Month: April 2018

The head of popular messaging service WhatsApp is planning to leave the company because of a reported disagreement over how parent company Facebook is using customers' personal data.  WhatsApp billionaire chief executive Jan Koum wrote in a Facebook post Monday, “It's been almost a decade since (co-founder) Brian (Acton) and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people. But it is time for me to move on,” he said. Koum did not give a date for his departure. The Washington Post reported Monday that Koum is stepping down because of disagreements over Facebook’s attempts to use the personal data of WhatsApp customers, as well as efforts to weaken the app’s encryption.  Action left the company last fall and since then has become a vocal…

Thousands of people marched through Moscow, throwing paper planes and calling for authorities to unblock the popular Telegram instant messaging app on Monday. Protesters chanted slogans against President Vladimir Putin as they launched the planes - a reference to the app's logo. "Putin's regime has declared war on the internet, has declared war on free society... so we have to be here in support of Telegram," one protester told Reuters. Russia began blocking Telegram on April 16 after the app refused to comply with a court order to grant state security services access to its users' encrypted messages. Russia's FSB Federal Security service has said it needs access to some of those messages for its work, that includes guarding against militant attacks. In the process of blocking the app, state…

The future of parenting may see a big change as scientists and ethicists have a startling prediction about how children will be conceived in the future. Thanks to biomedical advances, parents may be able to choose a child from hundreds of embryos based on their DNA profile. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

If you want your technology sector to expand rapidly, it pays to have strong support from the government, easy access to bank loans and a large market, hungry for your products. All this is available in China, where technology companies are expanding at a rapid pace — making other countries, including the U.S. — a bit uneasy. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...

Thousands of years of sediment carried by the Mississippi River created 25,000 square kilometers of land, marsh and wetlands along Louisiana's coast. But engineering projects stopped the flow of sediment and rising seas thanks to climate change have made the Mississippi Delta the fastest-disappearing land on earth. Louisiana State University researchers created the river system in miniature to try to stop the erosion and rebuild the delta. Faith Lapidus narrates this report from Deborah Block. ...

A new approach for detecting food poisoning is being used to investigate the recent outbreak of E.coli bacteria in romaine lettuce grown in the U.S. state of Arizona. The tainted produce has sickened at least 84 people in 19 states. The new method, used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, relies on genetic sequencing. And as Faiza Elmasry tells us, it has the potential to revolutionize the detection of food poisoning outbreaks. VOA's Faith Lapidus narrates. ...

Tech giants such as Facebook and Google must step up efforts to tackle the spread of fake news online in the next few months or potentially face further EU regulation, as concerns mount over election interference. The European Commission said on Thursday it would draw up a Code of Practice on Disinformation for the 28-nation EU by July with measures to prevent the spread of fake news such as increasing scrutiny of advertisement placements. EU policymakers are particularly worried that the spread of fake news could interfere with European elections next year, after Facebook disclosed that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters through the social network in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election. Moscow denies such claims. "These [online] platforms have so far failed to act proportionately, falling short…

Facebook Inc. shares rose Wednesday after the social network reported a surprisingly strong 63 percent rise in profit and an increase in users, with no sign that business was hurt by a scandal over the mishandling of personal data. After easily beating Wall Street expectations, shares traded up 7.1 percent after the bell at $171, paring a month-long decline that began with Facebook’s disclosure in March that consultancy Cambridge Analytica had harvested data belonging to millions of users. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, affecting up to 87 million users and prompting several apologies from Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, generated calls for regulation and for users to leave the social network, but there was no indication advertisers immediately changed their spending. “Everybody keeps talking about how bad things are for Facebook, but…

YouTube is overhauling its kid-focused video app to give parents the option of letting humans, not computer algorithms, select what shows their children can watch. The updates that begin rolling out April 26, 2018, are a response to complaints that the YouTube Kids app has repeatedly failed to filter out disturbing content. Google-owned YouTube launched the toddler-oriented app in 2015. It has described it as a “safer” experience than the regular YouTube video-sharing service for finding “Peppa Pig” episodes or watching user-generated videos of people unboxing toys, teaching guitar lessons or experimenting with science. Failure of screening system In order to meet U.S. child privacy rules, Google says it bans kids under 13 from using its core video service. But its official terms of agreement are largely ignored by tens…

There has been a long tradition of making and drinking coffee across cultures and continents. Now, a tech company in Austin is adding to this tradition by creating robot baristas to make the coffee-drinking experience more convenient. For a similar price of a cup of Starbucks designer coffee, a robot can now make it, too. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee finds out whether robots will replace traditional baristas. ...

