Category: Technology

Facebook is getting deeper into the professional sports streaming game, partnering with Major League Baseball to air 25 weekday afternoon games in an exclusive deal. The games will be available to Facebook users in the U.S. on Facebook Watch, the company's video feature announced last August, via the MLB Live show page. Facebook said Friday that recorded broadcasts will also be available globally, excluding select international markets. The package, MLB's first digital-only national broadcast agreement, precludes teams from televising those games on their regional sports networks. The concept is similar to the exclusive package of Sunday night games on ESPN. Facebook, Twitter and Amazon and other tech companies are in a race to acquire sports streaming rights, which can be lucrative and potentially boost user loyalty. The deal comes at…

Researchers in Sweden have embarked on a four-year project whose aim is to understand one of the most complex animal "languages" — the one dolphins use to communicate with each other. VOA's George Putic has details. ...

A Canadian company’s hardware is being used to hack internet users along Turkey’s border with Syria, researchers said Friday, adding that there were signs that Kurdish forces aligned with the United States might have been targeted. The revelation comes as Turkey presses its offensive against the Kurds dug in along the country’s frontier with northwestern Syria, a conflict that threatens to disrupt the American-led effort to extinguish the Islamic State group. The apparent use of Canadian technology to target a U.S. ally was an irony underlined by Ron Deibert, the director of the internet watchdog group Citizen Lab, which published a report on the spying. “These companies are not closely regulated, and that can lead to a lot of unintended consequences, including consequences that harm our foreign policy interests and…

Students around the United States are creating virtual businesses that produce simulated products, which are marketed and sold for virtual money. Mike O'Sullivan reports that hundreds of student entrepreneurs came to Pasadena, California, to promote the virtual companies they have created. ...

A federal judge is expected to hear arguments on Thursday about whether President Donald Trump violated Twitter users' free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution by blocking them from his account. The arguments before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan are part of a lawsuit brought last July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and several individual Twitter users. Trump and the plaintiffs are seeking summary judgment, asking Buchwald to decide the case in their favor without a trial. Twitter lets users post short snippets of text, called tweets. Other users may respond to those tweets. When one user blocks another, the blocked user cannot respond to the blocker's tweets. The plaintiffs have accused Trump of blocking a number of accounts whose owners criticized, mocked or disagreed with him in replies to his tweets. They argued that Trump's…

Nine teams with members from 25 countries entered the final phase of the $7 million Ocean Discovery XPRIZE competition for technologies that could cheaply and efficiently map the floors of the world’s oceans.  Using current technology this feat would take up to 600 years. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...

The FBI views companies hit by cyberattacks as victims and will not rush to share their information with other agencies investigating whether they failed to protect customer data, its chief said Wednesday. Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, encouraged companies to promptly report when they are hacked to help the FBI investigate and prevent future data breaches. He contrasted the FBI's approach to that of other regulators and state authorities. Without naming other agencies, Wray referred to "less-enlightened enforcement agencies," some of which he said take a more adversarial approach. "We don't view it as our responsibility when companies share information with us to turn around and share that information with some of those other agencies," Wray said in response to an audience question at a cybersecurity…

The South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, starts Friday. It's grown from a grassroots event to a phenomenon that attracts 400,000 people. For attendees, it can feel overwhelming. What's worth your time? Where's the buzz?   The latest AP Travel "Get Outta Here" podcast offers strategies for conquering FOMO (fear of missing out) at SXSW.   One approach is to let the nostalgia acts go - the former big-name bands promoting comebacks. Instead, pack your schedule with artists that have their best years ahead of them.   And you need a plan. You can't just wing it. Be ready for long lines. But have some backups. Consider less-crowded venues outside downtown. Film screenings take place at theaters all over, and up-and-coming bands play a lot of shows. ...

Classic children’s books are getting a 21st century upgrade, as British researchers have begun testing a project that would bring 3D versions of children’s stories to life on gaming platforms. VOA's Elizabeth Cherneff reports. ...

Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google are taking steps to police terrorists and hate groups on their sites, but more work needs to be done, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said Tuesday. The organization released its annual digital terrorism and hate report card and gave a B-plus to Facebook, a B-minus to Twitter and a C-plus to Google. Facebook spokeswoman Christine Chen said the company had no comment on the report. Representatives for Google and Twitter did not immediately return emails seeking comment. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Wiesenthal Center's associate dean, said Facebook in particular built "a recognition that bad folks might try to use their platform'' into its business model. "There is plenty of material they haven't dealt with to our satisfaction, but overall, especially in terms of hate, there's…

Porsche is studying flying passenger vehicles but expects it could take up to a decade to finalize technology before they can launch in real traffic, its head of development said Tuesday. Volkswagen's sports car division is in the early stages of drawing up a blueprint of a flying taxi as it ponders new mobility solutions for congested urban areas, Porsche R&D chief Michael Steiner said at the Geneva auto show. The maker of the 911 sports car would join a raft of companies working on designs for flying cars in anticipation of a shift in the transport market toward self-driving vehicles and on-demand digital mobility services. "We are looking into how individual mobility can take place in congested areas where today and in the future it is unlikely that everyone can…

Shoes that promote health and safety were featured last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Every day, billions of photos uploaded to the Internet contain faces. Experts say sophisticated algorithms can collect these images, compare and glean information – some for law enforcement agencies and some for hackers, intent on stealing and misusing that data. An Israeli company says there’s a way to prevent that. VOA’s George Putic has more. ...

