James Farrell

James Farrell is the former editor-in-chief of Chiang Mai CityNews, where he wrote and managed daily news, features, op-eds and blogs on a diverse range of topics. Prior to this, in the same city of Northern Thailand where he lives, he was the longstanding deputy editor of the monthly magazine Citylife. He has written on culture, politics, travel, tech, business, human rights, for local, national, and international news services and magazines. He has a keen interest in the role technology is playing in the transformation of society, culture and politics, especially in developing nations. This is reflected in his not-so-successful first novel.

Latest from James Farrell

YouTube looking for new ways to fight the spread of misinformation

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

Google LLC-owned YouTube said today that it’s in process of adopting new measures to tackle how misinformation spreads on the platform. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said in a blog post that there were three main issues that need to be attended to: catching misinformation before it goes viral, addressing the problem of cross-platform sharing ...

Mark Zuckerberg elevates policy chief Nick Clegg to a bigger role at Meta

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

Meta Platforms Inc. today announced that the U.K.’s former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is getting a promotion, one that will put him on a level just under Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Clegg (pictured), or Sir Clegg in the U.K., is currently Meta’s head of policy and communications and was the vice president of global ...

Elon Musk’s brain chip firm Neuralink denies abuse of monkeys in its experiments

EMERGING TECH - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

After being accused of harming animals in its experiments, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink today said experiments with its brain-computer interface have always been ethical. Neuralink hopes to connect human brains with computers. Sometimes the work means animals have to be used, although Neuralink says when that happens, the animals have been treated in ...

Texas is suing Meta over using facial recognition data without people’s consent

EMERGING TECH - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

The state of Texas filed a lawsuit today against Meta Platforms Inc. for its use of its facial recognition system, a suit that could end up being very expensive for the tech giant. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that Meta, then Facebook Inc., collected biometric data on users without their consent, breaching the Texas ...

French watchdog says Google Analytics breaches GDPR rules and could be banned

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

Google LLC’s Analytics service, the largest of its kind in the world, could be handing French people’s data to U.S. intelligence services, France’s watchdog CNIL said today. CNIL said Google Analytics breaches article 44 of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, and the tech giant hasn’t done enough to ensure data protection. It added that ...

Sony’s AI can employ clever strategies to beat the best humans at ‘Gran Turismo’

AI - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

Sony Corp. announced today that it has created an artificial intelligence that can get the better of humans when playing the simulation game “Gran Turismo,” which could have implications in the future for self-driving technology. AI has already mastered such games as “Go” and chess, and according to Sony, it took just two days of ...

UK government warns porn sites might be legally required to verify user ages

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

The U.K. today said that as part of the Online Safety Bill, it might make it a requirement that all pornography websites perform “robust checks” on the age of their users. If that sounds familiar, that’s because a similar bill was discussed back in 2017 as part of the Digital Economy Act. At the time, the ...

Peter Thiel announces he will step down from Meta’s board

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

After 17 years, the billionaire investor Peter Thiel says he’s leaving the board of Meta Platforms Inc., it was announced today. Thiel, who was born in Germany and went to the U.S. as a kid, was one of the first investors in Meta, which was then Facebook Inc. He was a founder of PayPal Inc. ...

Australia’s second-richest person is suing Facebook over the use of his image in scams

POLICY - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

An Australian billionaire launched a legal case against Facebook Inc. today, alleging that the company didn’t do enough to prevent the spread of scam ads with his face in them appearing on the platform. The billionaire in question, mining magnate Andrew Forrest (pictured), says Facebook breached Australia’s anti-money laundering laws regarding the spread of cryptocurrency ...

Tesla recalls thousands of cars over ‘rolling stop’ feature

EMERGING TECH - BY JAMES FARRELL - 5 YEARS AGO

Tesla Inc. will recall 53,822 of its cars because a feature may allow the car to slowly roll through intersections without coming to a complete stop. In a letter to Tesla made public today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the recalled vehicles include the 2016-2022 Model S and Model X, the 2017-2022 Model ...