A Chinese company has unveiled a driverless bus-train hybrid that uses white lines painted on the road to navigate. The company, CRRC, called the electric vehicle a “smart bus.” The Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit is made up of three cars, is 30 meters long and is capable of carrying about …
The U.S. military’s biggest base on American soil has begun drawing nearly half of its power from renewable energy, days after President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a global agreement to fight climate change. Fort Hood, in Texas, has shifted away from fossil fuels to wind- and solar-generated …
A Chinese city is using big data provided by a phone company to track the movement of its migrant worker population, expanding the many ways China is using big data to not just enhance performance but also track the daily lives of its citizens. “When you buy a mobile phone …
Apple nodded to several up-and-coming technology trends, unveiling a new “smart” home speaker and device features touching on virtual reality, online privacy and a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning. The “HomePod” speaker unveiled Monday is similar to devices from rivals, some of which have been on the …
Apple appears poised to unveil a voice-activated, internet-connected speaker that would create a new digital pipeline into people’s homes. Tapping Apple’s Siri digital assistant, such a speaker is expected to serve as a butler as well as an outlet for listening to music. If the speculation pans out, the …
Facebook said it wanted to make its social media platform a “hostile environment” for terrorists in a statement issued after attackers killed seven people in London and prompted Prime Minister Theresa May to demand action from internet firms. Three attackers rammed a rental van into pedestrians on London Bridge and …
The applications for 3-D printing keep coming. We’ve reported on 3-D printers being used in everything from robotics to games to baking. But now comes a sweet way to turn melted chocolate into works of art. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
The applications for 3-D printing keep coming. We’ve reported on 3-D printers being used in everything from robotics to games to baking. But now comes a sweet way to turn melted chocolate into works of art. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …
Rick Perry twice ran for president and appeared as a contestant on TV’s Dancing with the Stars. But since becoming President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Perry has kept a low profile and rarely has been seen publicly around Washington. Comedian Hasan Minhaj joked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner …
H1B visas were created to bring high-tech professionals from other countries to the US. The hub of high-tech innovation, Silicon Valley, has long benefited from the program. But the Trump administration has vowed to re-examine the program. In this report, narrated by Miguel Amaya, VOA’s Chu Wu talked to Silicon …
Dozens of U.S. companies spoke out against President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Analysts say the improving economic case for renewables has boosted support for green energy in the once-skeptical business community; but, as VOA’s Jim Randle reports, some coal companies supported …
Apple is expected to announce plans next week to make its Siri voice assistant work with a larger variety of apps, as the technology company looks to counter the runaway success of Amazon.com’s competing Alexa service. But the Cupertino, California, company is likely to stick to its tested method of …
Announcing that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, President Donald Trump misplaced the blame for what ails the coal industry and laid a shaky factual foundation for his decision. A look at some of the claims in a Rose Garden speech and an accompanying fact sheet about …
When General Motors CEO Mary Barra introduced the Chevrolet Bolt at the CES gadget show last year, she took a shot at Tesla. Buyers can be confident because Chevy has 3,000 U.S. dealers to service the new electric vehicle, she said. The implication was that Tesla, with just 69 service …
The United States Army is taking another step toward developing autonomous trucks this month when it tests them on a Michigan highway. The test, the first on a public road, will feature only flatbed trucks, but the technology could eventually be used in other military vehicles and could help protect …
Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube have stepped up both the speed and number of removals of hate speech on their platforms in response to pressure from the European Union to do more to tackle the issue, according to the results of an EU evaluation. Facebook won …
Today’s travelers on land, sea and air rely on one of the satellite-based navigational systems commonly known as GPS, where the G stands for Global. Scientists at NASA will soon start experiments aiming at changing Global to Galactic. For that, they plan to use neutron stars, also known as pulsars, …
Fighting hunger around the globe is uniquely challenging. It’s not just getting the food to those who need it. It includes growing, or in the case of protein, raising the food that will feed the hungry. But a group of California researchers may have an answer to the protein problem. …
An Indian charity is using big data to pinpoint human trafficking hot spots in a bid to prevent vulnerable women and girls vanishing from high-risk villages into the sex trade. My Choices Foundation uses specially designed technology to identify those villages that are most at risk of modern slavery, then …
Inside the sprawling Acer stall at Computex Taipei, Asia’s largest tech show, staff displayed a laptop computer that’s ready for virtual reality play yet thinner than most PCs for gaming. At the same exhibition, the Taiwanese tech hardware maker showed how its internet cloud uses artificial intelligence to predict what …
Solar power is lighting up the night sky in Jordan and making life easier for the 20,000 Syrian refugees at a camp that once had no reliable source of electricity. Faith Lapidus reports. …
Andy Rubin, the co-creator of the Android mobile phone operating system, has launched a new company called Essential Products to sell a high-end smartphone and a home assistant device. Palo Alto-based Essential said the new Essential Phone features an edge-to-edge screen, a titanium-and-ceramic case and dual cameras. The phone sells …
Computer algorithms power much of modern life from our Facebook feeds to international stock exchanges. Could they help end malnutrition and hunger in Africa? The International Center for Tropical Agriculture thinks so. The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture has spent the past four years developing the Nutrition Early Warning …
The U.S. Homeland Security chief says he’s considering banning laptop computers from the passenger cabins of all international flights to and from the United States. John Kelly says there are signs of a “real threat” against civilian aviation from carry-on electronic devices. Speaking on the Fox News Sunday television program, …
Bitcoin, the controversial digital currency, recently made headlines for reaching a record high valuation of more than $2,700, but perhaps the bigger growth potential lies in blockchain. The technology behind bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies is being explored by more conventional companies and businesses. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports from New York. …
In their Hacking for Defense class, students at Stanford University in California don’t hit the books or work on problem sets in the library. They go out into the field, tackling real world problems given to them by the Department of Defense and the U.S. military. The unusual 10-week course …