Category: Technology

Technology and spirituality normally don’t go together. But at a recent conference in San Francisco there were tips on how to use technology to achieve more inner peace. Deana Mitchell went to see if it was possible. ...

Motion capture technology is no longer just available for filmmakers and video game makers to transform human actors into other creatures. With the smartphone and other technologies, anyone can have their movements captured and analyzed to learn about how the body is moving for better physical performance and to avoid injuries.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.  ...

A virtual library housing censored articles from around the world has been created within the hugely popular video game Minecraft by press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).   Minecraft, with its signature pixelated graphics, enables players to build entire universes from Lego-like digital blocks, either alone or with others online.   RSF said it had put work by banned, exiled or killed journalists in five countries — Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Vietnam — on an open server, making it available for players to view despite local censorship laws.   "In these countries, where websites, blogs and free press in general are strictly limited, Minecraft is still accessible by everyone," the group said in a press release.   "These articles are now available again within Minecraft, hidden from government surveillance technology inside a computer game. The…

The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) department suffered a cyberattack Sunday night, according to news reports.The attack, first reported by Bloomberg, took place as the United States is enacted new measures to quell the spread of the novel coronavirus.Sources say the attack was geared to slowing down HHS operations related to the coronavirus, but failed to do so in a meaningful way, according to Bloomberg.The reported attack is still being investigated and there is not yet an indication of who or what may have been behind it. ...

Apple Inc said late on Friday it will close all its retail stores, except those in Greater China, for the next two weeks to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission."We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27," Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a letter posted on the company's website."In all of our offices, we are moving to flexible work arrangements worldwide outside of Greater China," he added. "That means team members should work remotely if their job allows."Apple reopened all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday.The company's donations to the global coronavirus response, to help treat those who are sick and to help lessen the economic and community impacts, reached $15 million on Friday, Cook wrote in the letter.More…

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Friday he is stepping down from the company's board to focus on philanthropy.Gates was Microsoft's CEO until 2000 and since then has gradually scaled back his involvement in the company he started with Paul Allen in 1975.He transitioned out of a day-to-day role in Microsoft in 2008 and served as chairman of the board until 2014.The billionaire announced Friday that he's leaving the Microsoft board entirely as well as his seat on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate headed by fellow billionaire Warren Buffett.Gates said he plans to dedicate more time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He will also remain a technology adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other company leaders. ...

The Pentagon is reconsidering its awarding of a major cloud computing contract to Microsoft after rival tech giant Amazon protested what it called a flawed bidding process.U.S. government lawyers said in a court filing this week that the Defense Department "wishes to reconsider its award decision" and take another look at how it evaluated technical aspects of the companies' proposals to run the $10 billion computing project.The filing doesn't address Amazon's broader argument that the bidding was improperly influenced by President Donald Trump's dislike of Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. Bezos owns The Washington Post, a news outlet with which Trump has often clashed.Amazon Web Services is a market leader in providing cloud computing services and had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pentagon's Joint Enterprise…

Two Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at banning federal employees from using Chinese social media app TikTok on their government-issued phones, amid growing national security concerns around the collection and sharing of data on U.S. users with China's government.The bill by Senators Josh Hawley and Rick Scott comes as several U.S. agencies that deal with national security and intelligence issues including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have banned employees from using the app.It is also the latest attempt to rein in technology companies by Hawley, who has repeatedly clashed with big tech companies and has a notably nuanced and aggressive approach when questioning tech executives in congressional hearings."TikTok is owned by a Chinese company that includes Chinese Communist Party members on its board,…

The US needs a top-level cybersecurity coordinator and a better strategy of "deterrence" to protect against hackers and other cyber threats, a congressionally mandated commission said Wednesday.Defense in cyberspace requires a series of government reforms and policies to strike back at attackers, according to the report by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.The bipartisan panel which included lawmakers and private sector experts made more than 80 recommendations ranging from reforms in the executive and legislative branches to better cooperation with allies to secure cyberspace."The reality is that we are dangerously insecure," said a statement from Senator Angus King and Representative Mike Gallagher, co-chairs of the panel which took its name from an Eisenhower-era foreign policy project."Your entire life -- your paycheck, your health care, your electricity -- increasingly relies on networks of…

