Scientists from U.S. and Britain have found four planets, slightly larger than Earth, orbiting a star visible with a naked eye. Using a technique so sensitive that it can measure tiny changes in the light emitted by stars, scientists at University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Hertfordshire …
Some countries depend heavily on fossil fuels for power, including the Philippines. But now a kind of solar energy “flower” is among the clean power alternatives there. The Smartflower can produce 40 percent more energy than a traditional rooftop solar design. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about it. …
Around the world, support is growing for electric cars. Automakers are delivering more electric models with longer range and lower prices, such as the Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3. China has set aggressive targets for electric vehicle sales to curb pollution; some European countries aim to be all-electric …
U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla is close to testing a long-haul self-driving electric truck that could drive in convoys following a lead vehicle. The company is reportedly also in contact with Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles about the possibility of testing the truck on the state’s roads. Earlier this year …
Google’s workforce needs to “represent the world in totality,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, at an international girls coding competition held on the company’s campus here Thursday night. His comments come as the search engine giant grapples with a high profile internal debate over the number and influence of …
Researchers in the United States have unveiled a prototype of a battery-free mobile phone using technology they hope will eventually be integrated into mass-market products. The phone is the work of a group of researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle and operates by harvesting tiny amounts of power …
Artificial intelligence robots are turbocharging the race to find new drugs for the crippling nerve disorder ALS, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. The condition attacks and kills nerve cells controlling muscles, leading to weakness, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure. There are only two drugs approved by the U.S. Food and …
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis kicked off his first official visit to the U.S. technology industry on Thursday with a tour of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, the first stop on a two-day outreach campaign intended to highlight the Pentagon’s commitment to tech innovation. Mattis was scheduled to visit Mountain View, …
A hundred teenage girls from seven countries are gathered in Malawi for a ‘Women in Science’ camp. Lameck Masina has the story from the Malawi University of Science and Technology in the Thyolo district of southern Malawi. …
A Chinese law firm has filed a complaint against Apple on behalf of 28 local developers alleging the firm breached antitrust regulations. The complaint, lodged by Beijing-based Dare & Sure Law Firm, accuses Apple of charging excessive fees and removing apps from its local store without proper explanation, Lin Wei, …
China has sent an unbreakable code from a satellite to the Earth, marking the first time space-to-ground quantum key distribution technology has been realized, state media said Thursday. China launched the world’s first quantum satellite last August, to help establish “hack-proof” communications, a development the Pentagon has called a “notable …
Facebook on Wednesday made its biggest move to date to compete in the television market by expanding its video offerings with programming ranging from professional women’s basketball to a safari show and a parenting program. The redesigned product, called “Watch,” will be available initially to a limited group in the …
An artist tired of seeing hateful tweets ignored by Twitter has managed to get the social network to remove or hide some of them — by spray-painting the offending posts in front of the company’s German headquarters. Shahak Shapira said he reported some 300 tweets containing possible illegal content to …
A former Google software engineer, who wrote an internal memo criticizing the company’s diversity policies, has filed a labor complaint, saying he was wrongfully fired. In a statement emailed to news agencies, James Damore said he filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board prior to his termination and …
The male Google engineer fired for circulating a memo decrying the company’s diversity hiring program became the center of a heated debate on sexism, drawing scorn, cheers and even a job offer on Tuesday from WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. James Damore, 28, confirmed his dismissal from Alphabet Inc’s Google on …
A German-Israeli artist who accuses Twitter of failing to delete hate speech tweets has taken matters into his own hands – by stenciling the offending messages on the road in front of the company’s Hamburg headquarters. A post on video-sharing site YouTube showed Shahak Shapira and fellow activists stencilling tweets …
U.S. technology giant Google has fired a male engineer who wrote a memo questioning the need for gender diversity programs in the industry. In a 3,000 page internal memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” James Damore asserted that so few women were employed in the technology field because they “prefer …
The Pentagon has given more than 130 U.S. military bases across the United States the green light to shoot down private and commercial drones that could endanger aviation safety or pose other threats. The number of uncrewed aircraft in U.S. skies has zoomed in recent years and continues to increase …
Silicon Valley’s efforts to promote workforce diversity haven’t yielded many results — unless you count a backlash at Google, where a male engineer blamed biological differences for the paucity of female programmers. His widely shared memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” also criticizes Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs …
At the recent Games for Change festival in New York City, the video games on display were a far cry from Mario Brothers and Call of Duty. Instead, game developers showed off titles that tackled civic and social issues. VOA reporter Tina Trinh explores. …
You’re in Nepal. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has just struck your village and you must rescue the survivors. This is “After Days,” a video game based on the real-life Nepal earthquake that killed almost 9,000 people in 2015. Minseok Do was showing the game at the recent Games for …
A voice in your ear at the touch of a hand? The Orii ring allows people to take phone calls, handle text messages and interact with a phone’s digital assistant, all by transferring sound to a user’s ear through bone conduction. The ring, designed by Hong Kong-based start-up Origami Labs, …
There are smart phones, smart light bulbs, and now smart shoes. A Japanese engineer has created LED footwear that become glowing computer displays. And even though there are other shoes on the market that glow, these shoes step it up a notch, as we hear from VOA’s Deborah Block. …
Kenya’s Elections Observation Group (ELOG) plans to deploy about 5,000 observers to monitor Tuesday’s vote. ELOG also will use Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) to monitor the presidential election. The Elections Observations Group, (ELOG) which is made up of civil society and faith-based organizations, met Saturday in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and …
The U.S. Army has ordered its members to stop using drones made by Chinese manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd because of “cyber vulnerabilities” in the products. An Aug. 2 Army memo posted online and verified by Reuters applies to all DJI drones and systems that use DJI components or …
Finding underground gas leaks is now as easy as finding a McDonalds, thanks to a combination of Google Street View cars, mobile methane detectors, some major computing power and a lot of ingenuity. When a city’s underground gas lines leak, they waste fuel and release invisible plumes of methane, a …