The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday it is investigating the privacy controls of social media giant Facebook in the aftermath of reports that the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users was compromised by the British voter profiling firm Cambridge Analytica. The consumer agency’s announcement sent Facebook’s …

The controversy over the British-based data mining company, Cambridge Analytica, which faces allegations of using the personal data of millions of Facebook followers to influence the U.S. election, is reverberating in India, which is due to hold national elections next year. The website of the Indian affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, …

The exotic Tasmanian tiger once roamed Australia and New Guinea. It looked like a cross between a tiger and a dog, and is believed to have become extinct in the wild in the 20th century. The last one died in a zoo in the 1930’s. Using preserved Tasmanian tigers, Australian …

On the same day Facebook bought ads in U.S. and British newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media site faced new questions about collecting phone numbers and text messages from Android devices. The website Ars Technica reported that users who checked data gathered by Facebook on …

Facebook co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg apologized Sunday in full-page ads in nine major British and U.S. newspapers for the massive “breach of trust” at the social media giant that revealed personal information of millions of Facebook users. Zuckerberg did not mention the British firm accused of using …

Scientists are monitoring a defunct Chinese space station that is expected to fall to Earth around the end of the month, the largest manmade object to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in a decade. The head of the European Space Agency’s debris office, Holger Krag, says China’s Tiangong-1 space station will likely …

There always seems to be another dating app popping up with promises of helping find romance — just answer this, just swipe that — but one new online dating service is incorporating genetics into the mix and promising something other apps cannot: compatibility through genetics. …

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Even more so, when the invention is something a loved one needs. That was the case for a young Syrian woman who invented a GPS-equipped life vest. VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports. …

Increasingly popular wind turbines are getting bigger and making more power, but there is a limit to their size. At some point they become too big, too difficult to transport and install, and strong winds can bend them out of shape. But researchers led by scientists from the University of …

What does it take to build a thriving technology company – and an environment in which black techies, their financial backers and their markets can flourish? That question underpins the new VOA documentary “Beyond the Unicorn.”  Subtitled “Africans Making IT in Silicon Valley,” it explores how some Africans and African-Americans …

The semi-government agency behind India’s national identity card project on Saturday denied a report by news website ZDNet that the program has been hit by another security lapse that allows access to private information. ZDNet reported that a data leak on a system run by a state-owned utility company, which it did not name, could …

Britain’s information regulator said Saturday that it was assessing evidence gathered from a raid on the office of data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, part of an investigation into alleged misuse of personal information by political campaigns and social media companies like Facebook. More than a dozen investigators from the Information …

Austin, Texas, is not California’s Silicon Valley technology corridor. But companies from Silicon Valley and other major U.S. hubs are taking notice of Austin’s growing tech scene. Austin’s lower cost of living and doing business, combined with its smaller size, are just a few reasons that people are attracted to …

Now that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about the firm’s data controversy, the chief question remains whether the changes he outlined will be enough to restore the public’s trust in the social media giant.   In a series of media interviews this week, Zuckerberg went into full damage …

Being black and working in the tech industry can be an isolating experience. New York nonprofit Ascend Leadership analyzed the hiring data of hundreds of San Francisco Bay-area tech companies from 2007 and 2015 and issued a report last year, detailing the lack of diversity in tech. Based on data from …

Being black and working in the tech industry can be an isolating experience. But at the Afrotectopia festival in New York, it’s what everyone has in common. Tina Trinh meets with the creative people exploring the intersection of race and technology. …

A public apology by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg failed Thursday to quell outrage over the hijacking of personal data from millions of people, as critics demanded that the social media giant go much further to protect user privacy. Speaking out for the first time about the harvesting of Facebook user …

Two experts say video of a deadly crash involving a self-driving Uber vehicle shows the sport utility vehicle’s laser and radar sensors should have spotted a pedestrian, and computers should have braked to avoid the crash. Authorities investigating the crash in a Phoenix suburb released the video of Uber’s Volvo …

Facebook is coming under intense criticism following reports that information from 50 million users was gathered by a voter data firm. Lawmakers are demanding answers, and Facebook stock has lost about $35 billion in its value. Michelle Quinn reports on the threats the company faces. …

A British tech company is using donated human heart tissue to replicate the “beating” action of heart muscle to aid preclinical testing of new drugs. Faith Lapidus reports. …

Silicon Valley is less than 3% black, with an even smaller numbers of Africans. The race gap is actually much larger than the gender gap, and it’s growing. Join us for a live screening of “Beyond the Unicorn,” a VOA documentary about the issue, followed by a Q&A session from …

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a rare television interview Wednesday that Facebook clearly made a mistake in its part in an illegal data collection scandal. “This was a major breach of trust. I am really sorry this happened. We have a basic responsibility to protect people’s data,” he told …

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab plans to open a data center in Switzerland to address Western government concerns that Russia exploits its anti-virus software to spy on customers, according to internal documents seen by Reuters. Kaspersky is setting up the center in response to actions in the United States, Britain and Lithuania …

When you are watching a television show and see someone get their heart shocked back into a rhythm, you will see their entire body rise up in the air. That’s what happens when a defibrillator is used, because the shock is that powerful. As VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, scientists are …

Heat exchangers are some of the most widely used energy-transfer devices, helping cool everything from car engines to power plants. At the recent ARPA-e conference, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists from the University of Maryland showcased an advanced 3-D printer that, combined with a wire-laying head, cuts …