Category: Technology

French President Emmanuel Macron is taking on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other internet giants at a Paris meeting to discuss tax and data protection and how they could use their global influence for the public good. Macron on Wednesday welcomed Zuckerberg and the leaders of dozens of other tech companies, including Microsoft, Uber, and IBM, at a conference named "Tech for Good" meant to address things like workers' rights, data privacy and tech literacy.   The meeting comes as Facebook, Google and other online giants are increasingly seen by the public as predators that abuse personal data, avoid taxes and stifle competition.   "There is no free lunch!" Macron joked to express his expectations of "frank and direct" discussions.   He said tech giants could not just be "free…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told EU lawmakers Tuesday that the social media network will always be in "an arms race" with those who want to spread fake news, but that the company will be working to stay ahead and protect the network's users. The social media giant has been under scrutiny since April when it became known that the Cambridge Analytica company harvested information on Facebook users to help Donald Trump during his 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. VOA's Zlatica Hoke reports. ...

U.S. civil liberties groups on Tuesday called on Amazon.com Inc. to stop offering facial recognition services to governments, warning that the software could be used to target immigrants and people of color unfairly. More than 40 groups sent a letter to Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos saying technology from the company's cloud computing unit was ripe for abuse. The letter underscores how new tools for identifying and tracking people could be used to empower surveillance states. Amazon has marketed a range of uses for its Rekognition service, unveiled in late 2016. These include detecting offensive content, identifying celebrities and securing public safety. In a blog post last year, Amazon said a new feature let customers "identify people of interest against a collection of millions of faces in near real-time, enabling use cases such as timely and accurate crime prevention." Customers provide…

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg apologized to EU lawmakers on Tuesday, saying the company had not done enough to prevent misuse of the social network and that regulation is “important and inevitable.” Meeting the leaders of the European Parliament, Zuckerberg stressed the importance of Europeans to Facebook and said he was sorry for not doing enough to prevent abuse of the platform. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility. That was a mistake and I am sorry for it,” Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. In response to questions about whether Facebook ought to be broken up, Zuckerberg said the question was not whether there should be regulation but what kind of regulation there should be. “Some sort of regulation is important and inevitable,” he said. He…

Supervised by young engineers, workers at the start-up company Chakr Innovation in New Delhi cut and weld sheets of metal to make devices that will capture black plumes of smoke from diesel generators and convert it into ink.  In a cabin, young engineers pore over drawings and hunch over computers as they explore more applications of the technology that they hope will aid progress in cleaning up the Indian capital’s toxic air – among the world’s dirtiest.  While the millions of cars that ply Delhi’s streets are usually blamed for the city’s deadly air pollution, another big culprit is the massive diesel generators used by industries and buildings to light up homes and offices during outages when power from the grid switches off – a frequent occurrence in summer. Installed in…

Grocery stores in the U.S. are locked in a fierce battle for customers who often demand the convenience of home deliveries. Automation is increasingly becoming part of the competitive equation. When U.S. mail-order retail giant Amazon shook up the supermarket industry with its purchase of Whole Foods, America's second biggest food retailer, Kroger, responded by partnering with a British online supermarket known for its advanced warehouse technology. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...

A man was killed when the Tesla automobile he was driving veered off a road, crashed through a fence and plunged into a pond, authorities said Monday. California Highway Patrol spokesman Daniel Jacowitz said rescuers pulled the Tesla Model S from the pond early Monday and found the man's body inside. The driver was identified as Keith Leung, 34, of Danville, California, said Sgt. Ray Kelly, spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's office. Kelly said it was too soon to know if the vehicle's semi-autonomous Autopilot mode was engaged when the crash occurred or whether the driver may have been speeding or intoxicated. Photographs of the car show that its backend was destroyed, its hood crumpled and windows shattered. The crash occurred near the cities of San Ramon and Danville…

Lisa Meyer's hair salon is a cozy place where her mother serves homemade macaroons, children climb on chairs and customers chat above the whirr of hairdryers. Most of the time Meyer is focused on hairstyles, color trends and keeping up with appointments. But now she's worried about how the European Union's new data protection law will affect her business as she contacts customers to seek permission to store their details. Even though she supports the law, Meyer fears it may cut her mailing list by 90 percent as people choose to withhold their data or simply overlook her emails.   "It will be difficult to market upcoming events," she said at her shop, Lisa Hauck Hair & Beauty in London.   Businesses from pizza parlors to airlines across the EU's…

