Category: Technology

New technologies are helping people who are disabled with physical, cognitive, vision and hearing problems. Some promising new tools include a digital glove that translates sign language, and tactile windows for people who are blind. More from VOA's Deborah Block. ...

Self-driving technology is making online shopping a more convenient, more cost-effective experience. One new startup in San Jose, California, is launching a fully driverless delivery service, which many predict is something customers will be seeing a lot more of in the future. Faiza Elmasry takes a look at how these driverless cars are making people's lives easier, in this report narrated by Faith Lapidus. ...

Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it would no longer dispatch employees to the offices of political campaigns to offer support ahead of elections, as it did with U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2016 race. The company and other major online ad sellers, including Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Twitter Inc., have long offered free dedicated assistance to strengthen relationships with top advertisers such as presidential campaigns. Brad Parscale, who was Trump's online ads chief in 2016, last year called on-site "embeds" from Facebook crucial to the candidate's victory. Facebook has said that Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton was offered identical help, but she accepted a different level than Trump. Google and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests to comment on whether they also would pull back support. Facebook said it could offer assistance to more candidates globally by focusing on offering support through an…

The European Union's consumer protection chief said Thursday she's growing impatient with Facebook's efforts to improve transparency with users about their data, warning it could face sanctions for not complying. EU Consumer Commissioner Vera Jourova turned up the pressure on the social media giant, saying she wants the company to update its terms of service and expects to see its proposed changes by mid-October so they can take effect in December.   "I will not hide that I am becoming rather impatient because we have been in dialogue with Facebook almost two years and I really want to see, not the progress — it's not enough for me — but I want to see the results,'' Jourova said.   The EU wants Facebook to give users more information about how their data…

When Behnoush Babzani turned 35, she threw a party. She also used her birthday to ask friends to donate to a cause she cares about deeply: helping people who need bone marrow transplants. She herself received a bone marrow transplant from her brother. “It’s not that my body was making cancerous cells, it was that my body was making no cells,” she said. “So think about the boy in the bubble. I had to be isolated. I didn’t have an immune system to protect me.” Using a new feature on Facebook, Babzani in a few clicks posted a photo of herself in a hospital gown when she was receiving treatment and she asked her friends to help raise $350.   WATCH: Facebook's Birthday Fundraiser Feature Brings Smiles to Charitable Causes…

Facebook has always been a convenient way to send birthday wishes to friends. But many users have started taking advantage of a new feature introduced a year ago by the popular social networking site to turn birthday wishes into donations to help a favorite cause. And it's turned into a huge success for charities. In its first year, Facebook's birthday fundraiser feature raised more than $300 million for charities around the world. Michelle Quinn has more. ...

EU regulators are quizzing merchants and others on U.S. online retailer Amazon's use of their data to discover whether there is a need for action, Europe's antitrust chief said on Wednesday. The comments by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager came as the world's largest online retailer faces calls for more regulatory intervention and even its potential break-up because of its sheer size. Vestager said the issue was about a company hosting merchants on its site and at the same time competing with these same retailers by using their data for its own sales. "We are gathering information on the issue and we have sent quite a number of questionnaires to market participants in order to understand this issue in full," Vestager told a news conference. "These are very early days…

How to communicate with someone who speaks a different language?  It's an age-old problem. But now with an explosion of translation apps and devices, Michelle Quinn reports that overcoming language barriers is becoming easier. ...

