Author: Techman

A French technology company has created a tiny tracking device to combat poaching. The tracker is smaller, lighter and cheaper than previous methods, such as radio collars. The creators say the technology can also allow those in remote villages to share information on the internet regardless of language or literacy barriers. Arash Arabasadi reports. ...

NASA scientists are getting a very special New Year's Day gift. The New Horizons spacecraft is moving into unexplored space beyond Neptune to investigate objects so far out in our solar system they can hardly be seen by telescope. As VOA's Kevin Enochs reports, the trip far out in space may help scientists figure out how the solar system was created. ...

Silicon Valley has enjoyed years of popularity and growing markets. But 2018 has been rocky for the industry. Data breaches, controversies over offensive speech and misinformation — as well as reports of foreign operatives’ use of their services — have left many people skeptical about the benefits of social media, experts say. Worries about social media in Congress meant tech executives had to testify before committees several times this year. “2018 has been a challenging year for tech companies and consumers alike,” said Pantas Sutardja, chief executive of LatticeWork Inc., a data storage firm. “Company CEOs being called to Congress for hearings and promising profusely to fix the problems of data breach but still cannot do it.”   WATCH: Social Media's Year of Falling From Grace An apology tour Facebook…

For firms like Facebook and Google, 2018 brought more scrutiny of their handling of data breaches and online speech. VOA's Michelle Quinn reports that may mean new rules and more regulation in the future. ...

The U.S. Army is looking for a few good robots. Not to fight — not yet, at least — but to help the men and women who do. These robots aren't taking up arms, but the companies making them have waged a different kind of battle. At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions. Competition for the work has spilled over into Congress and federal court. The project and others like it could someday help troops “look around the corner, over the next hillside and let the robot be in harm's way and let the robot get shot,” said Paul Scharre, a military technology expert at the Center for a New American Security. The big…

Expect to get caught if you post anti-government material on the internet in Vietnam or take a phishing trip. From 2019 authorities can build evidence against you from material provided by email services and social media networks including Facebook. Yet the country, mindful of its role in the emerging digital economy, won’t close down websites the way China does. Vietnam has long walked a thin line between a free internet as part of its economic growth and resistance against what market research firm IDC’s country manager Lam Nguyen calls “digital disasters.” The country is getting testier toward online dissent at the same time. A draft Cybersecurity Law decree to take effect Jan. 1 after 18 months in the making will help the communist government reach these goals by ordering service…

Facebook Inc’s photo-sharing social network Instagram said on Thursday it has fixed a bug that led to a temporary change in the appearance of its feed for a large number of users. The bug led to a small test being distributed widely, the company said. As part of the test, some users had to tap and swipe their feed horizontally to view new posts, similar to its Stories feature. The momentary change sparked a widespread outrage among users on Twitter, with several comparing it to Snapchat’s unpopular redesign. “The Instagram update is so trash it’s worse than the Snapchat update,” @samfloresxo tweeted. The redesigned Snapchat app has struggled to attract more users since its roll-out last year and newer versions have been criticized for being too confusing. In response to…

The spacecraft team that brought us close-ups of Pluto will ring in the new year by exploring an even more distant and mysterious world.   NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will zip past the scrawny, icy object nicknamed Ultima Thule soon after the stroke of midnight.   One billion miles beyond Pluto and an astounding 4 billion miles from Earth (1.6 billion kilometers and 6.4 billion kilometers), Ultima Thule will be the farthest world ever explored by humankind. That's what makes this deep-freeze target so enticing; it's a preserved relic dating all the way back to our solar system's origin 4.5 billion years ago. No spacecraft has visited anything so primitive.   "What could be more exciting than that?" said project scientist Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University, part of the…

Apple Inc will begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn as early as 2019, the first time the Taiwanese contract manufacturer will have made the product in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter. Importantly, Foxconn will be assembling the most expensive models, such as devices in the flagship iPhone X family, the source said, potentially taking Apple's business in India to a new level. The work will take place at Foxconn's plant in Sriperumbudur town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, said the source, who is not authorized to speak to the media and so declined to be named. Foxconn, which already makes phones for Xiaomi Corp in India, will invest 25 billion Indian rupees ($356 million) to expand…

