People’s faces say a lot less about their emotions than companies think — In August, Amazon announced it had improved “accuracy for emotion detection” in its facial-recognition software. Not only could the technology better detect seven emotions (happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, calm, and confused), the company explained, but it could for the first time detect an eighth emotion: fear. Major tech companies…

The internet is very good at bringing up things from our past, but what if we don’t want to be reminded? — In late November of 2018, Facebook users who logged onto the platform found themselves flooded with old messages reappearing in Messenger as unread. The sudden surge of messages came from a bug that Facebook resolved the same day. But even after the messages vanished, the blip had a lasting effect…

All that data can give us a heightened awareness of what’s going on in our bodies — Today, the hard data of our health is more transparent than ever, thanks to the digital sensors embedded in our smartphones, watches, and scales. We can now closely monitor and evaluate hundreds of aspects of our health with these devices, gaining access to information about ourselves and our bodies that…

Women have many reasons for tracking their health, but the apps they turn to are often disappointing — Banana icons with condoms. A heavy focus on moods. Fetuses the size of grapes. Women have long had to deal with sexist features in health apps. A running joke for a while was that it’s not hard to spot a fertility-tracking app designed by a man. …