Category: Technology

If you've ever spent a lot of time in front of a computer, you've probably come away bleary eyed. That's because you don't blink as much when you are working on a computer, which could lead to dry eyes. With the popularity of video games and online activities, dry eye is becoming increasingly common in children and teens glued to their screens. The condition can cause permanent eye damage, but fortunately, as VOA's Carol Pearson reports, there's an app for that. ...

Tesla Inc's board said it was evaluating taking the company private, a day after Chief Executive Elon Musk surprised shareholders with the idea of launching the biggest leveraged buyout of all time. In a statement on Tesla's website on Wednesday, six of Tesla's nine directors said the board had met several times over the last week to discuss such an idea and was "taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this." Musk said on Twitter on Tuesday that he was considering taking the loss-making electric car-maker private at $420 a share, which would value a deal at more than $70 billion. He said funding was "secured," without elaborating. Tesla said on Wednesday the discussions had addressed the issue of how to fund such a deal, but gave no details. The…

After several social media outlets banned alt-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his show InfoWars earlier this week, Twitter announced it would be keeping Jones, sparking backlash from users. “We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote. Jones, who has become notorious for hosting The Alex Jones Show on InfoWars, has more than 860,000 followers on Twitter. On Monday, sites such as YouTube and Facebook banned Jones and his pages from their platforms, claiming that Jones’s videos violated the sites’ hate speech guidelines. Jones has repeatedly used language incendiary towards Muslim and transgender people, and in July he appeared to threaten to shoot U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who…

Today’s robots can be programmed to do many things – from vacuuming floors to assembling cars. But teaching them to recognize and correct a mistake is much harder to do. A group of scientists, led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, is trying to solve that problem. VOA’s George Putic has more. ...

The United States has some incredible natural geological features: towering mesas, tall spires of limestone rock, erupting geysers and gravity-defying stone sculptures. Faith Lapidus reports on efforts to ensure that if and when gravity starts to win, land managers are not taken by surprise. ...

Facebook says it has suspended working with Boston-based analytics firm Crimson Hexagon until it can determine how the firm collects and shares Facebook and Instagram user data. Facebook announced the suspension Friday. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the suspension and said that one of Crimson Hexagon’s clients is a Russian nonprofit with ties to the Kremlin. Facebook said that Crimson Hexagon is cooperating with the investigation and there is no evidence that Crimson Hexagon obtained Facebook or Instagram information inappropriately. "We don’t allow developers to build surveillance tools using information from Facebook or Instagram," Facebook said in a statement Friday. "We take these allegations seriously and have suspended these apps while we investigate." Chris Bingham, Crimson Hexagon’s, chief technology officer, said in a blog Friday his…

For years denim jeans have been finished in foreign factories where workers use manual and automated techniques such as scraping with sandpaper or other abrasives to make the jeans appear worn and more comfortable to wear. But things are changing in the fashion world. As VOA's Mariama Diallo reports, fashion companies are going digital to speed up the design and manufacturing process. ...

WhatsApp has announced changes for its 200 million users in India following the spread of viral messages via the app that resulted in deadly mob attacks. India's government has threatened to take WhatsApp to court, saying "...the medium used for such propagation cannot evade responsibility and accountability."  The information technology ministry said, "If they remain mute spectators they are liable to be treated as abettors and thereafter face consequent legal action."   The Facebook-owned messaging app said it will limit Indian users' ability to forward messages, allowing only five contacts at a time to receive them. The firm said it will also remove the quick forward button placed next to media messages. Both moves are designed to make stop the mass forwards that have resulted in the mob attacks. India…

If there can be driverless cars on the road, why not driverless boats on the water? Faith Lapidus has details of a team building a robotic boat, and what they want it to do. ...

Hackers targeted the campaigns of at least three candidates running for Congress in the upcoming 2018 U.S. elections, but the attacks were detected and thwarted, a Microsoft executive said Thursday. The attempted attacks tried to use a fake Microsoft domain as a landing page for phishing attacks, said Tom Burt, Microsoft vice president for customer security and trust. He refused to name which candidates were targeted, citing privacy concerns. “They were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint, as well as an election disruption standpoint,” Burt told an audience at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. He also did not identify the source of the phishing attacks, though the tactic was similar to those used by Russian operatives to…

President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday after Brussels hit US tech giant Google with a record fine, and warned he would no longer allow Europe to take "advantage" of the United States. "I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google," Trump tweeted in reaction to the 4.34 billion euro penalty imposed on Google for abusing the dominance of its mobile operating system. "They truly have taken advantage of the US, but not for long!" he said. In announcing the fine on Wednesday, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager accused Google of using the Android system's near-stranglehold on smartphones and tablets to promote the use of its own Google search engine while shutting out rivals. The decision, which followed…

For more than 30 years, doctors have worked to save people's arms and legs. VOA's Carol Pearson reports, saving a limb after an accident or infection can take an entire team of specialists at a limb preservation center. ...