We like to say we're addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service. But for some people, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care. We're talking flunk-your-classes, can't-find-a-job, live-in-a-dark-hole kinds of problems, with depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal thoughts part of the mix. Suburban Seattle, a major tech center, has become a hub for help for so-called "tech addicts," with residential rehab, psychologists who specialize in such treatment and 12-step meetings. "The drugs of old are now repackaged. We have a new foe," Cosette Rae says of the barrage of tech. A former developer in the tech world, she heads a Seattle area rehab center called reSTART Life, one of the few residential programs in the nation specializing in…

Technology is very quickly changing entertainment as we know it. While some worry that people are spending too much time on video games and not enough time with other people, there is a place in Los Angeles where visitors can interact with both. It’s called the Two Bit Circus – a funhouse that incorporates technology and games with group play for people of all ages. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details. ...

Movie and TV show endings can be a major let down, but what if you could control the storyline as it develops? Eko is an entertainment company that's putting viewers in the director's chair with interactive TV shows and videos. Tina Trinh reports. ...

Before Facebook, Vu Kim Chi thought something was lacking in her job, which is to promote the economy in and around Vietnam's famed Ha Long Bay. Posting updates to her department's website, or photocopying missives to send to constituents, she said, was mostly one-sided. But after she set up an official Facebook page for Quang Ninh province, the conversations started to flow in both directions, between Chi and the local residents or businesses. That's why, when it comes to social media, she thinks more civil servants need to catch up with the rest of the country. "Social media, especially the Facebook application, is really used a lot in Vietnam," said Chi, who is deputy head of the province's investment promotion and support office. "But for public agencies that use it…

SpaceX continues making news in 2018. The company first broke its own record from 2017 when it passed 18 launches in year. On Sunday, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, SpaceX launched another record-setting rocket… this one for U.S. national security. Arash Arabasadi reports. ...

Batteries have been around for hundreds of years, but don't go thinking this technology is old hat (old fashioned). Batteries are the future. A team of California Scientists with support from the National Science Foundation are on the cutting edge of building a battery that lasts longer and holds more energy. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...

Some 1.3 billion people live with some form of vision impairment, according to the World Health Organization. A team of innovators at an Israeli technology company has developed a small device to help them. As Laura Sepulveda reports from Jerusalem, the device connects to regular glasses and helps people with visual limitations identify people and products, and read in more than 14 languages. ...

Elon Musk's SpaceX scrapped Saturday's launch of a long-delayed navigation satellite for the U.S. military due to strong upper-level winds. The next launch attempt will be on Sunday at 8:51 a.m. EST/13:51 UTC, according to Space X officials. The launch would have been the rocket firm's first national security space mission for the United States. ...

Forests are often called the lungs of the planet because they produce so much oxygen. But they also store huge amounts of carbon. NASA scientists want to know exactly how much carbon, and so they have just launched a satellite that will finally give them an exact measurement. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...

When drones buzzing over the runway forced London's busy Gatwick Airport to shut down, many travelers wondered why it's so hard for authorities to stop such intruders. Shoot them down, some said. Jam their signals, others suggested. Experts say it's not that easy. Britain and the U.S. prohibit drones from being flown too high or too close to airports and other aircraft. In Britain, it is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Still, there is little to stop a drone operator bent on disrupting air traffic, which British officials say was the case with the Gatwick incident that began Wednesday evening. The number of close calls between drones and aircraft has increased dramatically in recent years as the popularity of drones has soared. Basic models for…

The attorney general for Washington, D.C., said Wednesday that the nation's capital had sued Facebook over reports involving Cambridge Analytica's use of data from the social media giant. "Facebook failed to protect the privacy of its users and deceived them about who had access to their data and how it was used," Attorney General Karl Racine said in a statement. "Facebook put users at risk of manipulation by allowing companies like Cambridge Analytica and other third-party applications to collect personal data without users' permission." The lawsuit came as Facebook faced new reports that it shared its users' data without their permission. Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump's presidential campaign at one point, gained access to personal data from tens of millions of Facebook's users. The D.C. attorney general said in the lawsuit that this exposed nearly half of the district's residents' data to manipulation…