Washington became the first state Monday to set up its own net-neutrality requirements after U.S. regulators repealed Obama-era rules that banned internet providers from blocking content or impairing traffic. “We know that when D.C. fails to act, Washington state has to do so,” Gov. Jay Inslee said before signing the measure that lawmakers passed with bipartisan support. “We know how important this is.” The Federal Communications Commission voted in December to gut U.S. rules that meant to prevent broadband companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from exercising more control over what people watch and see on the internet. Because the FCC prohibited state laws from contradicting its decision, opponents of the Washington law have said it would lead to lawsuits. Inslee said he was confident of its legality, saying…

There's a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It's powered by an army of real people. From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can't quite make out. Such data feeds directly into "machine learning" algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. Many such technologies wouldn't work without massive quantities of this human-labeled data. These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world - even in the U.S. And it underpins a technology that…

From a shopping center and an airport to a concert venue or even your own phone, these are all places facial recognition technology can now be used due to technological advancements in the last few years. The types of applications are growing in a world where the idea of privacy is constantly evolving. VOA's Elizabeth Lee explains. ...

For months, university students Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte had been tracking about 1,500 political propaganda accounts on Twitter that appeared to have been generated by computers when they noticed something odd. In the hours after the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the bots, short for robots, shifted into high gear, jumping into the debate about gun control. The hashtag #guncontrol gained traction among the bot network. In fact, all of the top hashtags among the bots were about the Parkland shooting, Bhat and Phadte noticed. Explainer: What Is a Twitter Bot? Twitter under fire Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, technology companies have come under fire for how their services were used by foreign-backed operations to sow discord among Americans before and after the election. Twitter, in particular,…

Social media users like to have friends and followers on various platforms. But how many accounts are real and how many are generated by computers? Two university students in California say they have a way of detecting if you're communicating with a human or a "bot". Michelle Quinn reports. ...

"A game-changer for weather forecasts." That's what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are calling the just-launched GOES-S satellite. It is the second in a pair of the most advanced weather satellites ever built. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Instagram users fed up with the service becoming more and more like Facebook are flocking to a hot new app called Vero. Vero lets you share photos and video just like Instagram, plus it lets you talk about music, movies or books you like or hate. Though Vero has been around since 2015, its popularity surged in recent days, thanks in part to sudden, word-of-mouth interest from the cosplay community — comic book fans who like to dress up as characters. That interest then spread to other online groups. There's also a growing frustration with Instagram, with a flood of ads, dearth of privacy options and a recent end to the chronological ordering of posts. Instagram users have been posting screenshots of Vero, asking their friends to join. But don't ring Instagram's…

An Egyptian teenager has turned cables and sheets of aluminum and metal into a robotic exoskeleton that he says can one day help the disabled walk. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Forget self-driving cars! Imagine a future filled with flying cars. The latest design comes from the Netherlands, where a company plans to officially unveil the newest combination of a gyrocopter and a sports car. VOA's George Putic has more. ...

Facebook Inc on Thursday put an end to a test of splitting its signature News Feed into two, an idea that roiled how people consumed news in six countries where the test occurred and added to concern about Facebook's power. The test created two streaming series of posts. One was focused on photos and other updates from friends and family, and a second was called an "explore feed." It was dedicated to material from Facebook pages that the user had liked, such as media outlets or sports teams. The social media network decided to end the test and maintain one feed because people told the company in surveys they did not like the change, Adam Mosseri, head of the News Feed at Facebook, said in a statement. "In surveys, people…

Equifax said Thursday that an additional 2.4 million Americans were impacted by last year's data breach, however these newly disclosed consumers had significantly less personal information stolen. The company says the additional consumers only had their names and a partial driver's license number stolen by the attackers, unlike the original 145.5 million Americans who had their Social Security numbers impacted. Attackers were unable to get the state where the license was issued, the date of issuance or its expiration date. In total, roughly 147.9 million Americans have been impacted by Equifax's data breach. It remains the largest data breach of personal information in history. The company says they were able to find the additional 2.4 million Americans by cross referencing names with partial driver's license numbers using both internal and…

The battle to identify and remove extremist video online just got a new weapon. Video-sharing sites can now use artificial intelligence to scan thousands of videos as they are uploaded. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Facebook wants to make it easier for people to find low-skilled jobs online. After testing the new software in U.S. and Canada since last year, Facebook added job postings Wednesday in another 40 countries across Europe and elsewhere. The software works with both Apple and PC operating systems. Users can find openings using the Jobs dashboard on Facebook's web sidebar or its mobile app's More section. The search can be filtered according to area and type of industry, as well as between full-time and part-time jobs. Users can automatically fill out applications with information from their Facebook profile, submit the applications and schedule interviews. Businesses can post job openings using the Jobs tab on their page, and include advertisements. Separately, Facebook announced the introduction of a face recognition software that…

Several high-tech companies are teaming up on a plan to put a mobile phone network on the moon next year. Vodaphone Germany, Nokia, and Audi are working on a mobile network and robotic vehicles that are part of a private expedition to the moon, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary year of the first manned lunar landing. The project with PTScientists in Germany would use a 4G network to send high-definition information from rovers back to a lunar lander, which would then be able to communicate it back to Earth.  Project scientists say the system uses less energy than having rovers speak directly to Earth, leaving more power for scientific activities.  They plan to launch the vehicles from Cape Canaveral next year on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. …

The world's biggest mobile phone trade fair, the Mobile World Congress, or MWC, opened earlier this week in Barcelona, Spain. Except for Apple, which traditionally stays away, all other big and small phone manufacturers and developers are displaying their wares as they continue to battle a market valued at $478 billion in 2017. VOA's George Putic has more. ...