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

High praise and a big security ‘Warning’ for Microsoft’s Outlook for iOS

Following last week’s release of Microsoft’s preview version of Outlook for Android and a new version of Outlook for iOS, there have been mostly positive reviews popping up over the last few days, as well as Microsoft’s flattering statement that Outlook for iOS was already ahead of Gmail in the App Store charts. The Verge went ...

Office for Android officially released as Microsoft hopes for equal success with iOS

Microsoft Office for Android tablets is now out of preview, bringing Microsoft’s vision of ‘Office everywhere’ a little closer to fruition. As of today Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be available for downloads for free in the Google Store, Microsoft reported on an official blog.  The Redmond company today also announced a new Outlook for ...

Microsoft reveals plan to release new, free version of Business Intelligence service in U.S.

In a Microsoft blog yesterday the Redmond company revealed it’s planning to release a preview of its improved Power BI service, at first to U.S. customers, but the company says to global customers at a later date. Anyone with a business email address can access the cloud-based business analytics service and through any browser or ...

Microsoft’s Surface Hub to change the landscape of the traditional office

It seems that Microsoft is hoping that soon it will be hanging on the wall (or mounted on a stand) of every company conference room, or rather companies with quite a lot of spare cash. With a view to improve collaboration Microsoft has revealed one of its newest creations, a massive 4K resolution (55-84 inch) ...

Why the HoloLens should come with a warning label

The majority of tech critics have been doing adjectival cartwheels over the last week following Microsoft’s debut of Windows Holographic and HoloLens Augmented Reality headset.  Those who have tested the product have not just been giving HoloLens the thumbs up, but comparing the product to science fiction, a new world, or as Ars Technica put ...

What we know about Office for Windows 10, and what we don’t know about Office 2016

Following Microsoft’s Windows preview event for consumers Julia White, general manager for the Office Product Management team, gave a little bit more away in an Office blog post on Thursday as to what we can expect from the new Office for Windows. While Microsoft seems to be keeping quiet about the new desktop version of ...

The final OS? Microsoft Windows 10 preview impresses

At the Windows 10 consumer preview event yesterday (the full presentation can be seen here), Microsoft’s Operating System Group chief Terry Myerson announced that people running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 on their devices will receive the upgrade to Windows 10 at no cost. The free upgrade will be available for one ...

Leave those kids alone! Microsoft and Apple sign student privacy pledge, but why did it take Google so long?

Following President Obama’s endorsement of a Student Privacy Pledge last week Google Inc.  has now joined other tech giants Microsoft and Apple Inc., as well as a long list (91 at time of writing) of other companies, in signing the pledge. A question a lot of people have asked is why did it take Google ...

Microsoft survey reveals large disparities in how people living in developed and developing nations regard the internet, except on privacy issues

A recent Microsoft survey of internet users from developed (USA, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea) and developing nations (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia) revealed that on the whole most people are optimistic about the affects technology is having on the world, although internet privacy was found to be the one major concern expressed by ...

Xbox One drops price again, annoys early January buyers

There must be a good few Xbox One buyers out there feeling a little peeved at the moment after purchasing their console early in January when the Redmond company had decided to bring the price back up from previous holiday season reductions. It didn’t last long however, and just a few days into January Microsoft ...