master has taken a lot of flak from the public. One such criticism has come from LGBTQ people who have voiced that in some circumstances they have not been ...
Microsoft releases new Office app for better collaboration
Microsoft has released a new app, the Office 365 Planner, for people on the First Release testing program. The app works as a collaboration tool in which employees can work as a team, each sharing plans, files, updates on projects, chatting in real-time and assigning work to each other. Planner works by making use of ...
Now you can read and comment on stories in your Facebook News Feed offline
Facebook has come up with a way for mobile users to read and comment on stories in the News Feed offline in a move that Facebook says is to bring the most relevant stories to those people with crawling, non-loading 2G connections. Facebook says it is “now testing an update in which we look at ...
End of year prediction: The app market is dying … apps are killing it
As part of our end-of-year predictions, we spoke with David Lavenda, VP of harmon.ie, an Israeli-US based company that develops mobile collaboration tools for Microsoft services in the enterprise sector. Lavenda writes a counter-point to some of last year’s predictions that apps were killing the web, advising us that such statements were a little knee-jerk ...