Category: Technology

Kenyan innovators are betting on digital technologies to attract young people to agriculture currently dominated by an aging population. With 98 percent mobile phone penetration, according to the latest data from the Communications Authority of Kenya, the cellphone is proving to be an important source of extension services in areas where such services are not available. Sarah Kimani reports for VOA from Kinoo, Kenya. ...

All too often what looks like haze is actually tiny particles in the air that are so small you can breathe them in, and they can be dangerous. Now a group of citizen scientists with help from the National Science Foundation is creating a network of sensors that could warn people when the air they breathe turns bad. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...

As Notre Dame Cathedral burned, a posting on Facebook circulated - a grainy video of what appeared to be a man in traditional Muslim garb up in the cathedral. Fact-checkers worldwide jumped into action and pointed out the video and postings were fake and the posts never went viral. But this week, the Sri Lanka government temporarily shut down Facebook and other sites to stop the spread of misinformation in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings in the country that killed more than 250 people. Last year, misinformation on Facebook was blamed for contributing to riots in the country. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others are increasingly being held responsible for the content on their sites as the world tries to grapple in real time with events as they unfold.…

Social media companies such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are not legally responsible for the content that users upload to their sites. That legal protection has been key to their explosive growth, but there is a growing consensus that companies must do more to root out misleading content. Michelle Quinn reports, the companies may be taking action in the hope of avoiding stricter government regulation. ...

Amazon.com Inc plans to deliver packages to members of its loyalty club Prime in just one day, instead of two days, part of a spending ramp-up that might curb future profits after a blockbuster first quarter. Shares rose as much as 2% in after-hours trade on Thursday on the faster shipping announcement for customers around the globe and as Amazon's first-quarter profit trounced estimates thanks to soaring demand for its cloud and ad services. Amazon will spend $800 million in the second quarter on the goal.  The announcement adds pressure to rivals Walmart Inc and others already racing to keep pace with the speed and benefits of Amazon's Prime program. Amazon's first-quarter net income more than doubled to $3.6 billion, while analysts were only expecting $2.4 billion, according to IBES…

Facebook Inc broke Canadian privacy laws when it collected the information of some 600,000 citizens, a top watchdog said on Thursday, pledging to seek a court order to force the social media giant to change its practices. Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien made his comments while releasing the results of an investigation, opened a year ago, into a data sharing scandal involving Facebook and the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Though Facebook has acknowledged a "major breach of trust" in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company disputed the results of the Canadian probe, Therrien said. "Facebook's refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company," said Therrien. Specifically, the company refused to voluntarily submit to audits of…

Facebook's lead regulator in the European Union, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner, on Thursday said it had launched an inquiry into whether the company violated EU data rules by saving user passwords in plain text format on internal servers. The probe is the latest to be launched out of Dublin into the social network giant. The Irish regulator in February said it had seven statutory inquiries into Facebook and three more into Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook in March announced that it has resolved a glitch that exposed passwords of millions of users stored in readable format within its internal systems to its employees. The passwords were accessible to as many as 20,000 Facebook employees and dated back as early as 2012, cyber security blog KrebsOnSecurity, which first reported the issue,…

Microsoft said profits climbed in the past quarter on its cloud and business services as the U.S. technology giant saw its market value close in on the trillion-dollar mark. Profits in the quarter to March 31 rose 19 percent to $8.8 billion on revenues of $30.8 billion, an increase of 14 percent from the same period a year earlier. Microsoft shares gained some 3% in after-hours trade, pushing it closer to $1 trillion in value.  It ended the session Wednesday with a market valuation of some $960 million, just behind Apple but ahead of Amazon. In the fiscal third quarter, Microsoft showed its reliance on cloud computing and other business services which now drive its earnings, in contrast to its earlier days when it focused on consumer PC software. "Leading…

Technology firms should do more to connect people in positive ways and steer away from trends that have tended to exploit human weaknesses, ethicists told a meeting of Silicon Valley leaders on Tuesday. Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin are the co-founders of the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology and the ones who prompted Apple and Google to nudge phone users toward reducing their screen time. Now they want companies and regulators to focus on reversing what they called "human downgrading," which they see as at the root of a dozen worsening problems, by reconsidering the design and financial incentives of their systems. Before a hand-picked crowd of about 300 technologists, philanthropists and others concerned with issues such as internet addiction, political polarization, and the spread of misinformation on the web,…