Facebook says it will begin removing false information from its site that could lead to violence. “There are certain forms of misinformation that have contributed to physical harm” in certain countries, the U.S. social media giant said in a statement Wednesday announcing the policy. The company says it will work with local organizations to identify such information, including written posts and doctored photos. Facebook has been accused for allowing users to spread hate speech and false information that has led to recent violence in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India. Sri Lanka imposed a state of emergency in March after false news posted on Facebook led to deadly attacks on the country’s minority Muslim population by Buddhist mobs. The California-based company was thrust into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign…

She may not be the warmest waitress, but she serves a nice, hot cup of “Joe” at a café on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. Though this robotic barista is still getting help from her human counterpart, she is a signal that Asia is ahead of the curve in embracing new technologies ahead of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. A recent report from PwC Global, a professional services firm, studied 1,155 manufacturing businesses based on how much they were embracing and incorporating innovations in technology, from drones to 3-D printing. Across the board, companies in the Asia-Pacific region scored higher than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. In Thailand, for instance, manufacturing companies have widely adopted new technologies to transform their operations. “Many are using…

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has apologized for calling a British diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue a pedophile, saying he spoke in anger but was wrong to do so. There was no immediate public reaction from diver Vern Unsworth to Musk's latest tweets. Musk's initial tweet calling Unsworth a "pedo" was a response to a TV interview Unsworth gave. In it, he said Musk and SpaceX engineers orchestrated a "PR stunt" by sending a small submarine to help divers rescue the 12 Thai soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave. Unsworth said the submarine, which wasn't used, wouldn't have worked anyway. "My words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths ..." Musk tweeted. "Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my…

Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it's been called "the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex -- a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian's newest resident. ...

Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it's been called "the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex -- a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian's newest resident. ...

Twitter suspended at least 58 million user accounts in the final three months of 2017, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. The figure highlights the company's newly aggressive stance against malicious or suspicious accounts in the wake of Russian disinformation efforts during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Last week, Twitter confirmed a Washington Post report that it had suspended 70 million accounts in May and June. The huge number of suspensions raises questions as to whether the crackdown could affect Twitter's user growth and whether the company should have warned investors earlier. The company has been struggling with user growth compared with rivals like Instagram and Facebook. The number of suspended accounts originated with Twitter's "firehose,'' a data stream it makes available to academics, companies and others willing…

Egypt’s parliament has passed a law giving the state powers to block social media accounts and penalize journalists held to be publishing fake news. Under the law passed on Monday social media accounts and blogs with more than 5,000 followers on sites such as Twitter and Facebook will be treated as media outlets, which makes them subject to prosecution for publishing false news or incitement to break the law. The Supreme Council for the Administration of the Media, headed by an official appointed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, will supervise the law and take action against violations. The bill prohibits the establishment of websites without obtaining a license from the Supreme Council and allows it to suspend or block existing websites, or impose fines on editors. The law, which takes…

Scientists from Cranfield University in Britain have teamed up with the engineering firm Siemens to retro-fit a classic 1965 Ford Mustang with driverless technology. They recently tested it on a racetrack at the Goodwood Festival of Speed -- considered the largest motoring garden party in the world. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. ...

Robots can do a lot of things people can do... but can they replace doctors? A London-based artificial intelligence company says its AI robot doctors can diagnose patients just as well as a human clinician. But some general practitioners say the service can never replicate the level of care given by human doctors. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. ...

Social networking site Twitter Saturday suspended two accounts linked to 12 Russian spies indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. On Friday, a federal grand jury charged the 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democratic computer networks in 2016 in the most detailed U.S. accusation yet that Moscow meddled in the election to help Republican Donald Trump. Twitter said Saturday it had suspended the accounts @DCLeaks_ and @Guccifer_2 that were named in the indictment, which alleges a wide-ranging conspiracy involving sophisticated hacking and staged release of documents. The indictment alleges that from around June 2016 the conspirators released tens of thousands of stolen emails and documents “using fictitious online personas, including ‘DCLeaks’ and ‘Guccifer 2.0.’” In a statement Saturday, a Twitter spokesman said:…

British inventor Nik Spencer believes household garbage is a valuable and underrated resource. That's because trash happens to be the perfect fuel for his latest invention: the Home Energy Resources Unit, or HERU. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. ...

Football fans are watching the World Cup on multiple screens in bars, on their phones while they should be working, on TVs at home with their friends. One day, they could be following the action in 3D. Researchers at the University of Washington are developing a way to watch soccer games and other sporting matches as if you were in the stadium, by using augmented reality devices. Faiza Elmasry takes a look at the new technology in this report, narrated by Faith Lapidus. ...

Temperatures around the world are rising as humans burn coal, oil and other fossil fuels for energy. Burning those fuels releases heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But it does more than that. CO2 is vital for plant growth. While having more of it sounds like a good thing, scientists are finding it is not always that simple. VOA's Steve Baragona has more. ...

Pangolins are the world's most illegally trafficked animal. Eight species of the elusive mammals are found in Africa and Southeast Asia, but as many as 300 are poached every day, destined for markets in Vietnam and China, where their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales believed to have medicinal properties. Researchers in the UK are hoping to deter pangolin poaching with fingerprint technology that's designed to identify poachers and bring them to justice. VOA's Julie Taboh explains. ...

Forty years ago this month, the first test-tube baby was born in what is now called in vitro fertilization. British baby Louise Brown was born July 25, 1978. She's married now with two children who were born naturally. A new exhibition at the Science Museum in London is showcasing the anniversary and the technological advances achieved through in vitro fertilization. VOA's Deborah Block has more. ...

Pacific nations Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have signed on to a joint undersea internet cable project, funded mostly by Australia, that forestalls plans by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to lay the links itself. Wednesday's pact comes as China pushes for influence in a region Australia views as its backyard, amid souring ties after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last year accused Beijing of meddling in Canberra's affairs. Australia will pay two-thirds of the project cost of A$136.6 million ($100 million) under the deal, signed on a visit to Brisbane by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill. "We spend billions of dollars a year on foreign aid and this is a very practical way of investing in the…