A SpaceX cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station on Monday, delivering the company's 20th batch of gear and treats.The Dragon capsule reached the orbiting lab after launching late Friday night. NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir used the station's robot arm to capture the spacecraft.The 4,300-pound (1,950-kilogram) shipment contains science experiments and equipment, as well as special goodies for the three-person crew aloft for months: grapefruit, tomatoes, Skittles, Reese's Pieces and Hot Tamales.This is the last of SpaceX's original-style Dragons. All future ones are designed to carry either cargo or crew, and will dock automatically rather than require robot-arm assistance. SpaceX has been sending up station cargo since 2012 and plans to start launching NASA astronauts this spring.From 260 miles (418 kilometers) up, Meir congratulated SpaceX on…

In March 2012, a 25-year-old Russian computer whiz named Yevgeny Nikulin sat with several others in a conference room in a hotel in eastern Moscow. A video taken by a Ukrainian named Oleksandr Ieremenko showed them discussing plans for an Internet cafe business and other matters.In an earlier part of the video, Ieremenko, 19, drives to the hotel to meet the group, which he calls a "summit of bad [expletives]."That same month, according to U.S. prosecutors, Nikulin broke into a social media company engineer's computer a half a world away, in California — and allegedly stole the usernames and passwords used by tens of millions of people to access their LinkedIn accounts. Some of that data was put up for sale on a notorious Russian hacker forum that June.These details…

In a lively Muslim quarter of Nanchang city, a sprawling Chinese factory turns out computer screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners for a supplier to international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo. Throughout the neighborhood, women in headscarves stroll through the streets, and Arabic signs advertise halal supermarkets and noodle shops.Yet the mostly Over the past four years, the Chinese government has detained more than a million people from the far west Xinjiang region, most of them Uighurs, in internment camps and prisons where they go through The Chinese government says the labor program is a way to train Uighurs and other minorities and give them jobs. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday called concern over possible coerced labor under the program “groundless” and “slander.”However, experts say that…

A U.S. senator is introducing legislation that would ban government employees from using the social media app TikTok on their government devices.Josh Hawley, a Republican representing the state of Missouri, said at a hearing Wednesday the data the Chinese-owned app collects and the potential for it to be shared with China’s government represent a “majority security risk for the American people.”He said similar bans are in place at some of the biggest federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and the State Department.Hawley did not say exactly when he would introduce the bill.The effort is the latest security scrutiny of TikTok, which allows users to post and view short videos.The company has said any data from U.S. users is stored in the United States and not subject to any Chinese…

Firefighters who run into burning buildings or attack wildfires face considerable risks despite their protective gear.  Until recent trials in Spain, central command centers had no way to monitor the health of their teams.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports that recently changed because of one inventive firefighter and a large cash prize. ...

Twitter staff across the world were asked to work from home starting Monday in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly new coronavirus epidemic.At the same time, thousands of staff at Google's European headquarters in Ireland were told to stay away for the day after one employee reported flu-like symptoms.The outbreak has spread across the world since emerging in central China late last year, killing more than 3,100 people, infecting over 90,000, and prompting a wave of travel restrictions.Twitter's decision to ask its staff to avoid the office follows similar requests by governments in virus hotspots."We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they're able," Twitter human resources chief Jennifer Christie said in a Monday blog post."Our goal is to lower the probability of…

The United States appears to have found a new partner in its drive to discourage European allies from building their 5G telecommunication networks with Chinese equipment.In a joint declaration last week, the U.S. and the Baltic nation of Latvia agreed to encourage the use of “reliable and trustworthy network hardware” as the world builds out the next generation of telecom networks and to promote frameworks that protect against “unauthorized access and interference.” The declaration did not name any country or company, but it comes in the context of a U.S. campaign to steer countries away from Chinese-based Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of 5G equipment, which Washington fears is vulnerable to Chinese spying.FILE - Signage is seen at the Huawei offices in Reading, Britain, May 2, 2019.The American effort has…

Technology is finally able to make food appear. With help from a local NGO, hungry kids in Kenya can now get a hot lunch for a few pennies with just a tap of their wrists. It happens using short-range Wi-Fi, as VOA's Arash Arabasadi reports. ...

Britain's most senior police officer on Monday called on the government to create a legal framework for police use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.Speaking about live facial recognition, which police in London started using in January, London police chief Cressida Dick said that she welcomed the government's 2019 manifesto pledge to create a legal framework for the police use of new technology like AI, biometrics and DNA."The best way to ensure that the police use new and emerging tech in a way that has the country's support is for the government to bring in an enabling legislative framework that is debated through Parliament, consulted on in public and which will outline the boundaries for how the police should or should not use tech," Dick said."Give us the law…

