James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Finding the freedom to do what you love through automation and Basic Income
Last week, following widespread protests across the U.S., Ed Rensi, a former McDonald’s CEO, said that increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour would result in businesses concluding that it’s time to replace their human staff with robots. “You’re gonna see a job loss like you can’t believe,” said Rensi, adding that when attending the ...
Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter are moving towards a zero-tolerance attitude towards hate speech
In a move to combat hate speech, counter terrorism, or tackle behavior that might lead to violence, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Twitter have agreed to implement new European Commission “Codes of Conduct”. The tech companies will adhere to the code, but it is not legally binding. A European Comission press release explained the initiative, in part ...
Bringing high-quality VR to your average smartphone with Microsoft’s Flashback
The rise of virtual reality (VR) isn’t exactly meteoric, but it’s certainly well beyond anything people can simply call hype – something that happened when VR first started being talked about many moons ago. The Oculus Rift is finally out there for consumers to play with; Google recently announced it’s making its own virtual reality ...
Microsoft’s ‘abusive’ efforts to push Windows 10 on the public annoys millions of Chinese consumers
Microsoft and its perhaps over-zealous efforts to sway consumers to upgrade to Windows 10 has done a fair bit damage on American soil so far. The tech giant has come under fire lately for a number of reasons relating to the big push to Windows 10, which has included automatic upgrades, incorrigible advertising and worst ...
Not one, but two new Xbox One consoles on the way
It looks like the rumors that Microsoft is on the verge of bringing out something big for the Xbox is true, in light of recent reports. For a while now speculations have been abundant as to what Microsoft will reveal at this year’s E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) taking place at the Galen Center in Los Angeles ...
Microsoft’s latest sneaky Windows 10 upgrade push called “indefensible”
Microsoft is certainly not winning people over with the way in which it is pushing Windows 10 down users’ throats, and things just got worse. It seems the company is making a series of final pushes before the free upgrade offer ends on July 29, but it also seems that Microsoft’s zealotry concerning Windows 10 is ...
Microsoft to get tough on terrorism, but leave Bing mostly uncensored
Microsoft has vowed to crackdown on content shared by terrorists, or supporters of terrorists, when that material is viewed as dangerous. The company will implement this crackdown by banning anyone from its services who disseminates material supporting terrorist groups, or people endorsing such groups within consumer services such as Xbox Live or Outlook webmail. In a blog ...
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 ...