Google apologizes for labeling black people 'gorillas'
Google has issued an apology after the automatic tagging feature of its Photos apps labeled a black couple as 'gorillas'. This is not the first time an algorithm has been found to have caused racial upset. Earlier in the year Flickr came under fire after its system tagged images of concentration camps as sports venues and black people as apes.
The company was criticized on social networks after a New York software developer questioned the efficacy of Google's algorithm. Accused of racism, Google said that it was "appalled" by what had happened, branding it as "100% not OK".
Samsung releases LEVEL U Wireless Bluetooth Headset
When traveling on the train or walking through the city, corded headphones can be a huge inconvenience. It can get tangled and can even cause your smartphone to fall on the floor if the wire gets snagged. It can even impede exercise too, getting caught on equipment.
Wireless Bluetooth headphones and headsets are awesome from a convenience standpoint and solve many of those issues. There are many design choices when it comes to these wired variants, but my preferred is the style that rests on your neck and offers earbuds. It is comfortable and best of all, it's not bulky. Today, Samsung releases its take on this style with the all-new LEVEL U Wireless Bluetooth Headset.
What would Steve Carell say? This office will be made with a 3D printer
Step aside, multi-billion-dollar construction companies. The always-pioneering city of Dubai is about to prove that a completely functional office building can be set up with little more than a 3D printer.
A special 20-foot-tall printer will be able to spit out virtually all the varying components and layers for the single-story building, which will then be placed on site and manually assembled in the United Arab Emirates city. Once all is said and done, it will be a sprawling 2000-square-foot structure.
Four tips to drive offline sales
Advertisements and valuable content can bring your audience to your website, but what is driving them to your store? Even though customers are able to view and purchase items online, over 90 percent of consumers are still more inclined to buy at a physical location.
Some techniques -- like direct mail and business cards -- are old-fashioned ways of driving your offline sales, but modern strategies are offering more advanced techniques for connecting with your consumers digitally. Keep up with your audience and build on-site relationships with these four tips.
Digital piracy up by 22 percent over the last three years
Despite attempts to combat it, illegal distribution of copyright material via the internet is a continuing problem.
Protection solutions specialist Arxan Technologies has released the results of a new report produced in collaboration with the iThreat Cyber Group which shows that illegal reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material on the Web is booming as a result of security breaches in both mobile and desktop software applications.
O2 has exclusivity and special offers on Surface 3 4G for UK business customers
In the last couple of weeks there have been two new Surface models announced. Just a couple of days ago we learned of the new, cheaper Core i7 Surface Pro 3, and just before this the traveller-friendly 4G LTE Surface 3 -- still no news of the Surface 4 or Surface Pro 4, sadly.
In the UK, business and enterprise customers will be able to buy their 4G LTE Surface 3 from O2. The company has a three month exclusivity deal with Microsoft that means this is the only place the 10.8 tablet will be available during this period. As well as being the sole source of the device, O2 has a few deals to entice would-be customers into making a purchase.
iTunes 12.2 brings Apple Music to the desktop
Apple has released iTunes 12.2, bringing Apple Music and the new Beats 1 radio station to OS X and Windows.
Additions include the new Connect, a sort-of social networking service where artists share "thoughts, photos, music and videos", you can comment or "love" anything they’ve posted, and they can respond directly.
New survey reveals a preference for local web hosting
Choosing the right host to use for a website can be a critical decision for businesses, but information on how various hosts measure up can be hard to come by.
Online comparison service Host Advice has released the results of a survey that looks at which Web hosting services are faring best so far this year by looking at each company’s total number of hosted sites and dividing it by the total host sites of the industry over the same period of time.
Siri knows what makes Cookie Monster sad
Siri has become known for providing amusing answers to certain questions and today a new one has taken the internet by storm.
When asked the question "What is zero divided by zero?", Siri responds in a witty yet comical manner, citing Cookie Monster’s cookies as an example.
How personalization is changing the face of marketing [Q&A]
[BetaNews Recommended Reading] Companies today have access to more information about their customers than ever before. This gives them the opportunity to effectively personalize their marketing messages, but are they failing to take advantage of the opportunities this offers? And with large volumes of often unstructured data available how difficult is it to find and use the right information?
We spoke to Sara Vera, data scientist at CRM specialist Insightly to find out more about the challenges enterprises face in adapting to a personalized world.
How to turn off Apple Music's automatic subscription renewal
Apple Music comes with a free three-month trial which, according to some people who haven't been paying proper attention, is something Taylor Swift arranged with Apple. Thanks Taylor. Three months is a good amount of time to try out the service, but Apple automatically signs you up for an auto-renewal payment option. So when the trial comes to an end, you’ll start paying for the service, regardless of whether you're still using it or not.
If you’d rather decide for yourself when (or not) to join up as a paying member, rather than being forced into it, it’s easy enough to turn off the auto renewal, although the process is far from obvious.
One Plus Two touted to have a better fingerprint sensor than iPhone 6
As you’ve doubtless seen, the sequel to the popular OnePlus One will be revealed at the end of next month, but prior to that information about the handset is slowly being leaked out -- or indeed published by the company in the case of this latest snippet concerning the fingerprint sensor.
In a blog post, OnePlus boasted that the upcoming smartphone will have one of the most advanced fingerprint sensors on the market, in an "Apple eat your heart out" kind of way.
Windows 7 gains significant usage share ahead of Windows 10 launch
Windows 8.x enjoyed a good month in May. The tiled operating system finally overtook Windows XP for the first time in six months -- its gains coming mostly at the expense of Windows 7. But it was all change again in June according to the latest usage stats from web analytics firm NetMarketShare.
The latest figures show Windows 8.x losing share -- or business as usual you might say -- going from 16.63 percent to 16.02 percent. That’s a drop of 0.61 percentage points. Windows 8.1 actually gained 0.24 percentage points, but Windows 8 lost 0.85 percentage points. Still overall it remains comfortably ahead of XP now, so there's that consolation prize.
Washington Post implements encryption to protect site visitors
Heightened awareness about online security means that more and more websites are using encryption to boost privacy and security. A few weeks after Wikimedia announced it was using HTTPS to encrypt traffic to its site, The Washington Post has followed suit.
It's a move designed to stop snooping on readers' browsing habits. The news outlet explains that it will make it "more difficult for hackers, government agencies and others to track the reading habits". For those concerned about privacy, this will come a good news, but there's a catch; encryption does not apply to the entire site.
The organizations we least trust with our data
US consumers are most concerned about the ability of retailers and government departments to protect their data according to a new survey.
The Security Insights survey from Unisys shows that 44 percent of American respondents are worried that their personal data held by retailers is likely to be breached in the next year, as many consumers seem to be losing trust in retail data security owing to recent high profile breaches.
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