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

Leaked photos of Lumia 1020 successor suggest Microsoft’s mobile hardware plans

What seems to be a prototype of Microsoft’s new Lumia device appeared online recently on the Chinese auction site Taobao. The photos, which we can’t promise are the real deal, could possibly show a device made for the purposes of testing, or even be a version of the Lumia 1020 that didn’t make it all ...

Did Microsoft just give away its newest acquisition, a revolutionary email app?

A post on Microsoft’s official blog, that has since disappeared, suggests that the company might be about to purchase the email start-up company Accompli. The post, which was written by Microsoft’s corporate vice presidentRajesh Jha, was headed ‘blank post please delete,’, although as can be seen in a screenshot made available by TechCrunch, the text ...

Will Apple dump Google and move in with Bing or Yahoo?

Mozilla Corp. had already kicked its longtime search partner Google to the curb last week, begging the question, will Google suffer another major rebuff in 2015? The next break up could be from Apple Inc., a partner reportedly collecting a staggering $1 billion a year from Google to keep their iOS device relationship intact. A recent report by ...

Pretty Bing gets a facelift with Microsoft update: Can it outshine Yahoo?

The Bing search engine just became a little more interesting following the latest Microsoft update, which consists of image captions, an information carousel, high-definition (1920×1080) backgrounds and a new menu for Office Online. Microsoft reported that the move comes after Bing users had requested such features through feedback channels. Some of that feedback included, “Wouldn’t ...

Soccer fans tire of over-digitized experiences as Microsoft kicks off cloud deal with Real Madrid

Real Madrid, ranked the world’s best soccer club of the 20th century (or football,as it’s called outside the U.S.), have recently struck up a deal with Microsoft to transform how their live games are watched. Employing Microsoft’s cloud solutions, fans will now be privy to a closer inspection of the game with personalized and customized content and digital ...

Emergency update from Microsoft: Out-of-cycle security for devastating Kerberos bug

Microsoft has just added one of two missing security updates that were part of the 14 critical patches released last week. Updates MS14-068 and MS14-075 were supposed to be released last Tuesday, but for some reason, possibly due to a fault in the patch, the two patches were held back. MS14-068 will address CVE-2014-6324, a Windows Kerberos ...

Tech giants push USA Freedom Act now, fearing Republican rejection next year

In an era where public concern over omnipresent and oppressive government surveillance is at an historical high, partly attributable to Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency (NSA) revelations, nine of the world’s biggest tech companies are fighting for the public’s right to internet freedom. The coalition, made-up of Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL, Dropbox and Evernote, ...

Did cloud put Microsoft in second place for world’s most valuable company rank?

Microsoft now trails only Apple Inc. on the list of the world’s most valuable companies, having leaped-frogged Exxon Mobil Corp. The Redmond tech-giant, led by CEO Satya Nadella and his cloud first, mobile first vision, has seen its total market value rise to $410 billion, compared to Exxon’s $404 billion. Apple is still way out ...

Making movies with Microsoft’s new Lumia app: same…but different

“Making movies has never been easier,” says Microsoft in reference to its Movie Creator Beta app for Lumia phones, the Lumia 2520 tablet and Surface tablets running Windows 8.1. The new app works as an all-in-one basic editing suite in which users, or should we say auteurs, can splice video clips, insert images, add text ...

Critical threat to Windows users? Microsoft releases patch install

Users of Windows 2003/2008/2012, as well as Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and Windows RT, could be under attack from a bug which Microsoft reported could “allow remote code execution if an attacker sends specially crafted packets to a Windows server.” Machines are vulnerable in the Secure Channel (Schannel) security package in Windows, says Microsoft, from threats that ...