Month: September 2018

Whether at home or out and about, women the world over have long had to contend with threats to their physical safety. Now, a tech startup has designed a wearable device that can aid them in dangerous and life-threatening situations. Tina Trinh reports. ...

American teenagers are starting to prefer communicating via text instead of meeting face-to-face, according to a study published Monday by the independent organization Common Sense Media. Some 35 percent of kids aged 13 to 17 years old said they would rather send a text than meet up with people, which received 32 percent. The last time the media and technology-focused nonprofit conducted such a survey in 2012, meeting face-to-face hit 49 percent, far ahead of texting's 33 percent. More than two-thirds of American teens choose remote communication -- including texting, social media, video conversation and phone conversation -- when they can, according to the study.  In 2012 less than half of them marked a similar preference. Notably, in the six-year span between the two studies the proportion of 13- to…

About two-thirds of American adults say they occasionally get their news from social media, according to a survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center. The number is 1 percent more than last year, indicating a slowdown in the growth of news consumption on social media. Despite the popularity of social media, 57 percent said they expected the news they received on these platforms to be inaccurate. Republicans were far more negative than Democrats about social media news, with 72 percent saying they expect it to be inaccurate. Forty-six percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents reported feeling the same. Pew surveyor Katerina Eva Matsa said this falls in line with years of research on political attitudes toward news media in general. "We've seen stark differences between Republicans and…

A stuffed toy monkey called Tiwa holds some of Nigeria's oldest folk tales and is helping to revive the traditional practice of storytelling by appealing to a younger generation. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

President Donald Trump concedes that some Apple Inc. products may become more expensive if his administration imposes "massive'' additional tariffs on Chinese-made goods, but he says the tech company can fix the problem by moving production to the U.S. "Start building new plants now. Exciting!'' Trump said Saturday in a tweet aimed at the Cupertino, California, company. This week, Apple said that a proposed additional round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports would raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini. The company is highly exposed to a trade war between the U.S. and China. It makes many of its products for the U.S. market in China, and it also sells gadgets including the iPhone in China, making them a potential…

The number of wearable technologies that use sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being - is on the rise. All of them - need an electric charge or a battery source to operate, but a handful of researchers are trying to take batteries out of the equation. At the Texas A&M University in College Station, researchers are doing just that - looking at ways to use our own body heat to power all those sensors. Elizabeth Lee takes a look at the emerging new technology. ...

There has been an increasing number of wearable technologies that have health sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being. Many of these devices need to be charged or are battery-powered.  A handful of researchers want to take batteries out of the equation and instead, use waste body heat and convert that into useful electricity to power sensors.  “The average person is something like an 80-watt light bulb,” said Jamie Grunlan, Texas A&M University’s Linda & Ralph Schmidt '68 Professor in Mechanical Engineering. Grunlan and his team of researchers are working on using the waste heat the body gives off and converting that into useful electricity. The idea is to create printable, paintable thermoelectric technology that looks like ink and can coat a wearable fabric, similar to dyeing colors…

Twitter has permanently banned far-right media personality Alex Jones for violating its policy against "abusive behavior." Jones, who is known as a conspiracy theorist, has about 900,000 followers on Twitter. His Infowars website has hundreds of thousands of followers, as well. Twitter accused Jones of violating its policy after he was seen on television berating and insulting a CNN reporter waiting to enter congressional hearings on social media policies. Jones called the reporter a smiling "possum caught doing some really nasty stuff" and also made fun of his clothes. Twitter had previously suspended Jones' account, but now he is banned from posting on the social media site. Jones has yet to comment. Jones is one of the country's most controversial media figures, known for saying the President George W. Bush…

Tennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world's best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra help, in the form of artificial intelligence. Tina Trinh reports. ...

Facebook and Twitter executives defended their efforts to prevent Russian meddling in U.S. midterm elections before congressional panels Wednesday. The social media companies' efforts to provide assurances to lawmakers come amid warnings from internet researchers that Moscow still has active social media accounts aimed at influencing U.S. political discourse. VOA's Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill. ...

Josh Russell works as a systems analyst and programmer at Indiana University, has two daughters, and exposes Russian internet trolls in his spare time. Russell first became interested in the phenomenon of Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, when he noticed a large amount of misinformation distributed about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He noticed how many accounts spreading misinformation, ostensibly run by American activists, were, in fact, operating from abroad, and were linked up to now notorious Russian “troll farms.” Today Russell collaborates with many American journalists in the fight against fake information on the internet. Question: We recently learned that Russian hackers attacked some conservative U.S. organizations, the Hudson Institute, for example, and the International Republican Institute. What, in your opinion, is driving this? Joshua Russell: Any organization…