Author: Techman

At one atom thick, graphene is one of those miracle materials that many say is the stuff of the future. The future may be now as graphene's potential is being realized as the key to quick efficient 5G networks, and the future of telecommunications. VOA's…

Facebook was charged with discrimination by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because of its ad-targeting system. HUD said Thursday Facebook is allowing advertisers to exclude people based on their neighborhood by drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map and…

British cybersecurity inspectors have found significant technical issues in Chinese telecom supplier Huawei's software that they say pose risks for the country's telecom companies.   The annual report Thursday said there is only "limited assurance" that long-term national security risks from Huawei's involvement in critical…

Most of us don't give much thought to getting dressed every day, but for the elderly and disabled, seemingly simple tasks like buttoning a shirt can prove complicated. Fashion design students recently looked at low-tech ways to make clothes smarter. VOA's Tina Trinh reports. ...

Facebook has announced it is banning praise, support, and representation of white nationalism and separatism on its platform and on Instagram, which it also owns. The company made the announcement Wednesday in a blog post, saying, "It's clear that these concepts are deeply linked to…

Computers have become so smart during the past 20 years that people don't think twice about chatting with digital assistants like Alexa and Siri or seeing their friends automatically tagged in Facebook pictures. But making those quantum leaps from science fiction to reality required hard…

India says it has successfully tested a new anti-satellite missile, marking another major development in its budding space program. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Wednesday in a nationally televised address that scientists had destroyed a satellite orbiting about 300 kilometers above Earth's atmosphere in a…

In Japan, every emperor's era has its own name - appearing in places such as coins, official paperwork and newspapers - and with abdication coming at the end of April, speculation is swirling about what the new "gengo" will be. Although the Western calendar has…

Mounting public concern over data privacy is pushing tech giants to change their ways, industry experts said on Tuesday, a day after Apple unveiled a series of new products, stressing their privacy-friendly features. The world's second-most valuable technology company will now offer a credit card,…

Facebook said Tuesday it shut down more than 2,600 fake accounts linked to Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo and aiming to influence political sentiment in various parts of the world. It was the latest effort by the leading social network to shut down "inauthentic" accounts…

It took a while, but finally — and with the carefully curated help of Oprah, Big Bird and Goldman Sachs — Apple has at last unveiled a new streaming TV service, its own branded credit card and a news subscription product. The moves have been…

Software engineers, entrepreneurs and product managers huddle in small groups, brainstorming ideas and scrawling thoughts onto Post-it Notes on a wall. The project leader exhorts them to "think of products around these themes." It's not a startup but a grassroots band of volunteers from London's…

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots warns chances of achieving a U.N. treaty banning the development, production and use of fully autonomous lethal weapons, also known as killer robots, are looking increasingly remote.  Experts from some 80 countries are attending a weeklong meeting to discuss…

Apple attempted to reintroduce itself on Monday as an entertainment and financial services company that also makes iPhones as it launched a streaming television service, a credit card and an online gaming arcade. The world's second-most valuable technology company lifted the curtain on a television…

The head of Ethiopian Airlines said "many questions on the B-737 MAX airplane remain without answers" and he pledged "full and transparent cooperation to discover what went wrong." "Until we have answers, putting one more life at risk is too much," CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said…

Michael R. Wessel is a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government organization that investigates the national security implications of trade and economic relationship between the U.S. and China. He recently discussed with VOA his concerns about China’s race to…

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives will vote in April on a bill to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules repealed by the Federal Communications Commission under President Donald Trump.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said in a letter to colleagues on Thursday, seen by Reuters, that lawmakers would…

Facebook left millions of user passwords readable by its employees for years, the company said Thursday, an acknowledgement it offered after a security researcher posted about the issue online. By storing passwords in readable plain text, Facebook violated fundamental computer-security practices. Those call for organizations…

European Union regulators have hit Google with a 1.49 billion euro ($1.68 billion) fine for abusing its dominant role in online advertising. It's the third time the commission has slapped Google with an antitrust penalty, following multibillion-dollar fines resulting from separate probes into two other…

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused social media outlets, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, of being biased, and suggested that the situation needs scrutiny. In answer to a reporter at the White House Tuesday, Trump said digital platforms tend to suppress Republican and conservative views.…

A robotics company hopes to bring a robot into every home and business, using a proprietary robotic platform—that can be programmed and tweaked for a wide variety of users and uses. Deana Mitchell takes a look at one of the world's most customizable robots. It's…

Google on Tuesday unveiled a video-game streaming platform called Stadia, positioning itself to take on the traditional video-game business. The platform will store a game-playing session in the cloud and lets players jump across devices operating on Google's Chrome browser and Chrome OS, such as…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused social media platforms Facebook, YouTube and Twitter of favoring his Democratic opponents over him and his fellow Republicans. "But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA," he said in a tweet. MAGA refers…

In Thailand's election "war room," authorities scroll through thousands of social media posts, looking for violations of laws restricting political parties' campaigning on social media that activists say are among the most prohibitive in the world. The monitors are on the look-out for posts that…

A city in South Korea, which has the world's highest smartphone penetration rate, has installed flickering lights and laser beams at a road crossing to warn "smartphone zombies" to look up and drivers to slow down, in the hope of preventing accidents. The designers of…

A U.S. government-led group is working with chipmaker Intel and Cray to develop and build the nation's fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research, officials said Monday. The Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago said they were working on a…

Facebook is continuing to work to remove all video of the mass shooting in New Zealand which the perpetrator livestreamed Friday, the company said Sunday. "We will continue working directly with New Zealand Police as their response and investigation continues,” Mia Garlick of Facebook New…

They built their services for sharing, allowing users to reach others around the world. Now they want people to hold back.     Facebook and other social media companies battled their own services on Friday as they tried to delete copies of a video apparently recorded…