Facial recognition has a reputation problem. What could be an exciting new technology with the potential to make our lives easier, safer and more secure has been blighted by reports that it repeatedly fails when asked to correctly identify the faces of Black people. But pioneering software engineer Charlette N’Guessan from Ghana has presented a …

Wearable tech has been high on the agenda at this year’s IFA trade show, which is being held virtually as well as in real life for the first time this week in Berlin. On Friday, Chinese tech company Honor, a sister brand to the better-known Huawei, unveiled two new smartwatches — the GS Pro and the ES — to add …

Since 2017, police in the UK have been testing live, or real-time, facial recognition in public places to try to identify criminals. The legality of these trials has been widely questioned by privacy and human rights campaigners, who just won a landmark case that could have a lasting impact on how police use the technology in the future. In a …

In the year 2020, a smartphone is seen more as a necessity than a luxury — going without one means missing out on the many advantages to be had with internet connectivity in your pocket. But for billions of people around the world, owning a smartphone is still prohibitively expensive. According to a survey published Thursday by the Alliance for …

The UK government said Tuesday that it’ll stop grading visa applications with an algorithm critics have called racist. From Friday of this week, a temporary system will be put in place to grade applications while the algorithm undergoes a redesign before being reintroduced by the end of October. “We have been reviewing how the visa application streaming tool operates and will be …

Google’s bid to enter the fitness tracker market through its acquisition of Fitbit has just hit a major roadblock. The EU’s Competition Commission announced on Tuesday that it’s opening a full-scale investigation into the purchase. In a press release, the Commission said it’s concerned Google’s purchase of Fitbit would further entrench its market position in the online advertising markets by …

This story is part of Generation China, CNET’s series exploring the nation’s technological ambition. Until a couple of years ago, if you’d heard of Huawei — and that’s a big if, depending on where you live — you probably knew it only as a maker of phones, an upstart rival to reigning phone giants Apple and Samsung. But lately Huawei …

For the past year, Huawei has gradually been beefing up the AppGallery, its rival to Apple’s App Store and Google Play. This week sees a crucial new addition, according to people familiar with the project, in the form of Bolt, its first ride-hailing app that serves the European market. Bolt is an Estonia-based ride-hailing company that’s quickly gaining traction in …

Telephone engineer David Snowdon was just returning to his van after an assignment repairing a cell site when a car sped past him, spun around and stopped right in front of him. Two men got out of the vehicle and asked him if he had anything to do with 5G masts. “You better not be or there will be fucking …

As part of its efforts to help people identify fake news, Facebook will be running an ad campaign with independent fact-checking charity Full Fact. Starting next month, Facebook users in the UK, Europe, Turkey, Africa and the Middle East will see ads in their feeds encouraging them to think critically about information they see. They will ask people to consider …