NASA says Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who worked on NASA's early space missions and was portrayed in the film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died.     In a Monday morning tweet, the space agency said it celebrates her 101 years of life and her legacy of excellence and breaking down racial and social barriers.     Johnson was one of the so-called “computers” who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits by hand during NASA's early years.     Until 1958, Johnson and other black women worked in a racially segregated computing unit at what is now called Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Their work was the focus of the Oscar-nominated 2016 film.     In 1961, Johnson worked on the first mission to carry…

New Mexico's attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque claims Google is using its education services package that is marketed to school districts, teachers and parents as a way to spy on children and their families.Attorney General Hector Balderas said that while the company touts Google Education as a valuable tool for resource-deprived schools, it is a means to monitor children while they browse the internet in the classroom and at home on private networks. He said the information being mined includes everything from physical locations to websites visited, videos watched, saved passwords and contact lists.The state is seeking unspecified civil penalties.“Student safety should…

Google is attempting to make sure people know exactly what they're signing up for when they use its online services — though that will still mean reading a lengthy document.The company updated its terms of service on Thursday — its largest update to the general use contract since 2012 — in response to a pair of court orders in Europe.Google has been updating its policies and tweaking what is and isn't allowed on its sites for the past couple of years as scrutiny of the tech industry heats up across the U.S. and Europe. Google, Facebook, Twitter and other digital companies have been forced under a spotlight as regulators and customers examine just how much the companies know about their users and what they do with that information.Facebook last year…

U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday questioned whether Facebook, Google and other major online platforms still need the immunity from legal liability that has prevented them from being sued over material their users post. "No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts. They have become titans," Barr said at a public meeting held by the Justice Department to examine the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "Given this changing technological landscape, valid questions have been raised about whether Section 230's broad immunity is necessary, at least in its current form," he said. Section 230 says online companies such as Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Twitter Inc. cannot be treated as the publisher or speaker of information they provide. This largely exempts them from liability involving content posted by users, although they can be held liable for content that violates criminal or intellectual property…

A federal judge in Texas has dismissed Chinese tech giant Huawei's lawsuit challenging a U.S. law that bars the government and its contractors from using Huawei equipment because of security concerns.The lawsuit, filed last March, sought to declare the law unconstitutional. Huawei argued the law singled out the company for punishment, denied it due process and amounted to a "death penalty."But a court ruled Tuesday that the ban isn't punitive and that the federal government has the right to take its business elsewhere.Huawei, China's first global tech brand, is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tensions over technology competition and digital spying. The company has spent years trying to put to rest accusations that it facilitates Chinese spying and that it is controlled by the ruling Communist Party.The lawsuit was filed…

Spain’s government approved Tuesday the introduction of new taxes on digital business and stock market transactions, following similar steps by other European countries.The Cabinet agreed at its weekly meeting to adopt the so-called Google tax and Tobin tax. The measures still require parliament’s approval.Finance Minister Mara Jesus Montero said the Google tax, which has angered U.S. authorities and brought a threat of tariffs by the Trump administration, will be levied only from the end of the year.By then, the government hopes an international agreement on digital business taxes will be in place. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which advises the world’s rich countries on policies, is currently trying to draw up the agreement.Montero said the government wants a “fairer” tax system, adapted to the new economic trends of…

As some of the negative effects of life lived online become more apparent, “digital wellness” groups are promoting ways to maintain healthy lifestyles. Deana Mitchell reports  ...

Women and minorities pursuing computer science degrees often feel alone and isolated, since the field is overwhelmingly dominated by men. While about 60 percent of all 2017 bachelor’s degree recipients in the U.S. were women, only about 20 percent of Computer and Information Science bachelor’s degree recipients went to women, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). But an innovative program initiated by a global non-profit in partnership with universities across the U.S. has already made impressive gains in helping to boost those numbers. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. ...

Facebook warned of threats to innovation and freedom of expression on Monday, ahead of the release of a raft of rules by the European Union this week and in coming months to rein in U.S. tech giants and Chinese companies.The social media giant laid out its concerns in a white paper, and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was expected to reiterate the message to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and EU industry chief Thierry Breton in Brussels on Monday.Referring to the possibility that the EU may hold internet companies responsible for hate speech and other illegal speech published on their platforms, Facebook said this ignores the nature of the internet."Such liability would stifle innovation as well as individuals' freedom of expression," it said in the white paper.It suggested new frameworks that…

Women and minorities pursuing computer science degrees often feel alone and isolated, since the field is overwhelmingly dominated by men. While about 60 percent of all 2017 bachelor’s degree recipients in the U.S. were women, only about 20 percent of Computer and Information Science bachelor’s degree recipients went to women, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). But an innovative program initiated by a global non-profit in partnership with universities across the U.S. has already made impressive gains in helping to boost those numbers. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. ...