James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Mr. Robot, and how we, the weak, are exploited
Episode 5 of USA Network’s Mr. Robot: ‘Exploits’ (S1.E5 eps.1.4_3xpl0its.wmv), like the episodes that came before it, has been congratulated for its realistic interpretation of hacking. But in this installment, rather than sophisticated hacks involving numerous computers, hacking software and complicated code, it was humans that were mostly exploited, not machines. First a security card ...
What we now know about Microsoft’s new flagship phones
On the back of all the controversy starring Microsoft’s phone business a leak has been revealed showing us what the next two flagship Lumia phones will look like. Rumors about the phones have been circulating for a while now, but thanks to Windows Central it looks like we have something more concrete than rumors this ...
Microsoft cracks down on revenge porn, but is it enough?
Finding yourself a victim of revenge porn – intimate photographs or video being posted online without the consent of the person(s) appearing in the picture/clip – can have devastating consequences for those involved. In June, Last Week Tonight’s news satirist John Oliver took on the issue of revenge porn, discussing the huge psychological, social and ...
Another major shuffle at Microsoft as Surface chief Panos Panay takes over engineering of premium devices
Following last month’s shake-up of execs at Microsoft, another move has been made as part of Satya Nadella’s restructuring of the company. This involves Corporate Vice President, Panos Panay, formerly the head of the winning Surface line, taking over engineering of Microsoft’s premium devices: Surface tablets, Windows Phone, Xbox, Surface Hub, HoloLens and Microsoft band. ...
Microsoft has released a critical security update for all versions of Windows
Microsoft has released an emergency out-of-band patch for a security bug that could allow attackers to take over machines running all supported versions of Windows (Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows RT), including machines running Windows 10 as part of the Windows Insider Program. The vulnerability was found by researchers at Google’s Project ...
Keeping it real: Mr. Robot Episode 4 proves the show is much bigger than hacking (spoilers)
As hacker group Fsociety plans to take down Evil Corp the worst thing that could have happened to USANetworks’s Mr. Robot in episode 4 was a car chase, or a typical heist caper at Stone Mountain (Evil Corp’s heavily guarded data storage facility). But that didn’t happen; for the most part what episode 4 treated ...
The best performing web browser for Windows 10: Microsoft Edge, Chrome or Safari?
Following years of criticism for its Internet Explorer browser Microsoft looks to have got things right with Microsoft Edge. In recent tests Edge beat both Chrome and Safari in JavaScript benchmarks created by Google and Apple. In a recent blog Gabe Aul , head of the Windows Insider Program, wrote that Microsoft Edge is, “blazing ...
Microsoft Lumia phones top customer ‘delight’ ratings as US smartphone demand falls dramatically, according to new report
It seems consumers in the US aren’t splashing out and buying new phones this year, according to a report by Argus Insights, Inc., a Silicon Valley-based market intelligence company. The report, compiled with data from around 622,000 reviews, shows that from June 2014 to June 2015 smartphone demand is down by 8 percent in the ...
There’s life in Windows Phone yet, according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
There’s been a lot of talk concerning what Microsoft is going to do with its encumbered phone business following the huge layoffs last week. And now on the back of the news that Microsoft is releasing a new build of Windows Phone, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, has come out to state his commitment to ...
Bring it on: How Microsoft plans to make Windows 10 launch something special
There’s only a couple of weeks to go until Microsoft officially launches Windows 10, and seeing that the OS is a landmark release in the company’s long history it’s not surprising that Windows fans and curious onlookers are going to be treated to something special. This includes launch events (invites firstly going to Windows Insiders) ...