Category: Technology

Microsoft recently rejected a California law enforcement agency’s request to install facial recognition technology in officers’ cars and body cameras because of human rights concerns, company President Brad Smith said Tuesday. Microsoft concluded it would lead to innocent women and minorities being disproportionately held for questioning because the artificial intelligence has been trained on mostly white, male pictures. AI has more cases of mistaken identity with women and minorities, multiple research projects have found. “Anytime they pulled anyone over, they wanted to run a face scan” against a database of suspects, Smith said without naming the agency. After thinking through the uneven impact, “we said this technology is not your answer.” Prison contract accepted Speaking at a Stanford University conference on “human-centered artificial intelligence,” Smith said Microsoft had also declined…

Automakers are showcasing electric SUVs and sedans with more driving range and luxury features at the Shanghai auto show, trying to appeal to Chinese buyers in their biggest market as Beijing slashes subsidies that have propelled demand.  Communist leaders wanting China to lead in electric vehicles have imposed sales targets. That requires brands to pour money into creating models to compete with gasoline-powered vehicles on price, looks and performance at a time when they are struggling with a Chinese sales slump.  General Motors, Volkswagen, China's Geely and other brands on Tuesday displayed dozens of models, from luxury SUVs to compacts priced under $10,000, at Auto Shanghai 2019. The show, the global industry's biggest marketing event of the year, opens to the public Saturday following a preview for reporters. On Monday,…

Most wireless communications use RF or radio frequency communications to send data back and forth. But all that information can slow things down. One National Science Foundation supported researcher is using light to send information, and, as we hear from VOA's Kevin Enochs, it’s quicker and more secure than RF. ...

The vibrant colors and hues that make up Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings soon will be on full display for color blind visitors The vibrant colors and hues in Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings soon will be on full display for color blind visitors. The Santa Fe museum announced Monday it's teaming up with California-based EnChroma to expand the gallery experience through special glasses. Starting May 3, visitors with red-green color blindness can borrow glasses to see O'Keeffe's work in the way that she intended.  One of the museum's curators, Katrina Stacy, says O'Keeffe in her later years developed visual impairment from macular degeneration and turned her attention to sculpture.  Stacy says the project with EnChroma has ties to that part of the artist's story. EnChroma co-founder Andrew Schmeder says O'Keeffe juxtaposed colors from…

The Israeli start-up behind last week's failed lunar landing has vowed to create a second mission to steer a privately funded spacecraft onto the moon. Morris Kahn, Israeli billionaire and chairman of SpaceIL, the nonprofit that undertook the botched lunar mission, says he's already formed a task force of engineers and donors that will build another spacecraft. He called the new mission a lesson in persistence for "the younger generation."   SpaceIL confirmed Monday that the crew will convene in the coming weeks to figure out how to fix the technical glitches that caused the first mission to crash, while still keeping the venture relatively fast and cheap.   The crash ended an ambitious eight-year effort to make Israel the fourth nation to land on the moon.     ...

Women are woefully underrepresented in technology, science, engineering and mathematics jobs in South Africa. But for the last decade, a homegrown, UNICEF-supported program has worked to bring 11,000 lower-income high school girls into these industries. Among those students was Raquel Sorota. Sorota has come a long way from her humble upbringing in Johannesburg’s Tembisa township. She now works as a risk engineer at a top South African insurance company. She was those one of those South African high school girls who went through the UNICEF-supported TechnoGirls program, which started in 2005. She was selected for the program in 2009. Now 24, she says it changed her life. “My life has literally never been the same again,” she said. “So, before the program, I wanted to be a doctor and today…

Women are woefully underrepresented in technology, science, engineering and mathematics jobs in South Africa. But for the last decade, a homegrown, UNICEF-supported program has worked to bring 11,000 lower-income high school girls into these industries. VOA's Anita Powell catches up with a few such "TechnoGirls" in Johannesburg and brings us their stories. ...

The world’s largest aircraft took off over the Mojave Desert in California Saturday, the first flight for the carbon-composite plane built by Stratolaunch Systems Corp., started by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as the company enters the lucrative private space market. The white airplane called Roc, which has a wingspan the length of an American football field and is powered by six engines on a twin fuselage, took to the air shortly before 7 a.m. Pacific time (1400 GMT) and stayed aloft for more than two hours before landing safely back at the Mojave Air and Space Port as a crowd of hundreds of people cheered. First flight 'fantastic' “What a fantastic first flight,” Stratolaunch Chief Executive Officer Jean Floyd said in a statement posted to the company’s website. “Today’s…

Even though the U.S. first landed on the moon 50 years ago this year, it's never been — nor will it ever be — an easy thing to accomplish. The Israelis learned just how difficult it is. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...

