Category: Technology

Elias, the new language teacher at a Finnish primary school, has endless patience for repetition, never makes a pupil feel embarrassed for asking a question, and can even do the "Gangnam Style" dance. Elias is also a robot. The language-teaching machine comprises a humanoid robot…

FBI officials could have tried harder to unlock an iPhone as part of a terrorism investigation before launching an extraordinary court fight with Apple Inc. in an effort to force it to break open the device, the Justice Department’s watchdog said Tuesday. The department’s inspector…

One of today’s most affordable sources of fossil-based energy is natural gas, which consists primarily of methane. Found in remote, deep underground reservoirs, the gas must be transported through long pipelines with thousands of connections, valves and pumping stations, which are inevitably prone to leaks.…

To get an idea of the data Facebook collects about you, just ask for it. You'll get a file with every photo and comment you've posted, all the ads you've clicked on, stuff you've liked and searched for and everyone you've friended — and unfriended…

Internet gear maker Cisco Systems Inc. announced Monday that it will donate $50 million over five years to address the growing problem of homelessness in California's Santa Clara County and is encouraging other Silicon Valley companies to make similar efforts.   In a blog post,…

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday it is investigating the privacy controls of social media giant Facebook in the aftermath of reports that the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users was compromised by the British voter profiling firm Cambridge Analytica. The…

The controversy over the British-based data mining company, Cambridge Analytica, which faces allegations of using the personal data of millions of Facebook followers to influence the U.S. election, is reverberating in India, which is due to hold national elections next year. The website of the…

The exotic Tasmanian tiger once roamed Australia and New Guinea. It looked like a cross between a tiger and a dog, and is believed to have become extinct in the wild in the 20th century. The last one died in a zoo in the 1930’s.…

On the same day Facebook bought ads in U.S. and British newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media site faced new questions about collecting phone numbers and text messages from Android devices. The website Ars Technica reported that users who checked…

Facebook co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg apologized Sunday in full-page ads in nine major British and U.S. newspapers for the massive "breach of trust" at the social media giant that revealed personal information of millions of Facebook users. Zuckerberg did not mention the…

Scientists are monitoring a defunct Chinese space station that is expected to fall to Earth around the end of the month, the largest manmade object to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in a decade. The head of the European Space Agency’s debris office, Holger Krag, says China’s…

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Even more so, when the invention is something a loved one needs. That was the case for a young Syrian woman who invented a GPS-equipped life vest. VOA's Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Increasingly popular wind turbines are getting bigger and making more power, but there is a limit to their size. At some point they become too big, too difficult to transport and install, and strong winds can bend them out of shape. But researchers led by…

What does it take to build a thriving technology company – and an environment in which black techies, their financial backers and their markets can flourish? That question underpins the new VOA documentary "Beyond the Unicorn."  Subtitled "Africans Making IT in Silicon Valley," it explores…

Austin, Texas, is not California's Silicon Valley technology corridor. But companies from Silicon Valley and other major U.S. hubs are taking notice of Austin's growing tech scene. Austin's lower cost of living and doing business, combined with its smaller size, are just a few reasons…

Now that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about the firm's data controversy, the chief question remains whether the changes he outlined will be enough to restore the public's trust in the social media giant.   In a series of media interviews this week,…

Being black and working in the tech industry can be an isolating experience. New York nonprofit Ascend Leadership analyzed the hiring data of hundreds of San Francisco Bay-area tech companies from 2007 and 2015 and issued a report last year, detailing the lack of diversity in…

Being black and working in the tech industry can be an isolating experience. But at the Afrotectopia festival in New York, it's what everyone has in common. Tina Trinh meets with the creative people exploring the intersection of race and technology. ...

A public apology by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg failed Thursday to quell outrage over the hijacking of personal data from millions of people, as critics demanded that the social media giant go much further to protect user privacy. Speaking out for the first time about…

Two experts say video of a deadly crash involving a self-driving Uber vehicle shows the sport utility vehicle's laser and radar sensors should have spotted a pedestrian, and computers should have braked to avoid the crash. Authorities investigating the crash in a Phoenix suburb released…

Facebook is coming under intense criticism following reports that information from 50 million users was gathered by a voter data firm. Lawmakers are demanding answers, and Facebook stock has lost about $35 billion in its value. Michelle Quinn reports on the threats the company faces.…

A British tech company is using donated human heart tissue to replicate the "beating" action of heart muscle to aid preclinical testing of new drugs. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Silicon Valley is less than 3% black, with an even smaller numbers of Africans. The race gap is actually much larger than the gender gap, and it’s growing. Join us for a live screening of "Beyond the Unicorn," a VOA documentary about the issue, followed…

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab plans to open a data center in Switzerland to address Western government concerns that Russia exploits its anti-virus software to spy on customers, according to internal documents seen by Reuters. Kaspersky is setting up the center in response to actions in the…

When you are watching a television show and see someone get their heart shocked back into a rhythm, you will see their entire body rise up in the air. That's what happens when a defibrillator is used, because the shock is that powerful. As VOA's…

Social media giant Facebook faced new investigations Tuesday in both Britain and the United States about the vast troves of information compiled by the company about their users and how that data has been deployed to influence elections by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling…

The Facebook backlash is intensifying. Congressional leaders, regulators in the United States and Europe and state officials are putting pressure on Facebook to answer questions about fresh allegations over how the social networking giant was manipulated in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.…

A fatal pedestrian crash involving a self-driving Uber SUV in a Phoenix suburb could have far-reaching consequences for the new technology as automakers and other companies race to be the first with cars that operate on their own. The crash Sunday night in Tempe was…