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

Microsoft launches 1TB Xbox One and gives 500GB console a permanent price drop

Microsoft has unveiled a new Xbox One with 1TB of storage. The new console, which will come with a wireless controller and a 3.5mm headset jack, will go for $399 and start shipping on June 16 in the United States. The new version, for a limited time and only in select regions, will be bundled ...

Microsoft is bringing Skype real-time translator to the current version of Skype for Windows 8.1

Back in November we reported the release of Microsoft’s Skype real-time translator preview, the company’s ambitious attempt to bridge the language barrier not only textually, but verbally. The original preview included just English and Spanish for audio translation, although later in April Microsoft added (Chinese) Mandarin and Italian to its list of verbally translatable languages. Instant chat ...

After guessing your age Microsoft is now guessing who your relations are

Shortly after Microsoft released How Old Do I Look, an gender-guessing, age-telling app that while widely popular was often wildly wrong (it was hit and miss with our own editorial masthead), Redmond has now released Twins or Not. Built on the same principles of How Old Do I Look Twins or Not uses machine learning ...

Microsoft updates Office 2016 Preview with help and collaboration features

Microsoft has been telling us for some time that the new version of its almost ubiquitous productivity suit, Office, will see plenty of updates on a regular basis, and Redmond has kept true to its word. Various new features for Windows and Mac were announced at Ignite, although yesterday’s release, Microsoft says, is just a ...

Microsoft plans massive global Wi-Fi network: Microsoft Wi-Fi

Microsoft is making hay while the sun shines on Redmond. The company has revealed, albeit taciturnly, plans for a global Wi-Fi service covering 130 countries with 10 million hotspots. Microsoft Wi-Fi, as it will be called, first caught the attention of VentureBeat who managed to grab some information from microsoftwifi.com before the page was taken down ...

Buying Wunderlist: Microsoft ticks off another acquisition

We reported yesterday that Microsoft was rumored to have acquired 6Wunderkinder, the German company responsible for making the smart list making app, Wunderlist. Today Microsoft made that official. Although it’s thought Redmond paid between $100 million and $200 million for the company whose sole focus is on Wunderlist, an app that featured in the Mac ...

Upgrade to Windows 10: How much it will cost (non-Windows users), won’t cost, and might cost

We know that there will be free upgrades to Windows 10 for folks running genuine of copies of Windows on their computer, at least for one year while the offer lasts. We also now know how it will cost if you don’t have an existing license. What we don’t know yet is if Microsoft will be ...

Lenovo partners with Microsoft for unique Cortana capabilities on its Windows 10 PCs and tablets

Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana, will play a unique part on Lenovo Group Ltd’s PCs and tablets, according to a recent announcement during the Chinese computer manufacturer’s Tech World event held in Beijing, China. Using what Lenovo has called the REACHit service, Cortana in Windows 10 will be able to search for content in non-Microsoft services, ...

With an eye to security: Microsoft’s new flagship Lumia phones will feature controversial iris scanning capabilities

Even though Microsoft has not officially announced anything regarding the release of the new high-end Lumia phones, rumors have been circulating for some time about the duo. The two smartphones, codenamed Talkman and Cityman, will reportedly be feature rich, run on Windows 10, and have the new Edge browser with Cortana integration, according Dr.Windows and ...

Microsoft releases hugely popular doc-scanning app Office Lens

After releasing a preview of the handy document scanning app for Android in April as well as an official version for iPhone, Microsoft has now made it available for Android in the Google Store to 130 countries in 30 different languages. The app, which had over 130,000 previewers and works as a pocket sized scanner, has ...