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As impressive as facial recognition software is, it isn't perfect, and sometimes algorithm errors can lead to unintended consequences. Google discovered this in what's possibly one of the worst scenarios a company could face: Its new Photos app incorrectly labeled a black couple as "gorillas." Google Photos has the ability to automatically tag images, using photo comparisons, big data, and other methods the intelligence software learns over time. But its accuracy is not always successful. While mistakes are unintentional, Google is facing backlash for this particular error's racist connotations, the BBC reports.

As the families of U.S. hostages currently held in Iran have struggled for years to rally the determination to bring their loved ones home, newly released emails from the former secretary of State reveal the infuriating truth that those with connections get their case raised to the top. In 2009, Iason Athanasiadis was covering the protests of the disputed election win of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir-Hossein Mousavi for the Washington Times. The Greek citizen was detained by Iranian authorities on June 17, 2009, as he tried to fly out of the country. Athanasiadis was thrown in Evin prison and released...

The U.S. economy added 223,000 jobs in June, and the "official" unemployment rate dropped from 5.5% to 5.3%.  But the labor force participation rate dropped to a 38-year low, and there were 60,000 fewer jobs created in April and May after adjustments.  It's absolutely amazing that four years after the supposed "recovery" began, more people have stopped looking for work than ever. The Hill: The number of people in the labor force fell by 432,000, a reason for the lower jobless rate, while 56,000 fewer people were employed, sending the participation rate down to 62.6 percent, the lowest level...

A technician died from injuries sustained while working on a robot at Volkswagen's factory in Kessel, Germany, according to media reports. The reports indicated that two men, who worked for an outside contractor, were installing the robot when the mechanism struck one of them in the chest and pressed him against a metal plate. The 21-year-old man, who was working within the metal safety cage confining the robot, later died from the accident. His co-worker was outside the metal cage and unharmed. Prosecutors are investigating the incident. Volkswagen officials said that the robot did not have a technical defect and...

In the short term, the world runs on words; in the long term, the world runs on numbers. It is as though the Muses came to an agreement: In the here and now, mankind is subject to rhetoric, but mathematics gets the final say. In Athens, in San Juan, in Detroit, in Sacramento, in Springfield, and, soon enough, in Washington, Mathematics is arousing herself from her torpor, and she is cranky as hell. The long term is here. Greece has defaulted on its sovereign debt, and its banks have been shut down. Television viewers accustomed to watching a few odd...

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders touted his progressive credentials before his largest crowd to date Wednesday night as he pushed his campaign into Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s backyard. Sanders packed the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Madison, filling its 10,000 seats to show his bid to snatch the Democratic nomination from front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t a longshot after all.

Twitter only has 49 black employees - out of 2,910 staff members in America. The 35 men and 14 women account for just 1.7 per cent of the firm's US operation, which is 93.8 per cent white or Asian. It represents a stark lack of progress since last year, when senior executives promised to boost their number of African American staff from 2 per cent.

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar was near a three-week high on Thursday and world stock markets had a delicate feel, as the implication of U.S. jobs data later for a possible Fed rate hike added to Europe's uncertainty over Greece. Chinese shares also remained in focus as they suffered another heavy tumble overnight to take their loses over the last six weeks to 25 percent, countering otherwise solid performances in the rest of Asia's main centres.Europe's main bourses in London, Frankfurt and Paris and Milan opened largely flat having rallied on Wednesday but the mood remained skittish after hopes of...

Most politicians and transportation interest groups claim that America’s infrastructure is in bad shape. At a recent House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said our roads and bridges are in “a sorry state.” At the same hearing Bill Graves, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, reported, “Two-thirds of highways are in poor or mediocre condition.” These statements are reinforced every time we drive over a pothole on the way to work. So it’s no surprise that many people think most roads in the United States are of poor quality. However, government statistics tell a...

A bold-faced political hatchet job, a mysterious memo, a bad pun and a predictable dig at Fox News. Those are just some of the enlightening tidbits contained in the 3,000 pages of Hillary Clinton emails released late Tuesday. The exchanges, which span the period between March 2009 and December 2009, show that Clinton maintained a relatively tight-knit circle of State Department aides who worked to plan schedules, arrange secure phone calls and draft speeches. They also show that Clinton corresponded more frequently than previously known with her longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal. Here are 11 of the most interesting snippets from...

