Category: Technology

The U.S. Senate voted 52-47 to overturn the FCC's 2017 repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules, with all Democrats and three Republicans voting in favor of the measure. The Senate approved a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would undo the Federal Communications Commission's vote to deregulate the broadband industry. If the CRA is approved by the House and signed by President Donald Trump, internet service providers would have to continue following rules that prohibit blocking, throttling and paid prioritization. The Republican-controlled FCC voted in December to repeal the rules, which require internet service providers to give equal footing to all web traffic. Democrats argued that scrapping the rules would give ISPs free rein to suppress certain content or promote sites that pay them. Republicans insist they, too, believe in…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is slated to meet privately in Brussels as soon as next week with key European lawmakers about the data protection controversy that has affected his company. EU Parliament President Antonio Tajani confirmed the meeting Wednesday. It will be Zuckerberg's first visit with EU representatives since a whistle-blower alleged that British political consulting company Cambridge Analytica improperly collected information from millions of Facebook accounts to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election in the United States. The collection affected about 87 million users and prompted apologies from Zuckerberg. Facebook was largely unscathed by Zuckerberg's 10 hours of testimony before U.S. legislators in April. The social media giant's share price increased after his testimony, and some lawmakers apparently failed to grasp the technical details of the company's…

While hackers steal credit card numbers online, other crooks do it directly from the card, at the point where a consumer exchanges the data with a cash or banking machine. The U.S. Secret Service says those crooks, called skimmers, steal more than a billion dollars annually. A group of students at the University of Florida is developing a device that may put a stop to this type of crime. VOA’s George Putic has more. ...

The United States is a land of opportunity for many immigrants. But some who come to the US often face big hurdles. The challenges can be especially great for immigrant women trying to succeed in male dominated careers in STEM fields: for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. VOA spoke with three Afghan women, all of whom prove that where there is a will, there’s usually a way. Zheela Noori went to Silicon Valley to find out what drives them. Freshta Azizi narrates. ...

The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI are investigating Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political data firm embroiled in a scandal over its handling of Facebook Inc user information, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Prosecutors have sought to question former Cambridge Analytica employees and banks that handled its business, the newspaper said, citing an American official and others familiar with the inquiry. Cambridge Analytica said earlier this month it was shutting down after losing clients and facing mounting legal fees resulting from reports the company harvested personal data about millions of Facebook users beginning in 2014. Allegations of the improper use of data for 87 million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica, which was hired by President Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. election campaign, have prompted multiple investigations in the United…

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth — err, game.   Henry David Thoreau wrote those words — most of them — in his seminal book, "Walden.'' They make up the objective of a video game that seeks to translate his exploits in the woods of Concord, Massachusetts, into a playable digital reality.   "Walden, a Game" is adapted from the book and launches Tuesday on PlayStation 4. It has been available on computers for almost a year.   "Obviously it's an odd or unique idea for a game," said Tracy Fullerton, who conceived the idea and led the team that created it at the University of Southern California's Game Innovation Lab.…

Senate Democrats are mounting a last-ditch campaign to preserve so-called "net neutrality" that has prevented certain content or users from being slowed on the internet in the United States — an effort most Republicans say is misguided and counterproductive. On Wednesday, the Senate will vote on whether to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's December decision to repeal Obama-era rules that barred internet service providers from favoring certain users or material. All 49 Democrats and one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, back the resolution in the 100-member chamber. "All [net neutrality] does is protect the openness of the internet to competitors across the country," said Angus King, a Maine Independent who caucuses with Democrats. "I believe this resolution will restore us to a place where small businesses will be able to…

Twitter Inc on Tuesday revised its strategy for fighting abusive internet trolls," saying it would use behavioral signals to identify harassers on the social network and then limit the visibility of their tweets. San Francisco-based Twitter, known for freewheeling discussions since it was founded in 2006, has been trying to rid itself of harassment out of concern that personal attacks were driving people away. Twitter's rules already prohibit abuse, and it can suspend or block offenders once someone reports them. Users can also mute people they find offensive. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said Twitter now would try to find problematic accounts by examining behavior such as how frequently people tweet about accounts that do not follow them or whether they have confirmed their email address. Tweets from those accounts will…

Kenya took its first step into space with the launch Friday of a nano-satellite made at the University of Nairobi. Engineers involved in creating the cube-shaped space capsule described it as Kenya’s joining the space club, although much remains to be done to get the Kenya space program off the ground. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Nairobi. ...

