James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
BBC to launch ‘Beeb,’ its own voice assistant
The BBC is planning to introduce its own voice assistant to rival Amazon.com’s Alexa, according to report Monday in the Guardian. This will be a voice with a difference, though, since it’s being trained to understand British accents. For some time now, various British comedy TV shows have featured sketches in which artificial intelligent voice assistants fail ...
Google shuts down 210 YouTube channels linked to Chinese disinformation campaign
Some 210 YouTube accounts were just disabled by Google LLC for involvement in a coordinated effort to spread disinformation relating to the Hong Kong protests. Google said Thursday it has identified threats after sharing information with industry partners and law enforcement, following an internal investigation found a propaganda campaign on YouTube similar to the campaigns recently ...
Contractors working for Microsoft’s Xbox claim to have listened to audio recordings
Microsoft Corp. has found itself in hot water again after contractors working for the company said they have listened to Xbox One users in their homes via voice recordings. According to an article published by Motherboard Wednesday, several contractors claimed to have listened to those recordings. The practice goes back to when Xbox One could be ...
Facebook makes policy changes to gives users more control over data
Facebook Inc. users will soon have more control over their data and there will more transparency as to what data is collected via their browsing habits, the company announced Tuesday. In a blog post penned by Erin Egan, chief privacy officer for policy, and Product Management Director David Baser, the pair stated the obvious in that ...
Twitter and Facebook purge Chinese trolls sowing disinformation
Both Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. reported Monday that they have removed a number of Chinese government-backed accounts engaging in inauthentic behavior. In a post Twitter announced that it had taken down a total of 936 accounts originating in the People’s Republic of China. The company said these accounts were “deliberately and specifically attempting to ...
YouTube sued by LGBTQ creators for discrimination
LGBTQ creators are suing Google LLC because they say their content has not been fairly treated on the company’s video website YouTube. According to a story in the Washington Post Thursday, there are eight plaintiffs in total, who each say that their content was suppressed, their advertising opportunities were restricted and even their subscriber lists ...
Facebook changes Groups privacy settings and vows crackdown on extreme content
Privacy settings for Facebook Inc.’s Groups are changing to make things simpler, the company announced on Wednesday. The social media giant said that from now on public, closed and secret group settings will either be just public or private. The administrators of those groups will have the option to make the group visible to other ...
Facebook has been listening to and transcribing Messenger voice chats
People who have voice-chatted on Facebook Inc.’s Messenger app might have had their conversation listened to and transcribed, according to a report published by Bloomberg today. The company has admitted that it did indeed hire third-party contractors to listen to clips but said that the practice stopped “more than a week ago.” The reason they ...
Whole Foods workers demand Amazon break ties with ICE
A group of employees from Whole Foods signed a letter Monday asking that its parent company Amazon.com Inc. break all ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The letter by the grocery chain, which was acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017, was signed by a group of present and former employees of Wholes Foods calling ...
Microsoft contractors have been listening in to private Skype calls and Cortana commands
Real-time conversations on Microsoft Corp.’s Skype are sometimes listened to by contractors, according to an investigation by Motherboard published Wednesday. Internal documents, screenshots and audio recordings acquired by Motherboard reveal that personal conversations were sometimes eavesdropped on by human staff in order to analyze how the app’s translation software was working. Microsoft said on the ...