James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Facebook cracks down on Saudi, UAE and Egypt misinformation campaigns
Facebook Inc. has cracked down on a misinformation campaign involving Saudi and other Middle Eastern authorities on its platform, the company said Thursday. Accounts linked to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia, have been involved in what Facebook called “inauthentic behavior,” and in total 350 accounts and pages have been removed ...
Lyft takes its e-bikes off the streets after some catch fire
As if Lyft Inc.’s year couldn’t get any worse, the company this week had to pull its electric bicycles off the streets of San Francisco after some of them exploded in flames while being used. The bikes, known simply as Lyft bikes, have only been in use in the city for a couple of months. ...
Facebook says it’s getting closer to creating a mind-reading wearable device
Facebook Inc. is one step closer to developing augmented reality glasses that will allow people to type without people having to use a keyboard, the company announced Tuesday. The company first talked about building a “brain-computer interface” at its F8 developer conference in 2017. This week Facebook said after working with the University of California ...
EU court rules websites using Facebook’s Like button are liable for user data collection
Companies could find themselves in trouble for data collection from now on for using Facebook Inc.’s Like button on their websites, according to a ruling by the European Union’s top court on Monday. The ruling from the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union stated that any companies with an embedded Like button will ...
Russia targeted all 50 states, according to Senate Intelligence Committee Report
Election systems in 50 states were targeted by Russian government-backed hackers, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. The report, which was heavily redacted, states that interference began as early as 2014 and went on until 2017, although it adds that there is no proof that votes were changed or ...
After backlash, DoorDash will change controversial tipping policy
Delivery app DoorDash Inc. said Tuesday night that it will change its tipping policy following a torrent of criticism. The company came under fire recently for its payment policy. When customers tipped drivers, the drivers weren’t exactly getting the tips. Instead, DoorDash paid a guaranteed amount and if the tip was generous, it went to the ...
FTC reportedly to accuse Facebook of misleading use of phone numbers and facial recognition
The Federal Trade Commission will reportedly accuse Facebook Inc. Wednesday of not informing its customers of how it used their phone numbers and how it employed its facial recognition technology. According to The Washington Post, the complaint will allege that Facebook deceived its users, first by allowing advertisers to take advantage of a two-factor authentication ...
Passengers livid after Uber charges them 100X more than advertised fare
Some passengers riding with Uber Technologies Inc. got the shock of their lives this week when their fare cost them more than $1,000 for just a short ride. People took to Twitter this week stating that they’d been charged more than 100 times more than the fare should have been. “This happened to me tonight,” ...
Elon Musk says Neuralink is almost ready to start reading human minds
Elon Musk revealed Tuesday evening that his company Neuralink and its brain-machine interface technology is almost ready for human testing. Since the company was founded in 2017, it has been hypersecretive about what its ambitions are. On Tuesday at an event in San Francisco, Musk made it clear that what the company hopes to achieve ...
Google employee involved with walkout protest leaves the company
A Google LLC employee involved with last year’s walkout has left the company, Bloomberg reported today. The person in question, Meredith Whittaker, was heavily involved in the protest in which Google employees all over the globe took to the streets over the treatment of female employees and the way Google handed sexual misconduct cases. Whittaker had also ...