Imagine stepping into a movie or virtual world and being able to interact with what’s there. That’s now possible through the magic of Hollywood combined with virtual reality technology.  For $20, the company Dreamscape takes visitors through a multi-sensory journey. Currently in Los Angeles, creators say they plan on opening more virtual reality venues across the U.S. and eventually to other countries.   Once visitors step through these doors, they leave behind reality and embark on a journey to another world. “We see Dreamscape as a travel agency that will take you on adventures that transcend time, space and dimension,” Bruce Vaughn, Dreamscape Immersive chief executive officer, said.    Vaughn used to work on Disney theme park attractions and special effects.   Imagine a trip to a zoo filled with alien creatures from outer space…

In the wake of the Christchurch attack, New Zealand said on Wednesday that it would work with France in an effort to stop social media from being used to promote terrorism and violent extremism. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement that she will co-chair a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on May 15 that will seek to have world leaders and CEOs of tech companies agree to a pledge, called the Christchurch Call, to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. A lone gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, while livestreaming the massacre on Facebook. Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, has been charged with 50 counts of murder for the mass shooting. "It's critical that technology platforms…

With U.S. social media companies tightening their content policies in the wake of the recent mosque shootings in New Zealand, some extremist groups are getting pushed to the margins of the internet. Researchers say that has turned Russian social media platforms such as VKontakte, or VK, into safe harbors for an ever greater number of white nationalists seeking to communicate with each other and get their messages out. VOA's Anush Avetisyan has more. ...

Google affiliate Wing Aviation has received federal approval allowing it to make commercial deliveries by drone.  It's the first time a company has gotten a federal air carrier certification for drone deliveries.  The approval from the Federal Aviation Administration means that Wing can operate commercial drone flights in part of Virginia, which it plans to begin later this year. The FAA said Tuesday that the company met the agency's safety requirements by participating in a pilot program in Virginia with the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership and Virginia Tech, and by conducting thousands of flights in Australia over the past several years. “This is an important step forward for the safe testing and integration of drones into our economy,'' Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement.  Wing said the approval "means…

Samsung said Monday it was delaying the launch of its folding smartphone after trouble with handsets sent to reviewers. Some reviewers who got their hands on the Galaxy Fold early reported problems with screens breaking. Samsung said it decided to put off this week's planned release of the Fold after some reviews "showed us how the device needs further improvements." The South Korean consumer electronics giant planned to announce a new release date for the Galaxy Fold in the coming weeks. Initial analysis of reported problems with Galaxy Fold screens showed they could be "associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge," Samsung said. There was also an instance where unspecified "substances" were found inside a Galaxy Fold smartphone with a troubled display, according to…

People in Sri Lanka are experiencing a second day without access to some of the most popular social media sites within the country, after the government shut down the services in the wake of a terror attack that killed nearly 300 people and injured hundreds on Easter Sunday. Facebook and its properties — Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger — were blocked. Access to Snapchat was turned off, as was Viper, a popular chat application.  The government said it blocked access to the sites because false news reports were spreading through social media. A lack of trust  Sri Lanka's shutdown of social media is a "wake-up call," said Ivan Sigal, executive director of Global Voices, a digital advocacy and journalism organization.  The shutdown reflects governments' worldwide growing mistrust of Facebook, Google and other digital platforms during…

Fifth generation mobile networks, better known as “5G,” promise ultra-fast connections and more reliability. But getting these networks up and running won’t happen overnight, and only a handful of U.S. cities have initial access. New York City is building an experimental network that tests the limits of 5G and beyond. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explains. ...

Tesla broadcast a web presentation on Monday to update investors about its self-driving strategy as Chief Executive Elon Musk tries to show that the electric car maker's massive investment in the sector will pay off. Global carmakers, large technology companies and an array of startups are developing self-driving — including Alphabet Inc's Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc — but experts say it will be years before the systems are ready for deployment. Musk previously forecast that by 2018 cars would go "from your driveway to work without you touching anything." Teslas still require human intervention and are not considered fully self-driving, according to industry standards. The webcast, scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. PT (1800 GMT), was delayed and Tesla showed a repeating video of its vehicles for 30 minutes.…

Ford is showing off its new fleet of electric vehicles. Some of the standouts include a new hybrid plug-in and the promise of a new, all-electric model by 2022. The U.S. automaker plans to have a fleet of 40 different electric vehicles on the roads in the next three years. VOA'S Kevin Enochs reports. ...

