Category: Technology

Britt’Nee Brower grew up in a largely Inupiat Eskimo town in Alaska’s far north, but English was the only language spoken at home. Today, she knows a smattering of Inupiaq from childhood language classes at school in the community of Utqiagvik. Brower even published an Inupiaq coloring book last year featuring the names of common animals of the region. But she hopes to someday speak fluently by practicing her ancestral language in a daily, modern setting. The 29-year-old Anchorage woman has started to do just that with a new Inupiaq language option that recently went live on Facebook for those who employ the social media giant’s community translation tool. Launched a decade ago, the tool has allowed users to translate bookmarks, action buttons and other functions in more than 100…

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to shut down U.S. government radio stations that announce official time, a service in operation since World War II. WWV and WWVB in the state of Colorado and WWVH on the island of Kauai in the mid-Pacific state of Hawaii, send out signals that allow millions of clocks and watches to be set either manually or automatically. WWVB continuously broadcasts digital time codes, using very long electromagnetic waves at a frequency of 60 kilohertz, which are automatically received by timekeeping devices in North America, keeping them accurate to a fraction of a second. “If you shut down these stations, you turn off all those clocks,” said Don Sullivan, who managed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stations between 1994 and 2005. ​GPS not…

California lawmakers have voted to make net neutrality state law, becoming the latest of several states to approve such measures. The move by state legislators is a rejection of the Trump administration’s repeal of national net neutrality rules that did not allow internet service providers to discriminate in their handling of internet traffic. Net neutrality was first put in place by the Obama administration in 2015. When it was repealed, it opened the door for internet service providers to block content, slow data transmission, and create “fast lanes” for consumers who pay premiums. If California Governor Jerry Brown signs net neutrality into law, the state could possibly face a legal fight from the Federal Communications Commission, which has declared that states cannot pass their own net neutrality rules. Analysts say…

Microsoft will begin requiring its contractors to offer their U.S. employees paid leave to care for a new child. It’s common for tech firms to offer generous family leave benefits for their own software engineers and other full-time staff, but paid leave advocates say it’s still rare to require similar benefits for contracted workers such as janitors, landscapers, cafeteria crews and software consultants. “Given its size and its reach, this is a unique and hopefully trailblazing offering,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women and Families. The details The new policy affects businesses with at least 50 U.S.-based employees that do substantial work with Microsoft that involves access to its buildings or its computing network. It doesn’t affect suppliers of goods. Contractors would have to offer…

U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch on Thursday added to the growing push in Washington to have the Federal Trade Commission rekindle an antitrust investigation of Alphabet Inc's Google. Hatch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons recounting several news reports that identified complaints about Google's anti-competitive conduct and privacy practices. Alphabet shares were little changed after the release of the letter. The company declined to comment. Lawmakers from both major parties and Google's rivals have said this year they see an opening for increased regulation of large technology companies under the FTC's new slate of commissioners. Google's critics say that ongoing European antitrust action against the web search leader and this year's data privacy scandal involving Facebook Inc and political consulting firm…

Germany announced a new agency on Wednesday to fund research on cybersecurity and to end its reliance on digital technologies from the United States, China and other countries. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters that Germany needed new tools to become a top player in cybersecurity and shore up European security and independence. "It is our joint goal for Germany to take a leading role in cybersecurity on an international level," Seehofer told a news conference with Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. "We have to acknowledge we're lagging behind, and when one is lagging, one needs completely new approaches." The agency is a joint interior and defense ministry project. Germany, like many other countries, faces a daily barrage of cyberattacks on its government and industry computer networks. However, the…

More than 100 hospitals across the United States are using virtual reality or VR, as a form of therapy for patients to help manage symptoms such as pain and anxiety. An increasing number of countries worldwide are taking an interest in VR and doctors are starting to develop international guidelines on how to apply and validate VR in healthcare. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles, where one hospital is leading the effort in using VR as digital medicine. ...

