James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
In another privacy bomb, Facebook admits storing millions of Instagram passwords in plain text
Last month Facebook Inc. admitted that it had stored thousands of Instagram users’ passwords in plain text, open for viewing by people at certain levels in the company. Today the company said that number is actually in the millions. “Since this post was published, we discovered additional logs of Instagram passwords being stored in a ...
Microsoft won’t share facial recognition technology with police, citing human rights concerns
While China doubles down on its efforts to track its citizens and concerns fester in the U.S. that a similar Orwellian super-surveillance might happen in the country, Microsoft Corp. may have just alleviated some of the concerns. Reuters reported Tuesday that Microsoft had been asked by law enforcement in California to share its facial recognition technology. The company ...
T-Mobile and Sprint refute report their merger is about to hit a brick wall
A report by The Wall Street Journal Tuesday cast doubt on whether the third- and fourth-largest U.S. telecommunications companies, T-Mobile U.S. Inc. and Sprint Corp., will merge, but the companies quickly refuted the report. According to the Journal, the $26 billion merger might not happen and Justice Department officials said as much to representatives of ...
YouTube algorithm picks 9/11 content for livestream of Notre Dame fire
Watching the Notre Dame cathedral in France burn today live on YouTube was upsetting enough to just about everyone, but what appeared below the video set off many people for another reason. YouTube’s algorithm made an apparent goof in somehow relating the conflagration to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York City. Below streams from ...
Jeff Bezos calls for rivals to up their minimum wage to $15 an hour
In Amazon.com Inc.’s yearly letter to shareholders, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos challenged his rivals to up their minimum wage to $15 an hour. Following criticism of how the company treats its workers, in 2018 Amazon vowed to introduce a wage hike in the United States. The company made good on its promise at the end ...
Facebook announces sweeping changes to tackle misinformation
In an almost 2,000-word post published Tuesday, Facebook Inc. revealed a slew of changes that it hopes will reduce the proliferation of dubious news on the platform. The social media company has made the changes under the strategy of “remove, reduce, and inform.” It said “problematic content” is not only a concern when elections are around ...
Walmart says its robots will allow human staff to take on more meaningful work
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is again embracing automation by releasing a legion of robots to take over roles that were once the responsibility of humans. In its battle to outsmart Amazon.com Inc., the store chain will deploy automotive technology in various areas, which will mean thousands of robots working with humans. In total, there will be ...
EU releases guidelines for responsible AI development
The European Union Monday released a set of ethics guidelines for the development of trustworthy artificial intelligence. The EU said that first, AI needs to be lawful, ethical and robust, and each of these components should align. If that doesn’t happen, society should act to change that. “The ethical dimension of AI is not a ...
HUD charges Facebook with housing ad discrimination
Facebook Inc. is being sued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for allowing advertisers to place ads based on people’s race, religion or national origin. The lawsuit states that Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act by preventing certain people from seeing certain ads while also employing its data-mining capabilities to ascertain who sees ...
Facebook is building a wall to keep out white nationalists and separatists
In a move that Facebook Inc. calls “Standing Against Hate,” the social network today said it’s in the process of expunging all content relating to white nationalism or separatism. The move comes two weeks after 50 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, were killed in a mosque shooting – something which to the concern of many ...