German luxury car brand Audi this week staged the global launch of a new electric sport utility vehicle on the home turf of rival Tesla, and highlighted a deal with Amazon.com Inc. to make recharging its forthcoming e-tron models easier. The Audi e-tron midsize SUV will be offered in the United States next year at a starting price of $75,795 before a $7,500 tax credit. It is one of a volley of electric vehicles coming from Volkswagen AG brands, as well as other European premium brands including Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volvo Cars and Jaguar Land Rover. All aim to expand the market for premium electric vehicles and also to grab a share of that market from Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla, which has had the niche largely to itself. "I want…

A volunteer medic and the man whose life he saved. A lawmaker whose Facebook post calling for protests in Kyiv's Maidan square helped bring down a president. These are some of the characters featured in a virtual reality reconstruction of the bloodiest day in the 2013-14 street demonstrations in Ukraine, when dozens of protesters were killed in the final moments of Viktor Yanukovich's rule. Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the protests, a group of 14 journalists, designers and information technology engineers developed a program that lets a user to walk through the area around Maidan square. Videos of people who were there on Feb. 20 — the bloodiest day of violence — pop up to relate their experiences and explain the significance of particular spots. A transparent blue wall marks where…

SpaceX, Elon Musk's space transportation company, on Monday named its first private passenger as Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo. A former drummer in a punk band, billionaire Maezawa will take a trip around the moon planned for 2023 aboard its forthcoming Big Falcon Rocket spaceship, taking the race to commercialize space travel to new heights. The first person to travel to the moon since the United States' Apollo missions ended in 1972, Maezawa's identity was revealed at an event on Monday evening at the company's headquarters and rocket factory in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne. Maezawa, who is most famous outside Japan for his record-breaking $110 million purchase of an untitled 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, said he would invite six…

There's a push to keep a remote Icelandic nature reserve free from any internet or phone signals to preserve the area's tranquility. But not everyone is on board with the proposed digital free zone. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. ...

Lasers might soon be the newest line of defense for vulnerable aircraft that are key to keeping other military planes in battle. Air tankers are getting an upgrade next month with the introduction of the new Boeing KC-46 Pegasus, carrying up to about 96,000 kilograms of highly flammable aviation fuel. The long-awaited plane will be able to refuel other aircraft off its wings and to receive fuel from another tanker while its refueling a plane. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more. ...

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. ...

President Donald Trump concedes that some Apple Inc. products may become more expensive if his administration imposes "massive'' additional tariffs on Chinese-made goods, but he says the tech company can fix the problem by moving production to the U.S. "Start building new plants now. Exciting!'' Trump said Saturday in a tweet aimed at the Cupertino, California, company. This week, Apple said that a proposed additional round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports would raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini. The company is highly exposed to a trade war between the U.S. and China. It makes many of its products for the U.S. market in China, and it also sells gadgets including the iPhone in China, making them a potential…

The number of wearable technologies that use sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being - is on the rise. All of them - need an electric charge or a battery source to operate, but a handful of researchers are trying to take batteries out of the equation. At the Texas A&M University in College Station, researchers are doing just that - looking at ways to use our own body heat to power all those sensors. Elizabeth Lee takes a look at the emerging new technology. ...

There has been an increasing number of wearable technologies that have health sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being. Many of these devices need to be charged or are battery-powered.  A handful of researchers want to take batteries out of the equation and instead, use waste body heat and convert that into useful electricity to power sensors.  “The average person is something like an 80-watt light bulb,” said Jamie Grunlan, Texas A&M University’s Linda & Ralph Schmidt '68 Professor in Mechanical Engineering. Grunlan and his team of researchers are working on using the waste heat the body gives off and converting that into useful electricity. The idea is to create printable, paintable thermoelectric technology that looks like ink and can coat a wearable fabric, similar to dyeing colors…

Twitter has permanently banned far-right media personality Alex Jones for violating its policy against "abusive behavior." Jones, who is known as a conspiracy theorist, has about 900,000 followers on Twitter. His Infowars website has hundreds of thousands of followers, as well. Twitter accused Jones of violating its policy after he was seen on television berating and insulting a CNN reporter waiting to enter congressional hearings on social media policies. Jones called the reporter a smiling "possum caught doing some really nasty stuff" and also made fun of his clothes. Twitter had previously suspended Jones' account, but now he is banned from posting on the social media site. Jones has yet to comment. Jones is one of the country's most controversial media figures, known for saying the President George W. Bush…

Tennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world's best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra help, in the form of artificial intelligence. Tina Trinh reports. ...