The FBI has started sharing information about online trolls and other suspicious users with top technology companies as part of the bureau’s behind-the-scenes effort to disrupt foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections, with officials saying it is the service providers’ responsibility to police malign messaging by Russia and other …
your ad hereVR Transports Students Back to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Attack
Modern technology is transporting students back to the 20th century, to the exact moment during World War II when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. No, it’s not time travel, but with the help of Virtual Reality – students are able to relive the 1945 U.S. attack which …
your ad hereFacebook, Apple, YouTube Drop Alt-Right Conspiracy Outlet InfoWars
Several major media outlets announced Monday that they would be removing content from InfoWars, a far-right, conspiracy-peddling media source. On Monday, Apple announced it had removed hundreds of podcasts produced by InfoWars from its iTunes and podcast apps. Facebook said it had removed four pages belonging to InfoWars founder Alex …
your ad hereFacebook Removes Alex Jones Pages for Hate, Bullying
Facebook says it has taken down four pages belonging to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating its hate speech and bullying policies. The social media giant said in a statement Monday that it also blocked Jones’ account for 30 days because he repeatedly posted content that broke its rules. The …
your ad hereApple iPhone Chip Supplier Says Virus Will Delay Shipments
A company that makes semiconductors for Apple iPhones says it is recovering from a virus outbreak but expects the incident to delay shipments and raise costs. Taiwan Semiconductor Co. Ltd. said 80 percent of the fabrication tools affected by Friday’s virus had been recovered by Sunday. TSMC expects full recovery …
your ad herePalestinian Girls Will Pitch Their App to Silicon Valley
Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile app about fire prevention to Silicon Valley’s tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls. For the 11th graders from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, …
your ad hereElection Crackdown Runs Into Speed-tweeting Human ‘Bots’
Nina Tomasieski logs on to Twitter before the sun rises. Seated at her dining room table with a nearby TV constantly tuned to Fox News, the 70-year-old grandmother spends up to 14 hours a day tweeting the praises of President Trump and his political allies, particularly those on the ballot …
your ad hereNew Era in Space: NASA Astronauts Fly Commercial Spacecraft
A new era in American spaceflight was unveiled Friday, with NASA presenting the flight crews that will carry out the first test flights and operational missions aboard commercial spacecraft to be launched from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. The test flights of …
your ad herePakistani Engineer Turns Straw Waste Into Fuel
A Pakistani engineer has designed a system to help developing countries avoid fuel imports by making ethanol with the millions of tons of straw that are wasted each year. Faith Lapidus reports. …
your ad hereUS Objects to China’s Internet Restrictions
The U.S. “remains deeply concerned with China’s long-standing restrictions on freedom of expression online,” a State Department official said Thursday, reacting to Google’s reported plan to relaunch its search engine in China. “We strongly object to all efforts by China to force U.S. companies to block or censor online content …
your ad hereApple is 1st Public US Company to be Valued at $1 Trillion
Apple made history Thursday when it became the first publicly listed U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion. The tech giant’s share price climbed well over 2 percent in mid-session trading, boosting it about 9 percent higher since Tuesday, when it announced better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and a buyback of …
your ad hereAlarms on Russian Meddling Sounded on Capitol Hill
One day after Facebook shut down 32 fake social media accounts that spewed politically divisive messages, U.S. lawmakers were warned that Russian efforts to confuse and polarize the American people are as robust and pernicious as ever. VOA Senate correspondent Michael Bowman reports both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are concerned. …
your ad hereCongress Passes Bill Forcing Tech Companies To Disclose Foreign Software Probes
The U.S. Congress is sending President Donald Trump legislation that would force technology companies to disclose if they allowed countries like China and Russia to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military. The legislation, part of the Pentagon’s spending bill, was drafted after a Reuters …
your ad hereDispute Over 3D-Printed Guns Raises Many Legal Issues
A little-known dispute over 3D-printed guns has morphed into a national legal debate in the last week, drawing attention to a technology that seems a bit of sci-fi fantasy and — to gun-control advocates — a dangerous way for criminals to get their hands on firearms that are easy to …
your ad hereA Special Type of 3-D Printing
3-D printers are being used extensively in industry, research, teaching and hobbies, printing with metal, plastic and even edible material such as dough. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are experimenting with another kind of 3-D printing — with yarn. VOA’s George Putic reports. …
your ad hereGoogle Mum on Chinese Search Engine Reports
Google declined Wednesday to confirm reports that it plans to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, where its main search platform was previously blocked, along with its YouTube video platform. “We provide a number of mobile apps in China … [to] help Chinese developers, and have made significant …
your ad hereSocial Media Bosses to Face US Lawmakers in September
Top executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google will face lawmakers on Capitol Hill next month to explain what the social media giants are doing to combat foreign information operations. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Republican Sen. Richard Burr, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, made the announcement Wednesday, at the start …
your ad hereJudge Blocks Plans to Post Gun Blueprints on Internet
A U.S. federal judge has blocked a Texas man from putting plans on the internet showing people how to make their own plastic guns right in their homes as President Donald Trump questioned whether the action should have been approved by his administration to begin with. It’s a controversy drawing …
your ad hereRobotic Hand Can Juggle Cube — With Lots of Training
How long does it take a robotic hand to learn to juggle a cube? About 100 years, give or take. That’s how much virtual computing time it took researchers at OpenAI, the nonprofit artificial intelligence lab funded by Elon Musk and others, to train its disembodied hand. The team paid …
your ad hereFacebook Removes Accounts ‘Involved in Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior’
Efforts to influence U.S. voters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections in November appear to be well underway, though private companies and government officials are hesitant to say who, exactly, is behind the recently discovered campaigns. Facebook announced Tuesday it had shut down 32 Facebook and Instagram accounts because they …
your ad hereFrom Homeless to Employment in Silicon Valley
As tech giants expand in San Francisco, homelessness and job displacement for locals continues to rise. Deana Mitchell explores one program, created by a formerly homeless man, that’s helping to merge the two worlds for local job seekers. …
your ad hereWith Drones and Satellites, India Gets to Know its Slums
Satellites and drones are driving efforts by Indian states to map informal settlements in order to speed up the process of delivering services and land titles, officials said. The eastern state of Odisha aims to give titles to 200,000 households in urban slums and those on the outskirts of cities …
your ad hereNASA Marks 60 Years Since Legal Inception
America’s dream of space exploration took its first official step 60 years ago Sunday when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law authorizing the formation of NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Although humanity had been staring at the stars and wondering since they were living in caves, it …
your ad hereUK Lawmakers Urge Tougher Facebook Rules
The U.K. government should increase oversight of social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, a parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia. The interim report by the House of Commons’ media committee, to …
your ad hereNew Speed Record at SpaceX Pod Competition
A sleek futuristic train that travels through a special tunnel and covers the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes. This was the dream of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX in 2013. And every year he’s getting closer to making that dream a reality. Late July …
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