A European Parliament meeting on Tuesday with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be broadcast live, parliamentary officials and the company said on Monday after controversy over plans for a closed-door hearing. Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who was criticized by legislators and some senior EU officials over arrangements for the discussion on public privacy concerns, tweeted that it was "great news" that Zuckerberg had agreed to a live web stream. A Facebook spokeswoman said: "We’re looking forward to the meeting and happy for it to be live streamed." Zuckerberg, who founded the U.S. social media giant, will be in Europe to defend the company after scandal over its sale of personal data to a British political consultancy which worked on U.S. President Donald Trump's election campaign, among others. He will meet…

China launched a relay satellite early on Monday designed to establish a communication link between earth and a planned lunar probe that will explore the dark side of the moon, the official Xinhua news agency said. Citing the China National Space Administration, Xinhua said the satellite was launched at 5:28 a.m. (2128 GMT Sunday) on a Long March-4C rocket from the Xichang launch center in the southwest of the country. "The launch is a key step for China to realize its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land on and rove the far side of the moon," Xinhua quoted Zhang Lihua, manager of the relay satellite project, as saying. It said the satellite, known as Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge, will settle in an orbit about…

Drivers can choose from several GPS apps that can alert them to accidents or slow traffic so they can avoid them. But bike riders – who travel the same roadways as cars - are on their own. So an English university student designed an app to help cyclists report dangerous hot spots to other cyclists, and local governments. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Facebook and European Union officials were locked in high-stakes negotiations Sunday over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before EU lawmakers to discuss the site’s impact on the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans, as well as Facebook’s impact on elections on both sides of the Atlantic and the spreading of fake news. Being debated is whether the meeting would be held after EU Parliament President Antonio Tajanibe agreed to have it live-streamed on the internet and not held behind closed-doors, as previously agreed. The leaders of all eight political blocs in the parliament have insisted the format be changed. Lawmakers say it would be deeply damaging for Zuckerberg, if he pulls out simply because they want him to hold what they say is the equivalent of a…

Edison did it. Eastman did it. And so did Steve Jobs. They invented products that changed our lives. But for every well-known inventor there are many other, less recognizable individuals whose innovative products have greatly impacted our world. Fifteen of those trailblazing men and women -- both past and present -- were recently honored for their unique contributions in a special ceremony at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum, which is nestled in a corner of the vast atrium of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office building in Alexandria, Virginia. Augmented reality Stan Honey was honored for inventing a graphics systems that makes it easier for television viewers around the world to see key moments during live sporting events… such as sailing, car racing and American football. “What we…

A sick toddler is thriving thanks to his father's kidney and a practice surgery using 3-D printed organs. VOA's Steve Baragona explains. ...

Canadian computer scientists helped pioneer the field of artificial intelligence before it was a buzzword, and now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hoping to capitalize on their intellectual lead. Trudeau has become a kind of marketer-in-chief for Canada's tech economy ambitions, accurately explaining the basics of machine learning as he promotes a national plan he says will "secure Canada's foothold in AI research and training." "Tech giants have taken notice, and are setting up offices in Canada, hiring Canadian experts, and investing time and money into applications that could be as transformative as the internet itself," Trudeau wrote in a guest editorial published this week in the Boston Globe. Trudeau has been taking that message on the road and is likely to emphasize it again Friday when he addresses a…

Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Apple founder Steve Jobs are some of America's best known inventors. But there are other, less recognizable individuals whose innovative products have greatly impacted our world. More than a dozen of them were recently honored for their unique contributions in a special ceremony at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. ...

For almost 20 years, cyclists have gathered in New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine for what might seem like an unusual ceremony the blessing of the bikes. Held the day before the city's Five Boro Bike Tour, the ceremony is meant to bring luck and safety to those who travel around the Big Apple on a bike. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. ...

After a career that included helping Alphabet's Google build out data centers and speeding packages for Amazon.com to customers, Jim Miller is doing what many Silicon Valley executives do after stints at big companies: finding more time to ride his bike. But this bike is a little different. Arevo, a startup with backing from the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency and where Miller recently took the helm, has produced what it says is the world's first carbon fiber bicycle with 3-D-printed frame. Arevo is using the bike to demonstrate its design software and printing technology, which it hopes to use to produce parts for bicycles, aircraft, space vehicles and other applications where designers prize the strength and lightness of so-called "composite" carbon fiber parts but are put…

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.…