More than a dozen human rights groups are urging Google not to offer censored internet search in China, amid reports it is planning to again provide the service in the giant market. A joint letter Tuesday calls on CEO Sundar Pichai to explain what Google is doing to safeguard users from the Chinese government’s censorship and surveillance. It describes the company’s secretive plan to build a search engine that would comply with Chinese censorship as representing “an alarming capitulation by Google on human rights.” “The Chinese government extensively violates the rights to freedom of expression and privacy; by accommodating the Chinese authorities’ repression of dissent, Google would be actively participating in those violations for millions of internet users in China,” the letter says. In a statement, Google said it has…

A small Swiss company won $31 million in new investment on Tuesday to suck carbon dioxide from thin air as part of a fledgling, costly technology that may gain wider acceptance from governments in 2018 as a way to slow climate change. Climeworks AG, which uses high-tech filters and fans to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a cost of about $600 a ton, raised the money from investors including Zurich Cantonal Bank. "It's all about cost reductions," Jan Wurzbacher, a co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks, told Reuters of how the company would use the funds. Extracting vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could help to limit global warming, blamed for causing more heatwaves, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels. The company says it has a long-term…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Google, Twitter and Facebook were "treading on very, very troubled territory" and warned them to "be careful." Trump made the comments just hours after igniting controversy with a series of early-morning tweets claiming Google search results are "rigged" to turn up news unfavorable to the president's administration. The president asserted that people were complaining about biased results from social media searches. "We have literally thousands and thousands of complaints coming in," the president said. "You just can't do that." In response to a reporter's question in the Oval Office, Trump singled out Google, Facebook and Twitter for criticism and said, "You can't do that to people."  "Google is really taking advantage of a lot of people," the president said. "They better be careful." Google…

Alphabet's Google said Tuesday that it was partnering with a handful of Indian banks to bring quick loans to the masses, as it aims to woo tens of millions of new internet users in the country to its digital payments services. At an annual Google event in New Delhi, Caesar Sengupta, vice president of Google's Next Billion Users initiative, said the move would make banking services accessible to tens of millions of Indians. Google launched payments app Tez, meaning fast in Hindi, in India last year, integrating it with the state-backed unified payments interface (UPI), as it sought to gain a foothold in the South Asian nation's digital payments space — which, according to Credit Suisse, will grow fivefold to $1 trillion by 2023. On Tuesday, Google rebranded the app as Google Pay and said it was partnering with four Indian…

Toyota will invest half a billion dollars into ride-sharing giant Uber as part of a deal for the two companies to work together on developing self-driving vehicles.  Toyota, one of the world's largest car makers, is seen as lagging behind other companies, including General Motors and Google's Waymo, in the autonomous-vehicle race.  Uber has already begun testing self-driving vehicles, but was forced to remove hundreds of autonomous cars from the road in March after one of its test vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian on a street in Tempe, Arizona.  The deal between Uber and Toyota is an indication that Uber does not want to go it alone in creating the complex, autonomous driving systems.  Self-driving cars have always been important to Uber, which sees them as a way to…

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is urging the United Nations to begin talks on a legally binding treaty to ban the use and development of lethal autonomous weapons systems. Representatives from more than 70 countries are attending a weeklong meeting of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, or CCW, to recommend future work on this issue. The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is a global coalition of 76 organizations in 32 countries. Members include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Mines Action Canada and the Nobel Women's Initiative. It began in April 2013 to pre-emptively ban lethal autonomous weapons systems, better known as killer robots. Activists say momentum is building for states to negotiate a ban on the devices when the CCW holds its annual meeting in late November; however, the…

A Russian artist is going back to the roots of photography, rejecting the digital trappings and the assembly-line convenience of the modern age, by designing and creating wooden cameras the way they were built a hundred years ago. Combining craftsmanship with the principles of old school photography, some consider his creations art forms in themselves. And as VOA's Julie Taboh reports, his wooden cameras, and the unique photographs he takes with them, are attracting buyers from around the world. ...

Scientists have used multibeam sonar and a remotely operated craft to locate the remains of the USS Abner Read, which was sunk nearly 75 years ago after hitting a Japanese mine off Alaska's Aleutian Islands. The ship had been sent to look for Japanese submarines following the only World War II battle to be fought on North American soil. VOA's Jill Craig has more. ...

A school in Massachusetts is using artificial intelligence tools to help teachers keep students engaged. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Facebook banned a quiz app from its platform for refusing an inspection and concerns that data on as many as 4 million users was misused.   The social media company said Wednesday that it took action against the myPersonality app after it found user information was shared with researchers and companies “with only limited protections in place.” Facebook said it would notify the app's users that their data was misused. It's only the second time Facebook has banned an app, after it blocked one linked to political data mining firm Cambridge Analytica that sparked a privacy scandal.   The company said myPersonality was “mainly active” prior to 2012, and it wasn't clear why Facebook was taking action now.   The app was created in 2007 by researcher David Stillwell and…

