Year: 2018

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund invested $1 billion Monday in an American electric car manufacturer just weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier claimed the kingdom would help his own firm go private. Tesla stock dropped Monday on reaction to the news, the same day that the Saudi fund announced it had taken its first loan, an $11 billion borrowing from global banks as it tries to expand its investments. The Saudi Public Investment Fund said it would invest the $1 billion in Newark, California-based Lucid Motors. The investment "will provide the necessary funding to commercially launch Lucid's first electric vehicle, the Lucid Air, in 2020," the sovereign wealth fund said in a statement. "The company plans to use the funding to complete engineering development and testing of the Lucid…

Researchers are working to create robots that can do all types of jobs and now some scientists are trying to make androids - or robots that appear human. But androids can make some people feel uneasy. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains this feeling or phenomenon known as the "uncanny valley." ...

Facebook is better prepared to defend against efforts to manipulate the platform to influence elections and has recently thwarted foreign influence campaigns targeting several countries, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday. Zuckerberg, posting on his Facebook page, outlined a series of steps the leading social network has taken to protect against misinformation and manipulation campaigns aimed at disrupting elections. "We've identified and removed fake accounts ahead of elections in France, Germany, Alabama, Mexico and Brazil," Zuckerberg said. "We've found and taken down foreign influence campaigns from Russia and Iran attempting to interfere in the US, UK, Middle East, and elsewhere — as well as groups in Mexico and Brazil that have been active in their own country." Zuckerberg repeated his admission that Facebook was ill-prepared for the vast influence efforts…

Apple's polished iPhone line-up comes with tools to help users dial back their smartphone obsessions, amid growing concerns over "addiction" and harmful effects on children. An iOS 12 mobile operating system that will power new iPhones unveiled on Wednesday, and be pushed out as an update to prior models, has new features to reduce how much they distract people from the real world. Apple senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi said of iOS 12 at a developers conference earlier this year the new system offers "detailed information and tools" to help users and parents keep tabs on device use. A new "Screen Time" tool generates activity reports showing how often people pick up their iPhones or iPads, how long they spend in apps or at websites, and numbers…

Apple Inc unveiled larger iPhones and watches based on the design of current models on Wednesday, confirming Wall Street expectations that the company is making only minor changes to its lineup. The world's most valuable tech company wants users to upgrade to newer, more expensive devices as a way to boost revenue as global demand for smartphones levels off. The strategy has helped Apple become the first publicly-traded U.S. company to hit a market value of more than $1 trillion earlier this year. Its shares were down 1.2 percent on Nasdaq. Apple uses the 'S' suffix when it upgrades components but leaves the exterior design of a phone the same. Last year's iPhone X — pronounced "ten" — represented a major redesign. The new phones are the XS, with a…

A group representing major internet companies including Facebook, Amazon.com and Alphabet said on Tuesday it backed modernizing U.S. data privacy rules but wants a national approach that would preempt California's new regulations that take effect in 2020. The Internet Association, a group representing more than 40 major internet and technology firms including Netflix, Microsoft and Twitter, said "internet companies support an economy-wide, national approach to regulation that protects the privacy of all Americans." The group said it backed principles that would ensure consumers should have "meaningful controls over how personal information they provide" is used and should be able to know who it is being shared with. Consumers should also be able to seek deletion of data or request corrections or take personal information to another company that provides similar…

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. ...