Last week, Somalilanders went to the polls in a historic presidential election. Officials employed advanced iris-scanning technology to identify voters and prevent duplicate ballots — the first use of such a biometric system in a national election. For Somaliland, a breakaway region whose independence has not yet been recognized by …

How do you obtain the freshest, locally grown produce in a big city? For an increasing number of urbanites, the answer is to grow it yourself. Cam MacKugler can help. MacKugler was at the recent Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, New York showing off Seedsheets, roll-out fabric sheets embedded …

A new independent study places Pakistan among the top four countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Syria, where people have been murdered in each of the last three years for writing about sensitive subjects online. The annual “Freedom on the Net” report, released Tuesday by U.S.-based Freedom House, is based on …

About 15 percent of U.S. federal agencies have reported some trace of Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab software on their systems, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told Congress on Tuesday. Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for cybersecurity at DHS, told a U.S. House of Representatives panel that 94 percent of agencies …

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Around the world, Internet freedom is deteriorating, with some governments taking down their mobile Internet service, restricting live video streaming and employing a digital army of pro-government commentators. These are some of the findings of “Freedom on the Net 2017,” an annual report by Freedom House, a global non-profit that …

A proposal by the U.S. Senate to change the way shares in startup companies are taxed incited panic and dread in Silicon Valley on Monday, with startup founders and investors warning of nothing less than the demise of their industry should the proposal become law. The provision in the Senate’s …

Alphabet’s Google in the last few months has begun removing from YouTube extremist videos that do not depict violence or preach hate, YouTube said Monday, a major policy shift as social media companies face increasing pressure from governments. The new policy affects videos that feature people and groups that have …

Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte, computer science students, recently stared at a screen in their Berkeley apartment showing the Twitter account of someone called “Red Pilled Leah.” They suspected she was a “bot,” short for robot. Red Pilled Leah joined Twitter in 2011 and had 165,000 followers. The majority of …

Flying drones are nothing new in the skies, but online retailers have been investing in them as a way to deliver goods faster and to those in hard-to-reach rural areas. But the automation doesn’t stop there. Arash Arabasadi reports. …

Prepare to be amazed … and possibly terrified. Engineers in Zurich have created a four-legged robot that may one day do labor that is dangerous for humans. It’s also equipped with thermal cameras, which means the “ANYmal” may one day keep an eye on you. Arash Arabasadi reports. …

In Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, the rapid improvement in internet connectivity and availability of affordable smartphones has been a great leveler. Many of its roughly 15 million urban and rural inhabitants have gained, in a short time, access to mobile internet and social media, which provide relatively free …

The World Robot Olympiad, being held in Costa Rica this weekend, shows human athletes still have little to worry about: Sweat and glory do not compute well when relegated to faceless automatons. But the same may not be true for workers, especially those in menial or transport activities where robots …

Some foreign students in U.S. schools find it challenging to submit grammatically correct, idiomatically accurate papers. So two former Ukrainian graduate students launched an artificial intelligence-driven grammar-proofing program that goes well beyond spell-check. Today, their 8-year-old startup, Grammarly, whose first venture round netted $110 million in May, has offices in …

Aerial surveillance can be an indispensable part of police or security work. But small police forces certainly can’t afford planes or helicopters to help them do their jobs. So increasingly, drones are filling the gap and providing eyes in the sky. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

The United Nations is set to host talks on the use of autonomous weapons, but those hoping for a ban on the machines dubbed “killer robots” will be disappointed, the ambassador leading the discussions said Friday. More than 100 artificial intelligence entrepreneurs led by Tesla’s Elon Musk in August urged …

The results of three recent separate studies are staggering, the oceans are filled with about 5 trillion bits and bobs of plastic debris. Now, one English sailing team is doing its part, skimming plastic off the ocean’s surface, bucket by bucket. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

An Australian museum has teamed up with computer giant International Business Machines to count the country’s native frog population, and they want amphibian enthusiasts to jump on board. The Australian Museum and IBM say they developed the world’s first smartphone app especially designed to let users record and report frog …

The FBI has yet to gain access to data on Devin Kelley’s phone four days after the former airman killed 26 churchgoers in Texas in the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Thursday, blaming “warrant-proof encryption” for impeding criminal investigations. The FBI’s San …

Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent Holdings Ltd. on Thursday flagged video games and ad sales as areas where it thinks it could help Snapchat owner Snap after acquiring a 12 percent stake in the U.S. firm. Snap disclosed in a U.S. regulatory filing on Wednesday that Tencent recently …

The outsourcing industry in the Philippines, which has dethroned India as the country with the most call centers in the world, is worried that the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) will eat into the $23 billion sector. AI-powered translators could dilute the biggest advantage the Philippines has, which is the …

Disguised Russian agents on Twitter rushed to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump just before last year’s presidential election while straining to refocus criticism on the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis of since-deleted accounts. Tweets by Russia-backed accounts such as “America_1st_” and “BatonRougeVoice” …

What’s Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest takeaway as he wraps up a year of travel to dozens of U.S. states? The importance of local communities. To this end, Facebook’s CEO is announcing a program to boost small businesses and give people technical skills on and off Facebook. The move shows how intertwined …

U.S. President Donald Trump went around and over the “Great Firewall” of China in a late-night tweet in Beijing as he thanked his hosts for a rare tour of the Forbidden City and a private dinner at the sprawling, centuries-old palace complex. Many Western social media platforms such as Twitter …

Executives from Google, Facebook and Twitter faced anger from lawmakers last week over their platforms’ roles in Russian interference into the 2016 election. But for Silicon Valley, the biggest challenge lies ahead as tech companies look for ways to work with a U.S. Congress intent on closing legal loopholes before …