James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Oracle set to pay $23 million in second SEC foreign bribery settlement
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Oracle Corp. will pay a settlement of $23 million after being charged with bribing foreign officials in a number of foreign countries. The regulator alleged that between 2016 and 2019, subsidiaries of Oracle in India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates created slush funds to bribe officials ...
Walmart goes after younger customers by putting itself in the metaverse
Walmart Inc. today announced that it’s launching two immersive experiences on the popular online game platform Roblox, an effort the company hopes will attract a younger kind of shopper. These new virtual worlds will be called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play,” both of which won’t give players the ability to buy stuff in ...
Meta showed bias when moderating Israel-Palestine conflict, says new report
An independent report commissioned by Meta Platforms Inc. shows that the company showed bias against Palestinians during the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis. The report, released today, said that when the social media giant was moderating its platform during the conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, it unfairly removed content from Palestinians. That was ...
Meta reportedly is trying to cut costs by 10% by pushing staff out the door
Meta Platforms Inc. will attempt to cut costs by about 10% over the next few months, which will mean a bit of a shakeup at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported today. People familiar with the situation told the Journal that rather than outright lay people off, the route being taken is to shuffle various ...
Spotify says its new audiobook service in the US is ‘just the beginning’
Spotify Inc. launched its audiobook service today in the U.S., which might give Amazon.com Inc. something to think about. In a blog post today, the company said it has known for a long time that there is unlimited potential for audio, so launching an audiobooks service was the next natural step. It admitted that audiobooks ...
Pentagon asks for an audit of pro-US social media psyops operations
The Pentagon has begun an audit relating to how its discreet psychological operations personnel engage in information warfare on U.S. on social media platforms. Like the Russian Internet Research Agency, IRA, such operators infiltrate social media platforms in an effort to sway the minds of Americans and people in other nations to support U.S. foreign ...
California signs new bill into law that strengthens online protection for children
California Governor Gavin Newsom today signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a law designed to protect younger people as they navigate the minefield of social media and other online services. The bill, named AB 2273, had unsurprisingly met with some resistance from certain factions of the tech industry, but in August this year, it ...
An anti-metaverse mail bomber targeted a US university VR lab
Law enforcement officials are currently investigating what looks like a mail bomb attack after a person was injured Tuesday night while opening a package at a virtual reality center at Northeastern University in Boston. The employee, who works at the VR center, suffered lacerations to his hands, but no other parts of his body. Initial ...
Antitrust case against Google will go ahead without Facebook collusion claim
A federal judge today ruled that an antitrust case against Google LLC led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will proceed, although the judge said the allegation that Google had unfairly colluded with Meta Platforms Inc. in 2018 will be dismissed. The lawsuit, brought by Paxton and 16 other states, accuses Google of using its ...
VMware settles with SEC for $8M over allegedly misleading investors
Cloud computing firm VMware Inc. said today that it has reached an $8 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a charge of misleading investors by not being clear about its financial performance. The investigation by the SEC related to the company’s backlog disclosures for its 2019 and 2020 fiscal years. It ...