Parents lament their teenagers’ noses constantly in their phones, but they might want to take stock of their own screen time habits.  A study out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of parents are concerned about the amount of time their teenage children spend in front of screens, while more than a third expressed concern about their own screen time.  Meanwhile, more than half of teens said they often or sometimes find their parents or caregivers to be distracted when the teens are trying to have a conversation with them. The study calls teens’ relationship with their phones at times “hyperconnected” and notes that nearly three-fourths check messages or notifications as soon as they wake up. Parents do the same, but at a lower if still substantial…

Parents lament their teenagers' noses constantly in their phones, but they might benefit from taking stock of their own screen time habits. A new report from the Pew Research Center says two-thirds of parents are concerned about the amount of time their teenage children spend in front of screens. But more than half of teens said they often or sometimes find their parents or caregivers to be distracted by screens when trying to have a conversation with them. And more than a third expressed concern about their own screen time. The study surveyed 743 U.S. teens and 1,058 U.S. parents of teens from March 7 to April 10. The margin of error is 4.5 percentage points. ...

Around the world, 2.6 million newborns die within a month after they are born, according to the World Health Organization. A project called NEST360°, in the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health in Houston, is trying to reduce the number of preventable newborn deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. The key is to provide appropriate medical devices for hospitals in this region of the world. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details. ...

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter said they have removed hundreds of pages and accounts linked to Russia and Iran ahead of the midterm elections in the U.S. Facebook said it had removed 254 Facebook pages and 116 Instagram accounts that originated in Iran and were part of a disinformation campaign that targeted countries around the world, including the U.S. and Britain.   The social media companies acted on a tip from cybersecurity firm FireEye, which said on Tuesday that the accounts were promoting Iranian propaganda, including discussion of "anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian themes." "We've removed 652 Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and US," Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity…

From an app to diagnose disease on Zambian farms to Tinder-style matchmaking for Senegalese land owners and young farmers, young coders have been finding solutions to hunger in the first Africa-wide hackathon on the issue. Eight teams competed in the hackathon, organized by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and a Rwandan trade organization in the country's capital Kigali this week. Experts say keeping young people in farming is key to alleviating hunger in Africa, which has 65 percent of the world's uncultivated arable land, but spends $35 billion a year on importing food for its growing population. "In our families, agriculture is no longer a good business. They don't get the return," said Rwandan Ndayisaba Wilson, 24, whose team proposed a $400 solar-powered device that can optimize water…

A federal judge hearing arguments over a settlement between the Trump administration and a company that wants to post plans for printing 3D weapons on the internet said Tuesday that the issue is best decided by the president or the Congress. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik that while he will still rule on the legal issues involving the settlement, "a solution to the greater problem is so much better suited'' to the president or Congress. The settlement prompted 19 states and Washington, D.C., to sue the Trump administration for allowing a Texas company to distribute instructions on how to make printable three-dimensional guns. Lasnik issued a temporary restraining order blocking the online release of the blueprints. Now, the states and Washington are seeking a permanent ban. A lawyer for the…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that it is "very dangerous" for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to silence voices on their services. Trump's comments in an interview with Reuters come as the social media industry faces mounting scrutiny from Congress to police foreign propaganda. Trump has made his Twitter account — with more than 53 million followers — an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. Trump previously criticized the social media industry on Aug. 18, claiming without evidence in a series of tweets that unnamed companies were "totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices." In the same post, Trump said "too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad." Those tweets followed actions taken…

People in big cities around the world typically enjoy a wide range of public transportation options. Those who own smartphones also have the choice of using some of the increasingly popular ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft. And now, Kabul residents in Afghanistan can, too. VOA's Haseeb Maudoodi takes a look at Kabul's newest online taxi service called Buber, which means 'take me' in Dari. Bezhan Hamdard narrates. ...

Google has been in the headlines recently, and the news was not good. The technology company left the Chinese market eight years ago to protest Beijing's censorship, but now appears ready to return with a new search engine. But the project is shrouded in secrecy, even as Google's employees demand transparency. Meanwhile, the company tries to defend itself against accusations it has been invading user's privacy, despite claiming it doesn't. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates. ...

The world's oceans are filled with trace amounts of uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear power reactors. The trick is extracting it from the seawater. Now, scientists in the U.S. say they have done that using yarn, and extracted 5 grams of the powdered form of uranium used to produce reactor fuel. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Tech companies like Google's YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have long been global platforms for free expression but are increasingly facing calls to respond to offensive and abusive comments on their sites. Michelle Quinn reports this is an issue both in the U.S. and throughout the world. ...