Environmentalists promote solar energy as an option to reduce pollution, but in places without a central electricity supply solar panels can be a practical solution. They are frequently used by nomads moving through the desert, and people living in remote villages. In recent years solar panels have come to serve …
Intel Corp. on Tuesday announced a new line of microprocessors for data centers, setting up a battle with Advanced Micro Devices and others for the lucrative business of supplying the chips that power cloud computing. The new Xeon Scalable Processor chips provide far greater support for next-generation computing applications such …
Microsoft wants to extend broadband services to rural America by using the buffer zones separating individual television channels in the airwaves. Microsoft plans to partner with rural telecommunications providers in 12 states, from the Dakotas and Arizona to a far eastern edge of Maine. The strategy calls for a combination …
Forty-one percent of Americans say they’ve experienced online harassment, a new survey says. According to the Pew Research Center, that number is up from 2014, the last time they did the survey, when 35 percent of Americans said they’d been harassed online. Nearly two-thirds reported seeing online harassment happen to …
U.S. House Republicans expect to introduce bills later this week that would bar states from setting their own rules for self-driving cars and take other steps to remove obstacles to putting such vehicles on the road, a spokeswoman said. The legislative action comes as major automakers are joining forces with …
Investigators said Monday that targets of high-tech spying in Mexico included an international group of experts backed by the Organization of American States who had criticized the government’s probe into the disappearance of 43 students. Previous investigations by the internet watchdog group Citizen Lab found that the spyware had been …
A common assumption is that writing computer code is a highly technical skill for people who are good at math and logic, but software engineers say another quality is just as important: creativity. A group of software developers in Palo Alto, California, has created a game called Osmo Coding Jam …
A common assumption is that writing computer code is a highly technical skill for people who are good at math and logic. There is another quality in the tech world that is just as important: creativity. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports on a game that teaches children the creative side of …
Hackers who penetrated the business networks of U.S. energy and nuclear companies in recent weeks were working for the Russian government according to a report in a prominent newspaper. The Washington Post reported late Saturday that anonymous U.S. government officials confirmed the hackers were working for the Russian government. The …
Each year, wildfires around the world devastate thousands of square kilometers of forests and grasslands and make many people homeless. Some plants recover faster from fire than others, and scientists would like to know why. In Australia, they are experimenting with a simple monitoring device relying on fiber optics. VOA’s …
The shortage of housing in California’s Silicon Valley has gotten so severe that Facebook Inc. on Friday proposed taking homebuilding into its own hands for the first time with a plan to construct 1,500 units near its headquarters. The growth of Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other tech companies has …
The U.S. Department of Energy said on Friday it is helping U.S. firms defend against a hacking campaign that targeted power companies including at least one nuclear plant, saying the attacks have not impacted electricity generation or the grid. News of the attacks surfaced a week ago when Reuters reported …
A senior Facebook official met with Pakistan’s interior minister on Friday to discuss a demand the company prevent blasphemous content or be blocked. The meeting comes after a Pakistani counter-terrorism court sentenced a 30-year-old man to death for making blasphemous comments on Facebook, part of a wider crack-down. Joel Kaplan, …
South Australia has picked Tesla to install the world’s largest grid-scale battery, which would be paired with a wind farm provided by France’s Neoen, in a major test of the reliability of large-scale renewable energy use. South Australia, the fifth-biggest state with a population of 1.7 million, has raced ahead …
Street violence and gang shootings are on the rise in many big cities worldwide. Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro sees an average of 15 gun battles a day, and innocent bystanders are often caught in the crossfire. But people in Rio can now avoid street violence thanks to several smartphone apps. …
While our fossil fuel-dependent civilization keeps releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, scientists are racing to find a viable method for lowering the emission of the most harmful one — carbon dioxide. It can be captured and stored underground, or it can be turned into a harmless rock. The price …
A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that Twitter could move forward with a lawsuit that aims to free technology companies to speak more openly about surveillance requests they receive from the U.S. government. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, said in a written order that the U.S. …
A team of Afghan teenage girls who were denied a visa to participate in a robotics contest in Washington say they will not be deterred and have sent their home-made robot to the contest. While disappointed, the girls are glad their robot will be part of the competition. Bezhan Hamdard …
While the public contemplates how to protect large computer systems, such as banks and voting machines, from hacking, experts warn that another critical part of the data-based world may be vulnerable. Robots are rapidly entering everyday life, and they also rely on a connection to the internet and thus are …
Swedish carmaker Volvo says it is phasing out the internal combustion engine in favor of electric motors by 2019. Volvo, which is Chinese owned, is the first traditional carmaker to announce the move. “This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” said Volvo’s president Håkan Samuelsson in …
Singapore has a near-perfect approach to cybersecurity, but many other rich countries have holes in their defenses and some poorer countries are showing them how it should be done, a U.N. survey showed on Wednesday. Wealth breeds cybercrime, but it does not automatically generate cybersecurity, so governments need to make …
The Ukrainian software firm at the center of a cyber attack that spread around the world last week said on Wednesday that computers which use its accounting software are compromised by a so-called “backdoor” installed by hackers during the attack. The backdoor has been installed in every computer that wasn’t …
A British hospital trust misused patient data when it shared information with Google for work on a smartphone app to help detect kidney injuries, a British data protection watchdog said Monday. The Royal Free NHS Trust failed to comply with the Data Protection Act when it passed on personal information …
A solar-powered drone backed by Facebook that could one day provide worldwide internet access has quietly completed a test flight in Arizona after an earlier attempt ended with a crash landing. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term plan for the drone, called Aquila, is to have it and others provide internet …
Samsung Electronics said Sunday it will start selling refurbished versions of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone this week in South Korea. The Note 7 was recalled last year because its batteries would overheat and catch fire. The refurbished versions will use different batteries. The new Galaxy Note FE phone, built …
Samsung Electronics said Sunday its recalled Galaxy Note 7 phones will be recycled and sold starting this week in South Korea. The Galaxy Note FE phone, using unused parts in the recalled Note 7 smartphones, will go on sale in South Korea Friday at 700,000 won ($611), about three …