Category: Business

The United States and China surprised the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow on Wednesday with a joint declaration to take action to limit global warming over the next decade. The declaration came as delegates entered the final hours of negotiations to agree on a final…

A coalition of 19 countries including Britain and the United States on Wednesday agreed to create zero emissions shipping trade routes between ports to speed up the decarbonization of the global maritime industry, officials involved said.  Shipping, which transports about 90% of world trade, accounts…

U.S.-based drugmaker Pfizer is seeking to make a booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine available to all adult Americans 18 years of age and older. Pfizer filed the request Tuesday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, citing a new clinical trial involving 10,000 volunteers who…

White House officials are on a development-minded world tour and have been scouting several corners of the globe to identify about 50 projects that focus on topics such as climate, health, digital technology and gender equality.  Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international…

Facebook Inc. said on Tuesday it plans to remove detailed ad-targeting options that refer to "sensitive" topics, such as ads based on interactions with content around race, health, religious practices, political beliefs or sexual orientation.  The company, which recently changed its name to Meta and…

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring. Their capsule streaked through the late night sky like a dazzling meteor before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.…

Australia's electric car industry has criticized the government's new policy to build thousands of charging stations as "far too little, too late." The Australian government Tuesday pledged $132 million to speed up the rollout of hydrogen refueling and electric charging stations.  The Electric Vehicles Council says an Australian government plan to build electric vehicle charging stations and hydrogen-powered…

An original Apple computer, hand-built by company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 45 years ago, goes under the hammer in the United States on Tuesday.  The functioning Apple-1, the great, great grandfather of today's sleek chrome-and-glass Macbooks, is expected to fetch up to $600,000…

Connecting everyone in the world to the web will not single-handedly bridge the digital divide, tech experts at the Web Summit said this week, citing other invisible barriers like high costs, low digital literacy and complicated user interfaces. The so-called "digital divide" refers to the…

Cybersecurity experts say Microsoft’s recent disclosure that alleged Russian hackers successfully attacked several IT service providers this year is a sign that many U.S. IT companies have underinvested in security measures needed to protect themselves and their customers from intrusions. But a U.S.-based association of…

China now depends almost entirely on its own online content providers, as the number of big foreign companies in the market, such as Yahoo and LinkedIn, keeps dwindling, giving the government a boost in controlling the internet, analysts say. On Monday the Silicon Valley internet…

Green energy is the new focus of China’s one-of-a-kind Belt and Road Initiative or BRI, that aims to build a series of infrastructure projects from Asia to Europe. The eco-friendlier version of BRI has caught the attention of some 70 other countries that are getting new infrastructure from the Asian economic powerhouse…

The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation to prevent companies that are deemed security threats, such as Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. or ZTE Corp., from receiving new equipment licenses from U.S. regulators.  The Secure Equipment Act, the latest effort by the U.S.…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the " metaverse."  Skeptics point out that it also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the…

The State Department is creating a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy to focus on tackling cybersecurity challenges at a time of growing threats from opponents. There will also be a new special envoy for critical and emerging technology, who will lead the technology…

The past several weeks have been difficult for the social media behemoth Facebook, with a series of whistleblower revelations demonstrating that the company knew its signature platform was exacerbating all manner of social ills around the globe, from human trafficking to sectarian violence.    The tide…

A popular new music app uses artificial intelligence to “democratize” how musicians of all skill levels learn and play music. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. ...

Car rental company Hertz says it will buy 100,000 electric cars from Tesla.  Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said the Model 3 cars could be ready for renters as early as November, The Associated Press reported.  Fields said the reason for the move was that…

The U.S. State Department plans to establish a bureau of cyberspace and digital policy in the face of a growing hacking problem, specifically a surge of ransomware attacks on U.S. infrastructure.  State Department spokesperson Ned Price said a Senate-confirmed ambassador at large will lead the…

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told British lawmakers Monday that the social media giant "unquestionably" amplifies online hate.  In testimony to a parliamentary committee in London, the former Facebook employee echoed what she told U.S. senators earlier this month. Haugen said the media giant fuels online…

The U.S. technology giant Microsoft says that the same Russia-backed hackers responsible for the 2020 SolarWinds breach of corporate computer systems is continuing to attack global technology systems, this time targeting cloud service resellers. Microsoft said the group, which it calls Nobelium, is employing a…

In Gaza and Syria, journalists and activists feel Facebook censors their speech, flagging inoffensive Arabic posts as terrorist content. In India and Myanmar, political groups use Facebook to incite violence. All of it frequently slips through the company's efforts to police its social media platforms…

Former Facebook data scientist turned whistleblower Frances Haugen plans to answer questions Monday from lawmakers in the United Kingdom who are working on legislation to rein in the power of social media companies.  Haugen is set to appear before a parliamentary committee scrutinizing the British…

Researchers at a specialized lab in Italy say understanding climate change effects requires recreating them in a controlled environment. So, they built one. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. ...

Very few companies can boast of having their name also used as a verb. Zoom is one of them. The popularity of the videoconferencing platform continues to grow around the world despite continued questions about whether Chinese authorities are monitoring the calls. Since Zoom became…

Facebook in India has been selective in curbing hate speech, misinformation and inflammatory posts, particularly anti-Muslim content, according to leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press, even as its own employees cast doubt over the company's motivations and interests. From research as recent as March…

Apple has updated its App Store rules to allow developers to contact users directly about payments, a concession in a legal settlement with companies challenging its tightly controlled marketplace. According to App Store rules updated Friday, developers can now contact consumers directly about alternate payment…

A former Facebook worker reportedly told U.S. authorities Friday the platform has put profits before stopping problematic content, weeks after another whistleblower helped stoke the firm's latest crisis with similar claims. The unnamed new whistleblower filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,…