James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Joining rest of big tech, Apple halts all sales in Russia and limits services
Apple Inc. announced today that it’s halting all product sales in Russia, a move in line with various measures big technology companies have taken against the country since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The move comes about a week after Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov sent a letter to Apple in which he called ...
In line with sanctions, computer chip industry halts sales to Russia
President Joe Biden’s sanctions against Russia will soon hit the country with a shortage of computer chips, a move designed to paralyze Russia’s tech manufacturing industry. Last week, Biden announced an embargo that will include selling chips to Russia, something he said will “impair their ability to compete in the 21st-century economy.” The loss might ...
Reddit gets a makeover that should make using the platform less frustrating
Reddit Inc. today announced some major changes to its platform, including a new Discover Tab, that should make life easier for its users. In the past, users looked for communities, or so-called subreddits, by seeing what’s popular on the platform or by searching various topics. The problem with finding new things to read is that ...
Twitter admits to accidentally taking down posts showing Russia-Ukraine conflict
Twitter Inc. said today that this week it had mistakenly removed content from its platform and suspended users who had been tracking the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Such users had been accessing satellite images that showed Russian movement along the Ukraine border, sharing the important images on social media platforms. This type of open-source ...
Meta launches TikTok lookalike ‘Facebook Reels’ in 150 countries
Meta Platforms Inc. today announced that it’s launching Facebook Reels around the world with a raft of features to enable people to make money. For some years now, the company has been talking about creating a competitor to ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok, and now it’s finally here. Reels had previously been released for Instagram and to ...
Donald Trump’s social media app Truth Social debuts today in rocky start
Former President Donald Trump’s social media app was made available today in Apple Inc.’s App Store, but it got off to a rocky start. Truth Social has been in the pipeline for some time now, ever since Trump (pictured) was kicked off Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. for repeated violations of policy. His Twitter account alone ...
YouTube looking for new ways to fight the spread of misinformation
Google LLC-owned YouTube said today that it’s in process of adopting new measures to tackle how misinformation spreads on the platform. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said in a blog post that there were three main issues that need to be attended to: catching misinformation before it goes viral, addressing the problem of cross-platform sharing ...
Mark Zuckerberg elevates policy chief Nick Clegg to a bigger role at Meta
Meta Platforms Inc. today announced that the U.K.’s former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is getting a promotion, one that will put him on a level just under Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Clegg (pictured), or Sir Clegg in the U.K., is currently Meta’s head of policy and communications and was the vice president of global ...
Elon Musk’s brain chip firm Neuralink denies abuse of monkeys in its experiments
After being accused of harming animals in its experiments, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink today said experiments with its brain-computer interface have always been ethical. Neuralink hopes to connect human brains with computers. Sometimes the work means animals have to be used, although Neuralink says when that happens, the animals have been treated in ...
Texas is suing Meta over using facial recognition data without people’s consent
The state of Texas filed a lawsuit today against Meta Platforms Inc. for its use of its facial recognition system, a suit that could end up being very expensive for the tech giant. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that Meta, then Facebook Inc., collected biometric data on users without their consent, breaching the Texas ...