James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Wrongful arrest leads to controversy over racially biased face recognition technology
Tensions are high again regarding the use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement after a black man was wrongfully arrested in January this year, according to a report today in the New York Times. Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a complaint against the Detroit Police Department. The lawsuit explains how ...
Segway’s iconic self-balancing scooter will no longer be produced
Segway Inc. will not make any more of its iconic self-balancing scooters. The “Segway Personal Transporter” has on the market since 2001, and while touted by some to be the future of alternative transportation, the vehicle was also widely mocked. Production at its factory in Bedford, New Hampshire, will stop July 15, and 21 employees will lose ...
Big tech slams Trump’s suspension of guest worker visas
President Trump today signed off on an executive order to suspend a number of nonimmigrant visas temporarily, a move that leading tech firms have slammed. The order, titled, “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak,” means that the following visas will be suspended throughout ...
After initial rebuff, UK turns to Google and Apple for COVID-19 contact tracing software
The U.K. government has decided to ditch its own COVID-19 contact tracing app and instead look to Apple Inc. and Google LLC for help. According to the BBC today, the technology developed in the U.K. was not as “privacy focused” as what has been created by Apple and Google, but after testing its own app on the ...
Twitter to start letting people send ‘voice tweets’
Twitter Inc. today said that it will start rolling out a new feature that allows people to send audio tweets, which will only be available at first to a select few people using iOS phones. “Sometimes 280 characters aren’t enough and some conversational nuances are lost in translation,” the company wrote in a blog post. ...
Apple, YouTube, PayPal pledge millions to racial justice programs
Apple Inc. said Thursday that it will commit $100 million to a “Racial Equity and Justice Initiative,” while at the same time other tech behemoths said they would do their bit to embrace racial equality. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the money will be focused on education, economic equality and criminal justice reform and ...
IBM cloud outage brings down customer websites worldwide
Global customers of IBM Cloud reported that their websites went down today, causing some amount of confusion. The company’s own cloud status page also went down, although in a tweet the company said it was investigating what had happened. “We are aware of reported IBM Cloud outages, we are investigating and service will be restored ...
Facebook outsourcing moderation is hurting the public, states new report
A new report from the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights accuses Facebook Inc. and other social media giants of skimping on moderation by outsourcing it to other companies. The 32-page study, released Monday, says moderation is an essential part of any social media company, and not only do firms need to ...
State-owned media content will now come with a label, says Facebook
Facebook Inc. said today that posts, pages and ads published by media that’s fully or partially owned by a country’s state will now be labeled. Moreover, Facebook said that state-owned ads will be banned in the U.S. The reason, said Facebook, is because “they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing ...
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg stands by decision not to remove Trump posts
Following an avalanche of criticism and a company walkout, Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg still will not submit to pressure regarding his decision not to take down President Donald Trump’s controversial comment. Last week when Trump posted the comment “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” regarding the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, ...