Tesla's chief executive officer told employees on Monday the company is undergoing a “thorough reorganization,” as it contends with questions over its production schedule and two crashes last week involving its electric, self-driving cars. CEO Elon Musk said in an email that as part of the reorganization it was “flattening the management structure to improve communication, combining functions where sensible and trimming activities that are not vital to the success of our mission” in an email that was confirmed by Tesla after being disclosed earlier by the Wall Street Journal. Senior Tesla executives have departed or cut back work Waymo, Alphabet Inc's self-driving unit, said on Sunday that Matthew Schwall had joined the company from Tesla, where he was the electric carmaker’s main technical contact with U.S. safety   investigators.…

Thousands of people are using their smartphones to experience the devastation of urban conflict through an augmented reality app which aims to raise awareness of the suffering faced by millions trapped by war, the app's developer said on Monday. Launched by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in March, "Enter the room" provides a visceral, first-person experience of war through the eyes of child from their bedroom. While there are numerous apps being designed by aid groups, this is the first known use of augmented reality (AR) by the humanitarian sector to simulate civilian life at war. The app has been downloaded more than 50,000 times since its launch. Entering through a portal on the screen of their device, users experience the impact of years of fighting in…

NASA is planning to send a tiny autonomous helicopter to Mars on its next rover mission to the red planet. The space agency announced Friday that the helicopter will be carried aboard the Mars 2020 rover as a technology demonstration to test its ability to serve as a scout and to reach locations not accessible by ground. The helicopter is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The craft weighs less than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), has a fuselage about the size of a softball and twin, counter-rotating blades that will spin at almost 3,000 rpm — a necessity in the thin Martian atmosphere. Solar cells will charge its lithium-ion batteries. Flights will be programmed because the distance to Mars precludes real-time commands from Earth. ...

Electric-powered ground transport is slowly but steadily taking over from one based on fossil fuels. Electric cars, buses, bikes, scooters, even electric skateboards are growing more common on streets around the world. The next step is electric aviation, and airplane manufacturers are eyeing this potentially very lucrative market. VOA's George Putic reports. ...

When Facebook recently said it would allow outside reviewers inside its platform to look for signs of racial or political bias, civil liberties and human rights activists politely applauded. For years, activists have called on tech companies to undergo assessments of how their policies affect people, both in the U.S. and globally. The companies have long rejected those audits as unnecessary. But now Facebook is inviting outsiders in to look at allegations of racial and political bias. "It's better than nothing," Rebecca MacKinnon said of the Facebook audits. She is director of Ranking Digital Rights a project that evaluates 22 tech and telecommunications firms annually in areas such as privacy, expression and governance. "There's increasing pressure on them to do this kind of thing," MacKinnon added. Facebook has faced criticism that…

Advanced sensor technology can monitor a wide range of applications, from water quality to air pollution to energy use. Faith Lapidus tells us how a team of scientists at the University of Washington, with support from the National Science Foundation, is turning the sensors in smartphones into home health care tools. ...

The Trump administration will not stand in the way of the development of artificial intelligence in the United States, a top official said on Thursday, while acknowledging that the burgeoning technology will displace some jobs. At a White House summit that included companies like Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., technology policy adviser Michael Kratsios said the administration of President Donald Trump did not want to dictate "what is researched and developed." "To the greatest degree possible, we will allow scientists and technologists to freely develop their next great inventions right here in the United States," he said, according to a copy of his remarks provided by the White House. AI and deep machine learning raise ethical concerns about control, privacy, cybersecurity, and the future of work, companies…

Italian researchers on Thursday unveiled a new robotic hand they say allows users to grip objects more naturally and featuring a design that will lower the price significantly. The Hennes robotic hand has a simpler mechanical design compared with other such myoelectric prosthetics, characterized by sensors that react to electrical signals from the brain to the muscles, said researcher Lorenzo De Michieli. He helped develop the hand in a lab backed by the Italian Institute of Technology and the INAIL state workers' compensation prosthetic center. The Hennes has only one motor that controls all five fingers, making it lighter, cheaper and more able to adapt to the shape of objects. "This can be considered low-cost because we reduce to the minimum the mechanical complexity to achieve, at the same time,…

Kavitha Kamalbabu needed a break. She had raised her two children and the youngest was now in kindergarten. It was time to turn attention to her career. The 36-year-old wanted to code. The mecca of high tech -- Silicon Valley — wasn't an option because she needed to stay close to home and family in Indianapolis, Indiana. "I chose Kenzie Academy because of its life project-based learning," she said. Kamalbabu is now at the top of her class, getting a two-year degree as a software developer. Kenzie, based in Indianapolis, was established to keep talent in Middle America and to create a mini tech capital. "Our point is to bring people from Indianapolis to stay in Indianapolis," said founder Courtney Spence. To do that, they place students in local companies…

No matter where they live, young people are capable of coming up with fresh ideas about how to improve life in their communities. At a recent exhibition, held in the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, teenage Syrians showcased inventions geared toward making refugee camps more livable. VOA's George Putic has more. ...

