U.S. lawmakers are pushing legislation that would force the State Department to report what it is doing to control the spread of U.S. hacking tools around the world. A bill passed in a House of Representatives’ appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday said Congress is “concerned” about the State Department’s ability to …

Beijing has broadened its block of online encyclopedia Wikipedia to include all language editions, an internet censorship research group reported just weeks ahead of China’s most politically explosive anniversary. According to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), China started blocking all language editions of Wikipedia last …

Facebook toughened its livestreaming policies Wednesday as it prepared to huddle with world leaders and other tech CEOs in Paris to find ways to keep social media from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast terror attacks. Facebook’s move came hours before its executives would face the …

San Francisco supervisors voted Tuesday to ban the use of facial recognition software by police and other city departments, becoming the first U.S. city to outlaw a rapidly developing technology that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates.  The ban is part of broader legislation that requires city departments to …

Even though you hear a lot about human beings moving into space permanently, there are really only three humans in space at any give time. They are on the International Space Station and they are very, very busy. But they just got some robotic help from NASA. VOA’s Kevin Enochs …

Researchers at Rice University have discovered an eco-friendly way to recycle lithium-ion batteries, the kind that power nearly every electronic device today. Their findings could keep more batteries out of landfills and even create new batteries from dead ones. Tina Trinh reports. …

Google opened a privacy focused engineering center in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, its latest move to beef up its data protection credentials as tech companies’ face growing scrutiny of their data collection practices. CEO Sundar Pichai said the Silicon Valley tech giant is expanding its operations in the southern German …

Facebook’s WhatsApp said on Tuesday a security breach on its messaging app had signs of coming from a private company working on surveillance and it had referred the incident to the U.S. Department of Justice. WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging tools, is used by 1.5 billion people monthly …

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that an antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed. Consumers are suing the company, alleging Apple overcharges when downloading iPhone applications at the company’s App Store. Conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh joined with the four liberal judges in the 5-4 decision, agreeing with the plaintiffs that …

A new mass spectroscopy machine is helping forensic scientists who are looking for a much better view of fingerprints on objects used in a crime. The current methods of making a copy of a fingerprint may not be good enough and DNA swabbing can damage evidence. VOAs Deborah Block reports. …

President Donald Trump signed an executive order this month designed to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity workforce, the front line against hackers, domestic and foreign. With 7 billion internet-connected devices in the world, and numbers expected to rise, the threat is growing. Faith Lapidus reports, web-connected devices, from smart homes to …

A cat who lost his back legs when he was hit by a train got a new lease on life by getting new prosthetic limbs. They were designed by engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using a 3D printer. VOA’s Deborah Block has more. …

Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space tourism dream a step closer to reality. Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development …

The question comes up over and over, with extremist material, hate speech, election meddling and privacy invasions. Why can’t Facebook just fix it? It’s complicated, with reasons that include Facebook’s size, its business model and technical limitations, not to mention years of unchecked growth. Oh, and the element of human …

France welcomed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on Friday with a threat of sweeping new regulation. With Facebook under fire on multiple fronts, Zuckerberg is in Paris to show that his social media giant is working hard to limit violent extremism and hate speech shared online. But a group of French regulators …

Earlier this month, officials from a group of 30 countries agreed to take a more coordinated approach to secure the next generation of fast mobile communication networks, known as 5G. The United States and others worry that technology companies located in countries with governments like China’s could be subject to …

A senior U.S. State Department official said there is no need for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to explicitly ban Chinese telecommunication company Huawei from taking part in the buildout of the U.S. 5G networks. The four largest U.S. telecom carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint …

U.S. law enforcement officials announced on Wednesday the indictment of two Israeli operators of a website that referred hundreds of thousands of users to underground internet marketplaces to purchase drugs, weapons and other illegal products.     Tal Prihar, 37, an Israeli citizen living in Brazil, and Michael Phan, 34, …

Google’s self-driving car spinoff, Waymo, is teaming up with Lyft in Arizona to attempt to lure passengers away from ride-hailing market leader Uber. The alliance announced Tuesday will allow anyone with the Lyft app in the Phoenix area to summon one of the 10 self-driving Waymo cars that will join …

Imagine a robot that can learn to walk by itself in about five minutes. Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a robotic leg that can do just that with potential applications that range from helping in disaster areas to outer space. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details. …

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to showcase much-anticipated updates to the company’s hardware lines and artificial intelligence. Google will also likely address privacy updates as concerns about data sharing continue to plague the tech industry. Facebook dedicated much of its own conference last week to addressing privacy. Rumors suggest …

When Google launched its now distinctive digital assistant in 2016, it was already in danger of being an also-ran. At the time, Amazon had been selling its Echo smart speaker, powered by its Alexa voice assistant, for more than a year. Apple’s Siri was already five years old and familiar …

Alphabet’s Google is set to roll out a dashboard-like function in its Chrome browser to offer users more control in fending off tracking cookies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Cookies are small text files that follow internet users and are used by …

Microsoft announced an ambitious effort it says will make voting secure, verifiable and subject to reliable audits. Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their proprietary voting systems.   The software kit is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based …

Virtual Reality had a fantastic year in 2016, with the release of several anticipated VR glasses, including the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. Gaming and technology fairs presented the new toys proudly, but the boom quickly declined, leaving the technology to only niche applications. Now, a southeastern Chinese city …