In the race to beat China in the fifth generation of wireless technology, known as 5G, U.S. President Donald Trump is announcing the largest-ever auction of radio frequencies and a $20 billion fund to build a rural fiber-optics backbone. "We cannot allow any other country to outcompete the United States in this powerful industry of the future," Trump said in the White House Roosevelt Room, flanked by a group of telecommunications tower climbers and farmers. "The race to 5G is a race that we must win." Starting Dec. 10, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will begin auctioning three chunks of millimeter-wave frequencies (upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 47 GHz) for cellphone companies to use. Some Trump allies had tried to persuade him to effectively nationalize this technology as a…

Facebook Inc. more than doubled the money it spent on Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s security in 2018 to $22.6 million, a regulatory filing showed Friday. Zuckerberg has drawn a base salary of $1 for the past three years, and his “other” compensation was listed at $22.6 million, most of which was for his personal security. Nearly $20 million went toward security for Zuckerberg and his family, up from about $9 million the year prior. Zuckerberg also received $2.6 million for personal use of private jets, which the company said was part of his overall security program. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg took home $23.7 million in 2018 compared to $25.2 million last year. Facebook has in the past few years faced public outcry over its role in Russia’s alleged…

SpaceX launched its second supersized rocket and for the first time landed all three boosters Thursday, a year after sending up a sports car on the initial test flight. The new and improved Falcon Heavy thundered into the early evening sky with a communication satellite called Arabsat, the rocket’s first paying customer. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today, with 27 engines firing at liftoff — nine per booster. Eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX landed two of the first-stage boosters back at Cape Canaveral, side by side, just like it did for the rocket’s debut last year. The core booster landed two minutes later on an ocean platform hundreds of miles offshore. That’s the only part of the first mission that missed. “What an amazing day,”…

Lin Feng contributed to this report WASHINGTON — A senior official in the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday the security concerns the government has raised related to Chinese telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE extend to all companies headquartered in China, saying they are effectively "under direction" of the Chinese Communist Party. "It's very important to distinguish how Western democracies operate relative to their private sector companies and vendors, and how the Chinese government operates with its companies," Ambassador Robert L. Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy, said during a conference call with reporters.  Chinese companies don't have the ability to mount a legal challenge to directives from the government, he said.  "They don't have the ability to go to court," he said. "They're basically…

The arched stone-built hall in Jerusalem venerated by Christians as the site of Jesus' Last Supper has been digitally recreated by archaeologists using laser scanners and advanced photography. The Cenacle, a popular site for pilgrims near Jerusalem's walled Old City, has ancient, worn surfaces and poor illumination, hampering a study of its history. So researchers from Israel's Antiquities Authority and European research institutions used laser technology and advanced photographic techniques to create richly detailed three-dimensional models of the hall built in the Crusader era. The project helped highlight obscure artwork and decipher some theological aspects of the second-floor room, built above what Jewish tradition says is the burial site of King David. "We managed, in one of the... holiest places in Jerusalem, to use this technology and this is a…

The world will need new breakthroughs to tackle the growing threat of climate change. Whoever comes up with them stands to make a lot of money. And the places where those entrepreneurs do business will reap the benefits. Greentown Labs outside Boston, Massachusetts, wants to play a major role in spawning new clean technology. VOA's Steve Baragona went to have a look. ...

Facebook says it is rolling out a wide range of updates aimed at combatting the spread of false and harmful information on the social media site. The updates will limit the visibility of links found to be significantly more prominent on Facebook than across the web as a whole. The company is also expanding its fact-checking program with outside expert sources, including The Associated Press, to vet videos and other material posted on Facebook. Facebook groups will also be more closely monitored to prevent the spread of fake information. The company has been facing criticism for the spread of extremism and misinformation on its flagship site and on Instagram. Congress members questioned a company representative Tuesday about how Facebook prevents violent material from being uploaded and shared on the site.…

The top U.S. diplomat for cybersecurity policy has praised Germany's draft security standards for next generation mobile networks, which he said could effectively shut out China's Huawei. Rob Strayer said Wednesday the standards published last month were a "positive step." They call for mobile providers to use "trustworthy" telecom equipment suppliers that comply with national security regulations covering secrecy of communications and data protection. The U.S. has been lobbying European allies to ban Huawei from new 5G networks over concerns China's communist leaders could force the company to use its equipment for cyberespionage. While no European countries have issued blanket bans, Strayer said a "risk-based" approach to evaluating telecom suppliers, including their relationship with their national government, would "lead inevitably" to banning Huawei. ...

The live-streamed video of the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooting last month highlighted the continuing struggle by social media companies to police extremist content on their platforms. Facebook and Google representatives told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday the effort to balance free speech with oversight of white supremacist content is ongoing. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill. ...