Volkswagen and Nissan have unveiled electric cars designed for China at a Beijing auto show that highlights the growing importance of Chinese buyers for a technology seen as a key part of the global industry's future.  General Motors displayed five all-electric models Wednesday including a concept Buick SUV it says can go 600 kilometers (375 miles) on one charge. Ford and other brands showed off some of the dozens of electric SUVs, sedans and other models they say are planned for China.  Auto China 2018, the industry's biggest sales event this year, is overshadowed by mounting trade tensions between Beijing and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened to hike tariffs on Chinese goods including automobiles in a dispute over technology policy.  The impact on automakers should be small, according…

Lilium, a German start-up with Silicon Valley-scale ambitions to put electric "flying taxis" in the air next decade, has hired Frank Stephenson, the designer behind iconic car brands including the modern Mini, Fiat 500 and McLaren P1. Lilium is developing a lightweight aircraft powered by 36 electric jet engines mounted on its wings. It aims to travel at speeds of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour, with a range of 300 km on a single charge, the firm has said. Founded in 2015 by four Munich Technical University students, the Bavarian firm has set out plans to demonstrate a fully functional vertical take-off electric jet by next year, with plans to begin online booking of commuter flights by 2025. It is one of a number of companies, from…

Facebook has revealed for the first time just what, exactly, is banned on its service in a new Community Standards document released on Tuesday. It's an updated version of the internal rules the company has used to determine what's allowed and what isn't, down to granular details such as what, exactly, counts as a "credible threat" of violence. The previous public-facing version gave a broad-strokes outline of the rules, but the specifics were shrouded in secrecy for most of Facebook's 2.2 billion users. Not anymore. Here are just some examples of what the rules ban. Note: Facebook has not changed the actual rules - it has just made them public. Credible violence Is there a real-world threat? Facebook looks for "credible statements of intent to commit violence against any person,…

Cambridge Analytica unleashed its counterattack against claims that it misused data from millions of Facebook accounts, saying Tuesday it is the victim of misunderstandings and inaccurate reporting that portrays the company as the evil villain in a James Bond movie. Clarence Mitchell, a high-profile publicist recently hired to represent the company, held Cambridge Analytica's first news conference since allegations surfaced that the Facebook data helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica's parent, also claims that the company has links to the successful campaign to take Britain out of the European Union. "The company has been portrayed in some quarters as almost some Bond villain," Mitchell said. "Cambridge Analytica is no Bond villain." Cambridge Analytica didn't use any of the Facebook data…

Chinese tech firms pledged on Monday to tackle gender bias in recruitment after a rights group said they routinely favored male candidates, luring applicants with the promise of working with "beautiful girls" in job advertisements. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report found that major technology companies including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent had widely used "gender discriminatory job advertisements," which said men were preferred or specifically barred women applicants. Some ads promised candidates they would work with "beautiful girls" and "goddesses," HRW said in a report based on an analysis of 36,000 job posts between 2013 and 2018. Tencent, which runs China's most popular messenger app WeChat, apologized for the ads after the HRW report was published on Monday. "We are sorry they occurred and we will take swift action to…

Facebook said on Monday that it removed or put a warning label on 1.9 million pieces of extremist content related to ISIS or al-Qaida in the first three months of the year, or about double the amount from the previous quarter. Facebook, the world's largest social media network, also published its internal definition of "terrorism" for the first time, as part of an effort to be more open about internal company operations. The European Union has been putting pressure on Facebook and its tech industry competitors to remove extremist content more rapidly or face legislation forcing them to do so, and the sector has increased efforts to demonstrate progress. Of the 1.9 million pieces of extremist content, the "vast majority" was removed and a small portion received a warning label…

Imagine wearing a computer in the form of a jacket. Now, it is possible. "When somebody calls you, your jacket vibrates and gives you lights and [you] know somebody is calling you," said Ivan Poupyrev, who manages the Google's Project Jacquard, a digital platform for smart clothing. Project Jacquard formed a partnership with Levi's to create the first Jacquard enabled garment in the form of Levi's Commuter Trucker Jacket. What makes the jacket "smart" includes washable technology, created by Google, woven into the cuff of the jacket. "These are highly conductive fibers, which are very strong and can be used in standard denim-weaving process," said Poupyrev. A tap on the cuff can also provide navigation and play music when paired with a mobile phone, headphones and a small piece of…