Nuclear proliferation watchdog CTBTO is using its worldwide array of monitoring stations to authenticate possible nuclear explosions, including the one claimed last month by North Korea. Kevin Enochs reports. …
The World Solar Challenge began Sunday with 42 solar cars crossing Australia’s tropical north to its southern shores, a grueling 3,000 kilometer (1,864 mile) race through the outback. The race from the northern city of Darwin to the southern city of Adelaide is expected to take a week for most …
Automakers trumpet new technology, including blind-spot warnings, backup cameras, and rear cross-traffic alerts, as a way to make driving safer. But road safety advocates say the explosion of technology in cars may actually do the opposite. Faith Lapidus reports. …
Facebook and Google once aimed to connect the world. Now they would be happy just to reconnect part of it. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to send a “connectivity team” to help restore communications in ravaged Puerto Rico. Google parent company Alphabet offered to …
Astronauts say seeing the Earth from a distance, where the whole planet comes into perspective, is a life-changing experience that makes you realize how beautiful and fragile it is. A group of enthusiasts in California set up a nonprofit organization that uses satellite imagery to spread this feeling to as …
A U.S. House of Representatives committee said Friday that it had scheduled a new hearing on Kaspersky Lab software as lawmakers review accusations that the Kremlin could use its products to conduct espionage. Kaspersky Lab has strongly denied those allegations — which last month prompted the Trump administration to order …
In Orlando, Florida, where tourists come for the palm trees, shopping and theme parks, 18,000 women converged recently on the city’s giant convention center to talk about technology. Amid technical sessions on artificial intelligence and augmented reality, the main theme of the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest gathering of women …
In Orlando, Florida this past week, 18,000 women from around the world gathered to talk about technology and how women can play a bigger role in shaping the industry’s future. VOA’s Michelle Quinn went to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the largest meeting of women in technology …
Microsoft said Thursday that it would team up with communities in six U.S. states to invest in technology and related jobs in rural and smaller metropolitan areas. Company President Brad Smith launched the TechSpark program Thursday in Fargo, a metropolitan area of more than 200,000 people that includes a Microsoft …
As electric-powered cars are rapidly gaining popularity, the last frontier in private transportation is also opening up to alternative, eco-friendly power. Thanks to advances in battery and electric motor technology, several manufacturers are experimenting with light planes that are quiet, easy to maintain and cheap to fly. VOA’s George Putic …
General Motors’s self-driving unit, Cruise Automation, has more than doubled the size of its test fleet of robot cars in California during the past three months, a GM spokesman said on Wednesday. As the company increases the size of its test fleet, it has also reported more run-ins between its …
Horse manure will generate electricity for an international horse show in Finland this month in a new form of alternative energy, Finnish utility Fortum said Wednesday. It said the Helsinki horse show in mid-October will be the first at which the event’s electricity needs, from scoreboards to lighting, are met …
Yahoo on Tuesday said that all 3 billion of its accounts were hacked in a 2013 data theft, tripling its earlier estimate of the size of the largest breach in history, in a disclosure that attorneys said sharply increased the legal exposure of its new owner, Verizon Communications. The news …
The mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which at least 59 people were killed and more than 500 injured, was the saddest day ever recorded on Twitter, according to Hedonometer, a tool that measures sentiment on social media platforms. The barometer, which measures the happiness of millions of Twitter users …
The European Court of Justice has been asked to consider whether Facebook’s Dublin-based subsidiary can legally transfer users’ personal data to its U.S. parent, after Ireland’s top court said Tuesday that there are “well-founded concerns” the practice violates European law. In a case brought after former U.S. defense contractor Edward …
Google is ending a decade-old policy that required publishers to provide some free stories to Google users — though it’s not clear how many readers will even notice, at least for the moment. Publishers had been required to provide at least three free stories a day under the search engine’s …
Facebook Inc plans to hire 1,000 more people to review ads and ensure they meet its terms, as part of an effort to deter Russia and other countries from using the social media network to interfere in others’ elections, it said on Monday. Facebook said last month that it believed …
In most of the world, more men are connected to the internet than women. But in Africa, this gender gap has been widening, according to ITU, the U.N. agency tracking the ICT sector. Nanjira Sambuli, who works with the World Wide Web Foundation in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, …
Social media giant Facebook is expected to provide Congress on Monday with more than 3,000 ads that ran around the time of the 2016 presidential election and are linked to a Russian ad agency. Company officials will meet with the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee …
Facebook Inc founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg asked for forgiveness for ways his work was used to divide people in a Facebook posting marking the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement on Saturday. “For the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring …
Solar power is definitely the wave of the future. But in the future instead of a roof covered with solar panels, your own windows might not only be collecting power from the sun, but also helping your house conserve energy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
Years of limited oversight and unchecked growth have turned Facebook into a force with incredible power over the lives of its 2 billion users. But the social network has also given rise to unintended social consequences, and they’re starting to catch up with it: House and Senate panels investigating Russian …
Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it’s a place where water is scarce or abundant. The World Health Organization finds 3 in 10 people globally still lack safe drinking water at home. The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced …
Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it is a place where water is scarce or abundant. The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it is providing $15 million in funding for projects to develop solar desalination technology at a …
A long-running effort to build one of the world’s largest telescopes on a mountain sacred to Native Hawaiians is moving forward after a key approval Thursday, reopening divisions over a project that promises revolutionary views into the heavens but has drawn impassioned protests over the impact to a spiritual place. …
Around the world, women are using technology to overcome barriers in education and employment. Getting online, however, remains a challenge for many women in developing countries. In the United States, the issue isn’t access to technology, but the lack of women pursuing technical careers. Beginning Oct. 4 in Orlando, …