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Google Apologizes for Racist Auto-Tag in Photo App

Google’s new photo app introduced in May has rubbed many users the wrong way with a defective auto-tag system.

After the app tagged two Black users “gorillas,” Google has been in a mad dash to make things right. This is how Twitter user Jacky Alcine responded to the app:

Yonatan Zunger, the chief architect of social at Google, contacted the young lady thanking her for addressing the issue and pointing out the problem. “Zunger says that Google has had similar issues with facial recognition due to inadequate analysis of skin tones and lighting, ” reports Loren Grush for The Verge.

However, this racist use of labels has been a problem in other Google products like Google Maps.

“Earlier this year, searches for ‘ni**er house’ globally and searches for ‘ni**er king’ in Washington, D.C. turned up results for the White House, the residence of U.S. President Barack Obama. Both at that time and earlier this week, Google apologized and said that it was working to fix the issue,” according to Jana Kasperkevic for The Guardian.

As the issue of race becomes a dominant issue to the public, technology should not be part of the discussions and debates.

At this moment the “gorilla” label has been removed from the app.

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Report: New iPhones Likely to Have Force Touch

The successors of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will have Force Touch capabilities. This news comes from a Bloomberg tech report.

“Force Touch was introduced with the Apple Watch, which launched earlier this year. The feature can judge the sensitivity of presses on the touchscreen, pulling up a variety of control options based on how lightly the user taps the device. During Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, the company revealed it would be available on future Macbooks,” according to Brett Molina for USA Today.

This feature will come with the 6S and the 6S Plus. As of now the phone will have the same dimensions. The 6S will be 4.7 inches and the 6S Plus will be 5.5 inches big.

Essentially, the screen will be able to be adjusted to the pressure of the user’s finger. The apps will be able to be activated based on how hard or how soft users press on them.  For this reason, suppliers are having difficulty in providing the right screens.

“The timing and production volume of Force Touch-enabled phones could be impacted by the supply and yield of the displays,” reports Tim Culpan for Bloomberg.

At this point, the feature is already in many of Apple’s other products, so this move makes sense.