Google is suspending all advertising connected to Ireland's abortion referendum as part of moves to protect "election integrity," the company announced Wednesday. The move came a day after Facebook banned foreign-backed ads in the Irish campaign, amid global concerns about online election meddling and the role of internet ads in swaying voters.  Google said that starting Thursday, it would no longer display ads related to the May 25 vote on whether to repeal Ireland's constitutional ban on most abortions. The prohibition on ads connected to the Irish vote applies to both Google and YouTube, which the company owns. The online search leader, which is based in Mountain View, California, declined to say how much advertising revenue it was giving up because of the decision. Russian role The role of online…

Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday said it has set up model "smart" homes across the United States for shoppers to experience what it's like for voice aide Alexa to dim the lights, turn on the TV or order more laundry detergent. The rollout underscores how Amazon aims to make Alexa and the company's growing list of services, from shopping and entertainment to home security, an everyday part of consumers' lives. It also steps up competition with retailers such as Best Buy Co Inc that focus on showcasing technology and advising shoppers. Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, said it has partnered with Lennar Corp to convert some of the home construction company's model homes into showrooms for Alexa. The so-called "Amazon Experience Centers" are now open near 15 cities including Los…

Silicon Valley -- the U.S. hub of technology-- is getting so expensive that tech workers are struggling to get by, and start up companies are questioning whether to locate there. One city thousands of kilometers away is ready to welcome tech companies with an experienced workforce in hopes of becoming the next Silicon Valley. VOA's Carolyn Presutti takes us to the city and shows us a new tech university that could be replicated anywhere in the world. ...

A digital rights organization has asked congressional leaders for help in persuading Google and Amazon to support a technology that people in authoritarian countries use to get around censorship controls worldwide. In a letter sent this week, Access Now, which is based in New York, sought to put pressure on Google and Amazon, which decided recently to close a loophole that allowed some encrypted-communication apps to assume a disguise as messages moved through the internet. Access Now asked for help from leaders of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, the House and Senate commerce committees and the Congressional Executive Committee on China. At issue is the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between governments, such as Russia, Iran and China, and those who use internet and messaging technologies, like Telegram and Signal, to…

GoDaddy has pulled the plug on another online peddler of violence. The popular internet registration service last week shut down altright.com, a website created by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and popular with many in the so-called alt-right movement. The takedown is the latest example of how companies like GoDaddy are increasingly responding to growing public pressure to clamp down on violent sites in the wake of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer. GoDaddy, which registers domains for more than 75 million websites around the world, said it generally does not delist sites that promote hate, racism and bigotry on the ground that such content is protected as free speech. But it said altright.com had "crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence in a direct…

Uber Technologies said Tuesday that it would work with the U.S. Army to advance research on a novel, quiet aircraft rotor technology that could be used in future flying cars, or military aircraft. The alliance highlights stepped-up efforts by Uber and other companies to transform flying cars from a science fiction concept to real hardware for residents of mega-cities where driving is a time-consuming bore. Uber and the Army's Research, Development and Engineering command said in a statement that they expected to spend $1 million to develop and test prototypes for a rotor system that would be used on a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle. The system would have two rotors, one stacked atop the other, moving in the same direction under the command of sophisticated software. This approach, which Uber…

As artificial intelligence is used in an increasingly connected world, experts say inherent risks need to be addressed now as societies become more and more dependent on the technology for everyday tasks. “It’s quite explosive what we’re seeing,” said Tom Siebel, chairman and chief executive officer at computer software company C3 IoT, during a recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. The experts discussed the benefits and dangers of technologies that allow machines to gather and analyze large amounts of data from connected devices.  Dangers of a connected world “Well, I think there are very serious concerns that we need to be aware of as it relates to the aggregation of all these data. A lot of this is personal identifiable data, economic data, health history data, human genomic…

Google is likely to again put artificial intelligence in the spotlight at its annual developers conference Thursday.   The company's digital concierge, known only as the Google Assistant, could gain new abilities to handle tasks such as making restaurant reservations without human hand-holding.   Google may also unveil updates to its Android mobile operating system, enable better AI-powered navigation suggestions in Google Maps, and push further into augmented reality technology, which overlays a view of the real world with digital images.   The search giant aims to make its assistant so useful that people can't live without it — or the search results that drive its advertising business. But it also wants to play up the social benefits of AI, and plans to showcase how it's being used to improve health…

With technology developing at an exponential rate, experts say the world is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution - one that will be driven by artificial intelligence and machines that can analyze huge amounts of data from connected devices. But experts warn that aside from the benefits, the revolution also has the potential to harm societies. VOA's Elizabeth Lee has this report from the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. ...