Virgin Galactic's first test passenger received her commercial astronaut wings from the U.S. aviation regulator on Tuesday after flying on the company's rocket plane to evaluate the customer experience in February. Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses, who is a former NASA engineer, became the first woman to fly to space on a commercial vehicle when she joined pilots David Mackay and Mike Masucci on SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity. The wings were presented to the three-person crew at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado by the Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator for commercial space, Wayne Monteith. "Commercial human space flight is now a reality,” he said. The February test flight nudged Richard Branson’s space travel company closer to delivering suborbital flights for the more than 600 people who have paid…

Two U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday to ban online social media companies like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. from tricking consumers into giving up their personal data. | The bill from Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Deb Fischer, a Republican, would also ban online platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users from designing addicting games or other websites for children under age 13. The bill takes aim at practices that online platforms use to mislead people into giving personal data to companies or otherwise trick them. The so-called "dark patterns" were developed using behavioral psychology. "Misleading prompts to just click the 'OK' button can often transfer your contacts, messages, browsing activity, photos, or location information without you even realizing it," Fischer said in a statement issued…

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday a Democratic bid to restore the 2015 net neutrality rules is "dead on arrival in the Senate." The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote later on Tuesday on a Democratic plan to reinstate the Obama-era rules and overturn a December 2017 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to reverse the rules and hand sweeping authority to internet providers to recast how Americans access the internet. The bill mirrors an effort last year to reverse the FCC's order, approved on a 3-2 vote, that repealed rules barring providers from blocking or slowing internet content or offering paid "fast lanes." The reversal of net neutrality rules was a win for internet providers such as Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications…

Momentum is gaining in Washington for a privacy law that could sharply rein in the ability of the largest technology companies to collect and distribute people's personal data. A national law, the first of its kind in the U.S., could allow people to see or prohibit the use of their data. Companies would need permission to release such information. If it takes effect, a law would also likely shrink Big Tech's profits from its lucrative business of making personal data available to advertisers so they can pinpoint specific consumers to target. Behind the drive for a law is rising concern over private data being compromised or distributed by Facebook, Google and other tech giants that have earned riches from collecting and distributing consumer information. The industry traditionally has been lightly…

Pinterest, among the gaggle of tech companies hoping to go public this year, set a conservative price range Monday for its initial public offering. It hopes to raise as much as $1.5 billion in its initial offering of shares. The digital scrapbooking site said in a regulatory filing that it will put about 75 million shares up for sale at a price between $15 and $17 each. That, at the higher end, could put the value of the company at around $9 billion. But it falls below the estimated $12 billion value from earlier sales of shares to private investors, according to reports two years ago. Companies set their price range for an initial public offering with a tricky calculus set by investment banks and underwriters. They don’t want to…

Companies working with artificial intelligence need to install accountability mechanisms to prevent its being misused, the European Commission said on Monday, under new ethical guidelines for a technology open to abuse. AI projects should be transparent, have human oversight and secure and reliable algorithms, and they must be subject to privacy and data protection rules, the commission said, among other recommendations. The European Union initiative taps in to a global debate about when or whether companies should put ethical concerns before business interests, and how tough a line regulators can afford to take on new projects without risking killing off innovation. "The ethical dimension of AI is not a luxury feature or an add-on. It is only with trust that our society can fully benefit from technologies," the Commission digital…

Three years ago, a Dutchman climbed into his electric car and set out on a journey. Sunday, a motorcade of electric vehicles escorted him and his converted Volkswagen across an iconic bridge in Australia as he finished his record-setting adventure. VOA's Arash Arabasadi takes us for a ride. ...

Ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, the world has been fascinated with the idea of creating life in a lab. But it remained in the realm of fiction... until it became a bit closer to reality with genetic engineering work in a Swiss lab. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports. ...

Emojis, those cute, vivid images that liven up emails and texts, seem to come in all shapes, colors and sizes. After all, there are more than 2,800 to choose from. Among the favorites: the smiley face, the thumbs up, the birthday cake. But it turns out, there is more people want to say with emojis than what is currently available, including showing two people with different skin tones, together. Since 2015, it has been possible to pick skin tones for many of the people emojis, such as the mermaid, firefighter and baby. But it began to frustrate some users that they couldn’t show two people of different races holding hands or families with different skin tones, says Jennifer Lee, co-founder of Emojination and vice chair of the Unicode Consortium’s emoji…

Emojis, those cute vivid images that liven up emails and texts, seem to come in all shapes, colors and sizes. The smiley face, the thumbs up, the birthday cake. Add one more to the list — interracial couples. Michelle Quinn looked into the story behind this new emoji, expected to be released later this year. ...