Year: 2018

A Canadian company’s hardware is being used to hack internet users along Turkey’s border with Syria, researchers said Friday, adding that there were signs that Kurdish forces aligned with the United States might have been targeted. The revelation comes as Turkey presses its offensive against the Kurds dug in along the country’s frontier with northwestern Syria, a conflict that threatens to disrupt the American-led effort to extinguish the Islamic State group. The apparent use of Canadian technology to target a U.S. ally was an irony underlined by Ron Deibert, the director of the internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, which published a report on the spying. “These companies are not closely regulated, and that can lead to a lot of unintended consequences, including consequences that harm our foreign policy interests and…

Students around the United States are creating virtual businesses that produce simulated products, which are marketed and sold for virtual money. Mike O'Sullivan reports that hundreds of student entrepreneurs came to Pasadena, California, to promote the virtual companies they have created. ...

A federal judge is expected to hear arguments on Thursday about whether President Donald Trump violated Twitter users' free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution by blocking them from his account. The arguments before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan are part of a lawsuit brought last July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and several individual Twitter users. Trump and the plaintiffs are seeking summary judgment, asking Buchwald to decide the case in their favor without a trial. Twitter lets users post short snippets of text, called tweets. Other users may respond to those tweets. When one user blocks another, the blocked user cannot respond to the blocker's tweets. The plaintiffs have accused Trump of blocking a number of accounts whose owners criticized, mocked or disagreed with him in replies to his tweets. They argued that Trump's…

Nine teams with members from 25 countries entered the final phase of the $7 million Ocean Discovery XPRIZE competition for technologies that could cheaply and efficiently map the floors of the world’s oceans.  Using current technology this feat would take up to 600 years. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...

The FBI views companies hit by cyberattacks as victims and will not rush to share their information with other agencies investigating whether they failed to protect customer data, its chief said Wednesday. Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, encouraged companies to promptly report when they are hacked to help the FBI investigate and prevent future data breaches. He contrasted the FBI's approach to that of other regulators and state authorities. Without naming other agencies, Wray referred to "less-enlightened enforcement agencies," some of which he said take a more adversarial approach. "We don't view it as our responsibility when companies share information with us to turn around and share that information with some of those other agencies," Wray said in response to an audience question at a cybersecurity…

The South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, starts Friday. It's grown from a grassroots event to a phenomenon that attracts 400,000 people. For attendees, it can feel overwhelming. What's worth your time? Where's the buzz?   The latest AP Travel "Get Outta Here" podcast offers strategies for conquering FOMO (fear of missing out) at SXSW.   One approach is to let the nostalgia acts go - the former big-name bands promoting comebacks. Instead, pack your schedule with artists that have their best years ahead of them.   And you need a plan. You can't just wing it. Be ready for long lines. But have some backups. Consider less-crowded venues outside downtown. Film screenings take place at theaters all over, and up-and-coming bands play a lot of shows. ...

Classic children’s books are getting a 21st century upgrade, as British researchers have begun testing a project that would bring 3D versions of children’s stories to life on gaming platforms. VOA's Elizabeth Cherneff reports. ...

Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google are taking steps to police terrorists and hate groups on their sites, but more work needs to be done, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Tuesday. The organization released its annual digital terrorism and hate report card and gave a B-plus to Facebook, a B-minus to Twitter and a C-plus to Google. Facebook spokeswoman Christine Chen said the company had no comment on the report. Representatives for Google and Twitter did not immediately return emails seeking comment. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Wiesenthal Center's associate dean, said Facebook in particular built "a recognition that bad folks might try to use their platform'' into its business model. "There is plenty of material they haven't dealt with to our satisfaction, but overall, especially in terms of hate, there's…

Porsche is studying flying passenger vehicles but expects it could take up to a decade to finalize technology before they can launch in real traffic, its head of development said Tuesday. Volkswagen's sports car division is in the early stages of drawing up a blueprint of a flying taxi as it ponders new mobility solutions for congested urban areas, Porsche R&D chief Michael Steiner said at the Geneva auto show. The maker of the 911 sports car would join a raft of companies working on designs for flying cars in anticipation of a shift in the transport market toward self-driving vehicles and on-demand digital mobility services. "We are looking into how individual mobility can take place in congested areas where today and in the future it is unlikely that everyone can…

Every day, billions of photos uploaded to the Internet contain faces. Experts say sophisticated algorithms can collect these images, compare and glean information – some for law enforcement agencies and some for hackers, intent on stealing and misusing that data. An Israeli company says there’s a way to prevent that. VOA’s George Putic has more. ...

Shoes that promote health and safety were featured last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Washington became the first state Monday to set up its own net-neutrality requirements after U.S. regulators repealed Obama-era rules that banned internet providers from blocking content or impairing traffic. “We know that when D.C. fails to act, Washington state has to do so,” Gov. Jay Inslee said before signing the measure that lawmakers passed with bipartisan support. “We know how important this is.” The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to gut U.S. rules that meant to prevent broadband companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from exercising more control over what people watch and see on the internet. Because the FCC prohibited state laws from contradicting its decision, opponents of the Washington law have said it would lead to lawsuits. Inslee said he was confident of its legality, saying…

There's a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It's powered by an army of real people. From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can't quite make out. Such data feeds directly into "machine learning" algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. Many such technologies wouldn't work without massive quantities of this human-labeled data. These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world - even in the U.S. And it underpins a technology that…