California keeps reminding us what has gone astray with America in recent years. The state is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old drought. Yet it has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to the state's storage reserves — a critical project that was almost canceled by endless environmental lawsuits and protests. Although California has almost doubled in population since the dam's construction, its politicians apparently decided that completing more northern and Sierra Nevada water projects was passe. So the parched state now prays...

Low overhead, previous rela­tionship leads to Gile­s-Parscale selectionDonald Trump made his bid for the White House official Monday after filing the necessary paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission. In Iowa, Donald Trump takes his show on the road Donald Trump says he's running for president in 2016 The billionaire business mogul's campaign has ties to San Antonio. His campaign website, donaldjtrump.com, was designed by Giles-Parscale, a local web design and web marketing firm. "I think a lot of people are surprised when they find out that we work with Trump in San Antonio, and that we have that type of...

4 Times Donald Trump’s Companies Declared Bankruptcy (Link only, per FR policy)

Chicago officials are taking an aggressive new tax approach. Consumers will now have to pay 9% on Netflix, Amazon Web Services and more. Chicago is marking Independence Day this year with fireworks, hot dogs – and sweeping new tax rules that require companies to collect a 9% levy every time consumers use streaming and cloud services such as Netflix or Amazon Web Services. The rules, which went into effect today, came about after city officials expanded the interpretation of existing amusement and property lease taxes to encompass cloud-based technologies. According to lawyers at ReedSmith, which flagged the new rules in a blog post,...

Someone hacked through yet another fiber optic cable in the San Francisco Bay area early Tuesday morning, continuing a rash of incidents that have disrupted Internet traffic and vexed law enforcement officials. The latest attack occurred at around 4.30 am Pacific Time near the town of Livermore, about 50 miles east of San Francisco. Someone climbed down a manhole cover there and cut through several fiber optic cables, according to several reports. The FBI is investigating. The cables are operated by backbone providers such as Level 3 Communications, which sell capacity to other cable and Internet providers. The cables carry...

Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal on Wednesday pledged his entire $32-billion (28.8-billion-euro) fortune to charitable projects over the coming years. He said in a statement that the "philanthropic pledge will help build bridges to foster cultural understanding, develop communities, empower women, enable youth, provide vital disaster relief and create a more tolerant and accepting world." He said the donation "will be allocated according to a well-devised plan throughout the coming years" but stressed there was no time limit on when the donation would be spent.

A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law. POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam. While U.S. trade officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, they downplayed its importance, emphasizing that the terms of the deal are likely to change significantly as the talks enter their final stages. Those terms are still secret, but the public...

The Trump Hotel Collection, a string of luxury hotel properties tied to business magnate and now Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, appears to be the latest victim of a credit card breach, according to data shared by several U.S.-based banks. Contacted regarding reports from sources at several banks who traced a pattern of fraudulent debit and credit card charges to accounts that had all been used at Trump hotels, the company declined multiple requests for comment. But sources in the financial industry say they have little doubt that Trump properties in several U.S. locations — including Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas,...

Madison— Republican legislative leaders kick-started the stalled Wisconsin budget Wednesday by leaving two controversial pieces out of the bill and brokering a deal on a third piece to hold down state borrowing for highways. Though GOP lawmakers are again moving ahead on the budget and scheduling a key committee vote for Thursday, the way ahead remains murky. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said he didn't have the support yet to pass the budget bill yet in his house and he and Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) could not give a firm timeline for passing out of the budget a financing...

JUNE 30--Led by a teenage boy throwing gang signs, a mob of vandals descended on a Walmart store in Georgia early Sunday and trashed the business in a reported attempt to “see how much damage they could cause,” police allege. During the 1:45 AM ransacking of the Walmart in Macon, rioters pulled a patron from an electric wheelchair and dragged him to the floor, according to a Bibb County Sheriff’s Office report. As seen below, a Walmart surveillance camera recorded the vandals racing through store aisles. Investigators say that a “crowd of 40-50 individuals consisting of black males and females”...