Category: Technology

Many people struggle with feelings of loneliness and social isolation. For some, a robot companion might make a difference, and states like New York are starting to provide them to residents free of charge. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum Produced by: Julie Taboh, Adam Greenbaum ...

A rural town in central Texas is home to the largest bitcoin mining facility in North America, bringing jobs and welcomed vitality into the community. But critics warn the operations are part of a volatile new industry. Deana Mitchell has the story. ...

Elon Musk's deployment of thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine has been a major help for the country in its fight against Russia. VOA's Russia Service has the story. ...

Instagram is blocking posts that mention abortion from public view, in some cases requiring its users to confirm their age before letting them view posts that offer up information about the procedure.  Over the last day, several Instagram accounts run by abortion rights advocacy groups have found their posts or stories hidden with a warning that described the posts as "sensitive content." Instagram said it was working to fix the problem Tuesday, describing it as a bug.  In one example, Instagram covered a post on a page with more than 25,000 followers that shared text reading: "Abortion in America How You Can Help." The post went on to encourage followers to donate money to abortion organizations and to protest the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strip constitutional protections for abortion. …

Future waves of COVID-19 might be predicted using internet search data, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the study, researchers watched the number of COVID-related Google searches made across the country and used that information, together with conventional COVID-19 metrics such as confirmed cases, to predict hospital admission rates weeks in advance. Using the search data provided by Google Trends, scientists were able to build a computational model to forecast COVID-19 hospitalizations. Google Trends is an online portal that provides data on Google search volumes in real time. "If you have a bunch of people searching for 'COVID testing sites near me' … you're going to still feel the effects of that downstream at the hospital level in terms of admissions," said data scientist Philip…

This week, the Group of Seven leaders launched a $600 billion global infrastructure initiative they say will compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Telfs, Austria, with reporting from Patsy Widakuswara in Washington. ...

NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has successfully completed its first rocket launch from a commercial space facility outside of the United States. A 13-meter rocket blasted off Monday from a site in the Australian outback. A 13-meter sub-orbital rocket took off from the newly built Arnhem Space Centre in Australia’s Northern Territory Monday. Lift-off was delayed by about two hours because of strong winds and heavy rain. The launch was the first of its kind in Australia in more than 25 years and the first of three scheduled NASA missions from the site. Researchers hope the information gathered from the flights will help them understand how light from a star could affect the habitability of nearby planets. They have said that this type of study can only be…

Coinciding with unrelenting cyberattacks against Ukraine, state-backed Russian hackers have engaged in "strategic espionage" against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday. "Since the start of the war, the Russian targeting [of Ukraine's allies] has been successful 29 percent of the time," Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote, with data stolen in at least one-quarter of the successful network intrusions. "As a coalition of countries has come together to defend Ukraine, Russian intelligence agencies have stepped up network penetration and espionage activities targeting allied governments outside Ukraine," Smith said. Nearly two-thirds of the cyberespionage targets involved NATO members. The United States was the prime target and Poland, the main conduit for military assistance flowing to Ukraine, was No. 2. In…

Twitter's board has recommended unanimously that shareholders approve the proposed $44 billion sale of the company to billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. Musk reiterated his desire to move forward with the acquisition last week during a virtual meeting with Twitter employees, though shares of Twitter remain far below his offering price, signaling considerable doubt that it will happen. Shares rose about 3% to $38.98 before the opening bell Tuesday, far short of the $54.20 per-share that Musk has offered for each share. The company's stock last reached that level on April 5 when it offered Musk a seat on the board before he had offered to buy all of Twitter. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission detailing on Tuesday…

“I’m in a cryptocurrency chat group at work,” software engineer Adam Hickey of San Diego, California told VOA. Over the last few days, Hickey said, members of the group have been writing things like, “Bloodbath” and, “Are we still good?” “It shook me, honestly,” he admitted. “I just had to stop looking at my balance. At one point, months ago, my investment in crypto had tripled. Now I’m down 40%.” Hickey is far from alone. Serious and casual investors across the United States have seen the value of their investments in the publicly available digital asset known as cryptocurrency shrink dramatically in recent months, with steep plunges recorded in just the last week. The value of bitcoin, the most popular form of cryptocurrency, has dropped more than 70% since its…

Amazon and Cartier joined forces Wednesday in U.S. court to accuse a social media influencer of working with Chinese firms to sell knock-offs of the luxury brand's jewelry on the e-commerce giant's site.  The online personality used sites like Instagram to pitch Cartier jewelry such as "Love bracelets" to followers and then provided links that led to counterfeit versions on Amazon, one of two lawsuits alleged.  The influencer appeared to be a woman in Handan, China, and the merchants involved in the "counterfeiting scheme" were traced to other Chinese cities, according to court documents.  "By using social media to promote counterfeit products, bad actors undermine trust and mislead customers," Amazon associate general counsel Kebharu Smith said in a statement.  "We don't just want to chase them away from Amazon —…

A new study has found that Facebook has failed to catch Islamic State group and al-Shabab extremist content in posts aimed at East Africa as the region remains under threat from violent attacks and Kenya prepares to vote in a closely contested national election.  An Associated Press series last year, drawing on leaked documents shared by a Facebook whistleblower, showed how the platform repeatedly failed to act on sensitive content including hate speech in many places around the world.  The new and unrelated two-year study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found Facebook posts that openly supported IS or the Somalia-based al-Shabab — even ones carrying al-Shabab branding and calling for violence in languages including Swahili, Somali and Arabic — were allowed to be widely shared.  The report expresses particular…

Often touted as the next digital shift, the metaverse comprises three-dimensional online spaces where people can work, shop, play games, go to concerts and so on. Michelle Quinn on what the metaverse is — or might be. ...

