James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is dead at 65
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen passed away on Monday from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Allen revealed two weeks ago that the disease had returned after he spent years battling and overcoming it. He said in a statement at the time that he believed he could beat it again. “A lot has happened in medicine since ...
Facebook takes down hundreds of pages for ‘inauthentic’ political content
With the U.S. midterm elections looming, Facebook Inc. has removed hundreds of pages related to political spamming and what the company calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” In a blog post, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, and product manager Oscar Rodriguez, said the pages weren’t taken down for their content per se, but because they ...
Amazon axes AI recruiting tool that wasn’t too keen on women
Amazon.com Inc. recently had to shut down a machine learning recruiting tool because it apparently showed bias against female applicants. According to Reuters, which first published the story, Amazon had been using artificial intelligence since 2014 to go through resumes faster than a human eye could and pick out the best talent. Resumes were scanned, ...
Apple has been secretly fighting iPhone fraud in China
Apple Inc. had to go to war in China over fraudsters who were making handsome profits from buying or stealing iPhones, replacing some parts, and then claiming the phones were broken, according to a report in The Information published Tuesday. That report states that in 2013, Apple’s only retail store in Shenzhen, China, had to ...
‘Presidential Alert,’ though not from Trump himself, hits millions of US phones
Millions of Americans on Wednesday received what may have looked like a text message from U.S. President Donald Trump. The text was sent out at 2:18 p.m. EDT to test the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a joint operation led by FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission. A FEMA official told CNN that the system ...
Facebook introduces new anti-bullying tools to curb harassment
Facebook Inc. has bolstered its efforts to reduce the amount of bullying that occurs on the platform with a slew of new anti-bullying tools. On Tuesday, the company announced that it intends to give people more control over what they see and how they interact with people to counter harassment. It’s no secret that Facebook ...
With new Maps feature, Google aims to alleviate the drudgery of commuting
Google LLC has brought out a couple of new features in Google Maps that might help deal with the stress of being stuck in gridlocked traffic. Announced Monday, the new “Commute” tab is tailored to a person’s daily drive, bus ride or train ride to and from the workplace. Once Maps knows the details of your journey, you ...
US Justice Department sues California to block state net neutrality bill
California Governor Jerry Brown signed a net neutrality bill Sunday, which much like the old Federal Communications Commission laws would prevent internet service providers from prioritizing content or throttling and blocking certain content. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has said any attempt to implement state laws on net neutrality is “illegal,” adding such “micromanagement” ...
Meeting with Congress, big tech calls for a federal data privacy law
After yet another congressional hearing Wednesday, it’s looking like Silicon Valley tech giants may soon have to get used to new data privacy laws, whether they like it or not. Some of largest names in tech, including Google LLC, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., all endorsed data privacy legislation. That may seem surprising on the surface, but ...
Tech giants face another grilling by Congress Wednesday – and this time Google will be there
Some of the world’s leading tech companies will meet with Congress Wednesday, this time to discuss user privacy on their services. Representatives from Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc., Google LLC and Twitter Inc. will discuss issues surrounding data collection and how companies are protecting their users’ data. According to Republican Senator ...