James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Consumers outraged at Microsoft’s underhanded patch trickery
“The most troublesome thing about this is that it becomes clearer and clearer that Microsoft doesn’t treat its customers as partners, but as some sort of enemies who have to be tricked, cheated, fooled.” These are some strong words, issued in reply to a recent Microsoft security update that was only partly a security update – ...
Surface Book vs. Mac: A war of words with a musical twist
Following an advertising campaign in which Microsoft lists the wonders of Windows 10 for PC and why it’s so much better than anything Apple Inc. can put together, Redmond is now bashing its competitor once more in a series of ads that tell us Microsoft’s Surface Book is way better than the Mac. The ads ...
Microsoft is bringing one of its most important enterprise products to Linux, its one time ‘communist’ foe
Microsoft has announced it’s about to bring its database software, SQL Server, to Linux. The move comes as some surprise, as Microsoft has never allowed SQL Server to run on another platform. Less of a surprise is that this direction is firmly aligned with CEO Satya Nadella’s vision of Microsoft’s priority to sell services. Such a ...
Inside the Dark Net: Digitizing the cure for child pornography
“Almost everyone,” replies a Filipino woman in an interview on Showtime’s series Dark Net, episode 3, when she is asked how many kids in her neighborhood are earning money, or being forced by their elders to make money, by interacting with people on sex cams. “I hate foreigners,” she says, “using our children as commodities.” The ...
‘No, I’m Spartacus!’: It’s not just Apple vs. FBI, it’s Us vs. Them
Apple Inc. is in good company as it goes head to head in a legal battle with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning the latter demanding the former to hack one of its iPhones. Apple did not comply, “delivering an epic F.U. to the Feds” in the words of our own Duncan Riley. A ...
If you don’t have $3,000 for Microsoft’s HoloLens developer kit you can at least experience the HoloLens emulator
Not everyone has a spare $3,000 for the Microsoft HoloLens Development Edition, which will start shipping in the U.S. and Canada March 30th. If that’s the case, and your yearning to get involved with writing apps for the headset then no sweat, Microsoft has announced a HoloLens Emulator will also be available for budding developers. ...
Facebook is making sure you’ll see more Live Videos in your News Feed
You can expect to see more Live Video content on your Facebook News Feed following the company’s latest move which will mean the videos appear higher in News Feeds as those videos are actually happening. The move, Facebook says, is due to popular demand – people apparently spend three times more time watching a live video than they ...
The future is holographic, and Microsoft HoloLens is here right now to prove that
While we knew last year that Microsoft’s augmented reality (AR) headset HoloLens wasn’t going to be released to the general public for some time, we also knew at the same time that the developer kit would be coming in the first quarter of 2016. This has now been set in stone following Microsoft’s announcement that ...
Microsoft gets Apple’s back in fight with FBI
Microsoft has come out and supported Apple Inc. in its ongoing struggle with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning building a backdoor into its iOS. Microsoft had previously been quiet on the issue but the company President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith recently came out and said that Microsoft “wholeheartedly” supports Apple. On ...
Microsoft may have just made a very smart move getting its hands on mobile app development platform Xamarin
Microsoft just announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, Inc. (named one of nine top start-ups running the internet), a platform provider for mobile app development. At the moment both companies have not disclosed the financial terms. The news is not a great shock as the two companies have worked together for some ...