After 35 years of decline, the number of nuclear weapons in the world is set to rise in the coming decade as global tensions flare amid Russia's war in Ukraine, researchers said Monday.   The nine nuclear powers — Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, the United States and Russia — had 12,705 nuclear warheads in early 2022, or 375 fewer than in early 2021, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).    The number has come down from a high of more than 70,000 in 1986, as the U.S. and Russia have gradually reduced their massive arsenals built up during the Cold War.  But this era of disarmament appears to be coming to an end and the risk of a nuclear escalation is now at…

Robots have long been used in manufacturing and other applications that need precise, fast and repeatable tasks. But making smart robots takes software. From Boulder, Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports. ...

Elon Musk accused Twitter of “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights,” as the Tesla founder attempts to get information about fake and spam accounts on the platform. The accusation came in a letter Musk sent to Twitter Monday in which he warned he could walk away from the $44 billion deal to take over the company should Twitter not provide the information he seeks. Musk further accused Twitter of a "clear material breach" of its obligation to provide the data. "Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover," according to the letter. “Twitter has, in fact,…

A crewless robotic boat that had tried to retrace the 1620 sea voyage of the Mayflower has finally reached the shores of North America — this time in Canada instead of the Massachusetts coast where its namesake landed more than 400 years ago.  The sleek autonomous trimaran docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday, after more than five weeks crossing the Atlantic Ocean from England, according to tech company IBM, which helped build it.  Piloted by artificial intelligence technology, the 50-foot (15-meter) Mayflower Autonomous Ship didn't have a captain, navigator or human on board — though it might have helped to have a mechanic.  "The technology that makes up the autonomous system worked perfectly, flawlessly," said Rob High, an IBM computing executive involved in the project. "Mechanically, we did run…

For many, grasping the concept behind cryptocurrencies is difficult enough. But let's try to take a closer look into how they work. Matt Dibble explains. ...

Guided by data from a bird-watching app, conservationists and farmers are creating instant wetlands for birds travelling thousands of miles. Matt Dibble has the story ...

Researchers say DNA can replace hard drives to help store the world’s ever-increasing digital output. Matt Dibble has the story    ...

The arrival of the pandemic intensified feelings of loneliness and social isolation for millions of older people, many of whom were already battling depression and other health issues. For those struggling, a robot companion might make a difference, and states like New York are starting to provide them to residents free of charge. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum ...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine appears to be having an unanticipated impact in cyberspace — a decrease in the number of ransomware attacks.  "We have seen a recent decline since the Ukrainian invasion," Rob Joyce, the U.S. National Security Agency's director of cybersecurity, told a virtual forum Wednesday.  Joyce said one reason for the decrease in ransomware attacks since the February 24 invasion is likely improved awareness and defensive measures by U.S. businesses.  He also said some of it is tied to measures the United States and its Western allies have taken against Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine.  "We've definitively seen the criminal actors in Russia complain that the functions of sanctions and the distance of their ability to use credit cards and other payment methods to get…

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, is hosting its second annual Africa Day campaign to promote Africans who are making a global impact. The content producer for the film project, South African filmmaker Tarryn Crossman, said Meta identified eight innovators, creators and businesspeople on the continent whose stories the company wanted told for the "Made by Africa, Loved by the World" campaign. Crossman's company, Tia Productions, teamed up with Mashoba Media to find four fellow filmmakers in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their job was to make two- to three-minute documentaries about the subjects. "So, for example we did Trevor Stuurman here in South Africa," Crossman said. "He's a visual artist and his line was, I just loved so much, he says: 'Africa's no longer the…

 Facebook parent Meta said it will start publicly providing more details about how advertisers target people with political ads just months ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.  The announcement follows years of criticism that the social media platforms withhold too much information about how campaigns, special interest groups and politicians use the platform to target small pockets of people with polarizing, divisive or misleading messages.  Meta, which also owns Instagram, said it will start releasing details in July about the demographics and interests of audiences who are targeted with ads that run on its two primary social networks. The company will also share how much advertisers spent in an effort to target people in certain states.  "By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about…

A South African company that promotes solar power and uses crowdsourcing to raise capital is financing a solar-powered farm in Zimbabwe that is also benefiting neighboring farmers. The company, The Sun Exchange, raised $1.4 million for the farm. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Marondera, Zimbabwe. ...

When Chandler Jones realized she was pregnant during her junior year of college, she turned to a trusted source for information and advice. Her cellphone. "I couldn't imagine before the internet, trying to navigate this," said Jones, 26, who graduated Tuesday from the University of Baltimore School of Law. "I didn't know if hospitals did abortions. I knew Planned Parenthood did abortions, but there were none near me. So I kind of just Googled." But with each search, Jones was being surreptitiously followed — by the phone apps and browsers that track us as we click away, capturing even our most sensitive health data. Online searches. Period apps. Fitness trackers. Advice helplines. GPS. The often obscure companies collecting our health history and geolocation data may know more about us than…

The Apple Store at Union Square, the heart of San Francisco’s upscale tourist district, had drawn more than 30 customers within a few minutes of opening Friday morning. Visitors, couples and even a preschool-age boy browsed the atrium packed with iPhone 13s and watches to try out. A sign urged people to trade in old phones to save money on the 13s.  But a staff member could not say when the iPhone 14 would come out — presumably sometime this year — or what it would cost. Some shoppers wondered whether it would be delayed or cost more than expected given the months of supply chain disruptions in China, where the phones are made.  “This stuff has got to hit hard at some point,” said Bill Kimberlin, an Apple Store…

The Ukrainian government is using facial recognition software to identify Russian soldiers captured and dead. VOA's Julie Taboh spoke with one software company CEO and an official with the Ukrainian national police about how the technology is contributing to the war effort ...