British agriculture is going high-tech. Farmers recently tested cutting-edge technology like robots that autonomously tend fields and wireless cattle that may connect faster to the farm than you to your favorite app. Incoming message from Arash Arabasadi. ...

Recent technological advances demonstrated by China have started an intense debate on whether it is set to take a lead in the field of artificial intelligence, or AI, which has extensive business and military applications. U.S. concerns about China's AI advances have also influenced, in part, the ongoing trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing. Both the United States and European Union are taking measures to stop information leaks that are reportedly helping Chinese companies at the expense of Western business. But many analysts are saying that Chinese corporate and defense-related research in areas like AI and 5G wireless technologies can thrive on their own even if information from the Western world is shut off. China is already reportedly leading in several segments of businesses like autonomous vehicles, facial recognition and…

College student Fatima Guerra, 19, will be the first to admit, she’s into some really nerdy stuff. “Like, up there nerdy.” "Way up there nerdy," she says. "All the way up into space." Guerra is an astronomer in training, involved since a high school internship with a small project at the Adler Planetarium, with big goals. “Our main goal was to see if the ozone layer is getting thinner and by how much, and if there is different parts of the Earth’s atmosphere getting thinner because of the pollution and greenhouse gases,” she told VOA from the laboratory at the Adler where she often works. ​Coding ThinSat Data that sheds light on those circumstances is gathered by a small electronic device called “ThinSat” designed to orbit the Earth. It is…

For some, the launch of a rocket into space to resupply the International Space Station is a routine mission. But for a group of students working with the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, it is a historic moment marking the achievement of a lifetime. VOA's Kane Farabaugh has more from Chicago. ...

Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it may have "unintentionally uploaded" email contacts of 1.5 million new users since May 2016, in what seems to be the latest privacy-related issue faced by the social media company. In March, Facebook had stopped offering email password verification as an option for people who signed up for the first time, the company said. There were cases in which email contacts of people were uploaded to Facebook when they created their account, the company said. "We estimate that up to 1.5 million people's email contacts may have been uploaded. These contacts were not shared with anyone and we are deleting them," Facebook told Reuters, adding that users whose contacts were imported will be notified. The underlying glitch has been fixed, according to the company statement.…

Google said Thursday it will start giving European Union smartphone users a choice of browsers and search apps on its Android operating system, in changes designed to comply with an EU antitrust ruling. Following an Android update, users will be shown two new screens giving them the new options, Google product management director Paul Gennai said in a blog post. The EU’s executive Commission slapped the Silicon Valley giant with a record 4.34 billion euro (then $5 billion) antitrust fine in July after finding that it abused the dominance of Android by forcing handset and tablet makers to install Google apps, reducing consumer choice. The commission had ordered Google to come up with a remedy or face further fines. The company, which is appealing the ruling, said the changes are…

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said it has received a few reports of damage to the main display of samples of its upcoming foldable smartphone and that it will investigate. Some tech reviewers of the Galaxy Fold, a splashy $1,980 phone that opens into a tablet and that goes on sale in the United States April 26, said the phone malfunctioned after only a day or two of use. “We will thoroughly inspect these units in person to determine the cause of the matter,” Samsung said in a statement, noting that a limited number of early Galaxy Fold samples were provided to media for review. Screen cracking, flickering The problem seems to be related to the unit’s screen either cracking or flickering, according to Twitter posts by technology journalists…

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued its first guidelines on digital health intervention. The U.N. agency said governments can improve the health of their citizens by using digital technology to make health systems more efficient and responsive to their patients. The United Nations said 51 percent of the world's population has access to broadband internet service. Chief WHO scientist Soumya Swaminathan said increased availability and use of digital technology offers new opportunities to improve people's health. She told VOA the technology enables people, even in the remotest settings, to leapfrog into the development of a more effective, inclusive health system. With the use of mobile phones, computers and laptops, she said it is possible to bypass the intervening stages many countries have had to go through. "So, a health…

Scientists in Israel have revealed what they say is the world's first 3D-printed heart using human tissue. It's hoped the small heart will pave the way for transplants without donors, when every hospital might have access to 3D organ printers. Faith Lapidus reports. ...

Tech toys used to be their own category at the toy store, but just as technology has become unavoidable in day-to-day life, so too has it become more integrated into toys for children. Tina Trinh reports. ...