Facebook defended its data sharing practices Wednesday after a report revealing that certain partners of the social network had access to a range of personal information about users and their friends. The New York Times late Tuesday reported that some 150 companies — including powerful partners like Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify — could access detailed information about Facebook users, including data about their friends. The report marked yet another potential embarrassment for Facebook, which has been roiled by a series of scandals on data protection and privacy and has been scrutinized over the hijacking of user data in the 2016 US election campaign. Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's head of developer platforms and programs, said in a blog post early Wednesday that the Times report was about "integration partners" which enabled…

The European Union on Wednesday gave U.S. President Donald Trump two months to name an ombudsman to tackle EU citizens' complaints under a data protection deal sealed by predecessor Barack Obama's team. Brussels has previously sought assurances the Trump administration is committed to the deal to protect Europeans' personal data held in the United States by internet giants like Google and Facebook. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said an annual review found that Washington "continues to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data" under the 2016 Privacy Shield. But it said the United States should "nominate a permanent ombudsperson by February 28, 2019 to replace the one that is currently acting." If this does not happen, the commission warned it could take "appropriate measures" under the…

In recent years, the tech industry has looked to China as a key partner to help build and sell cutting-edge devices and services. But rising tensions between Washington and Beijing have Silicon Valley worried it will be caught in the middle of a growing trade war. Over the summer, President Donald Trump slapped $250 million of tariffs on Chinese goods sold in the U.S. and claimed that China offers U.S. businesses an uneven playing field as Beijing seeks to make China into a tech super power. The detention in Canada earlier this month of a Huawei executive for allegedly breaking U.S. sanctions on Iran has made tech executives feel even more vulnerable. China, for its part, denies the U.S. claims and has taken steps to pursue a formal inquiry about…

When Hana fled to Britain with her son from East Africa, she was grateful to have found safety from persecution and a roof over her head in her sister's tiny London apartment. It should have been a stop-gap, but a year on, the four still live together in cramped conditions, with Hana sharing a bed with her young son, and her sister doing the same with her toddler. "When I came to Britain, I struggled with everything. It's very hard to be a single mum and homeless," said Hana, who did not share her full name for fear of repercussions. With no job prospects, she had no chance of finding her own home in London, where rents are among the highest in the world. Homelessness has been rising in England…

U.S. supermarket chain Kroger Co said on Tuesday it has started using unmanned autonomous vehicles to deliver groceries Scottsdale, Arizona in partnership with Silicon Valley startup Nuro. The delivery service follows a pilot program started by the companies in Scottsdale in August and involved Nuro's R1, a custom unmanned vehicle. The R1 uses public roads and has no driver and is used to only transport goods. Kroger's deal with Nuro underscores the stiff competition in the U.S. grocery delivery market with supermarket chains angling for a bigger share of consumer spending. Peers Walmart Inc and Amazon.com Inc have also invested heavily in their delivery operations by expanding their offerings and shortening delivery times. Walmart, Ford Motor Co and delivery service Postmates Inc said last month they would collaborate to deliver…

American tech companies have long looked to China as a key partner to help build and sell cutting-edge devices and services. But tensions are rising between Washington and Beijing, and Silicon Valley may be caught in the middle. Michelle Quinn reports. ...

Alphabet's Google is investing more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York, becoming the second major technology company after Amazon to pick America's financial capital to expand and create thousands of jobs. The 1.7 million-square-foot campus, called Google Hudson Square, will include leased properties at Hudson Street and Washington Street, the company said in a blog post Monday. The new campus will be the main location for Google's advertising sales division, the Global Business Organization. Google hopes to start moving into two Hudson Street buildings by 2020, followed by a Washington Street in 2022 and will have the capacity to more than double its New York headcount, currently more than 7,000, in the next 10 years. The company's plans to invest outside its home base mirror those…

Colin Kroll, a tech executive who was a co-founder of the popular apps HQ Trivia and Vine, was found dead Sunday in New York. Police said officers found the 34-year-old unresponsive in his apartment after receiving a call asking them to go check on him. Medical examiners are working to determine his cause of death. HQ Trivia launched in 2017 and became wildly popular, bringing users together for a nightly live game show that awarded cash prizes to winners. The show's host, Scott Rogowsky announced the company decided to cancel Sunday's game out of respect for Kroll. He said because Kroll loved animals, the $25,000 that was due to be awarded would instead be donated to the Humane Society. Rogowsky called Kroll a "visionary who changed the app game twice"…