“Digital currencies have played a pivotal role in backing Myanmar’s Spring Revolution,” following a military takeover of the government in February 2021, said NUG Deputy Minister of Planning, Finance and Investment Min Zayar Oo, in a statement to VOA. The minister was appointed by the National Unity Government, or NUG, …
As Indonesia celebrates the launch of its first high-speed railway, the government is dealing with cost overruns and Chinese bank loans with high interest rates. In Jakarta, Devianti Faridz has the story. Camera: Ahadian Utama …
Vodafone underlined its commitment to Open RAN networks on Monday by confirming it would create purpose-built chipset architecture for the nascent technology with Intel INTC.O. The European operator also said it had made its first 4G calls using Open RAN over network sites shared with Orange ORAN.PA in Romania, and …
Tourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage. All they need is a smartphone. Visitors can now pinch and zoom their way around the ancient Greek site, with a digital overlay showing how it once looked. …
Amazon launched the first test satellites for its planned internet service Friday as a rival to SpaceX’s broadband network. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket blasted off with the pair of test satellites, kicking off a program that aims to improve global internet coverage with an eventual 3,236 satellites around …
An Ethiopian digital app inventor has been given a prestigious award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for creating an application designed to link refugees with employers. Last week in New York, Eden Tadesse accepted a Goalkeepers Global Goals Award at a ceremony attended by Kenyan President William Ruto, …
An updated rule curbing exports of U.S. chipmaking equipment to China is in the final stages of review, according to a government posting and a source, a sign the Biden administration is poised to soon tighten restrictions on Beijing. Reuters exclusively reported Monday that U.S. officials had warned China in …
In less than a year, ChatGPT — the AI-powered chatbot — has altered the way people use and abuse artificial intelligence. And while some educators are working to keep it out of the classroom, some say it’s welcome. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Camera — David Gogokhia. …
As the U.S. government seemed headed for a possible shutdown last week, cybersecurity firms began picking up on an alarming trend: a spike in cyberattacks targeting government agencies and the U.S. defense industry. It has some analysts concerned that U.S. adversaries and criminal hackers might have been preparing to take …
Meta is proposing to offer European users subscription-based versions of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday. The idea, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the social media giant seeks to comply with a growing list of …
New technologies are giving bionic hands some of the more complex features of human hands. Genia Dulot reports on a California company that is using touch feedback to give users a sense of the objects they are holding or interacting with …
A Kenyan parliamentary panel called on the country’s information technology regulator on Monday to shut down the operations of cryptocurrency project Worldcoin within the country until more stringent regulations are put in place. The government suspended the project in early August following privacy objections over its scanning of users’ irises …
A Swiss-led team has driven electric vans across Europe and the Arabian Peninsula to Qatar to showcase zero-emission battery powered vehicles, organizers said Sunday. The five-strong Swiss and German team set out from Geneva on August 28 in two electric Volkswagen vans on a 6,500 kilometer (4,000 mile) journey that …
Apple is blaming a software bug and other issues tied to popular apps such as Instagram and Uber for causing its recently released iPhone 15 models to heat up and spark complaints about becoming too hot to handle. The Cupertino, California, company said Saturday that it is working on an …
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution. The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim …
On the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang delivered a speech at the Concordia Annual Summit on digital democracy and artificial intelligence. VOA spoke with Tang about how AI might help break through China’s censorship and …
Iran claimed on Wednesday it successfully launched an imaging satellite into space, a move that could further ratchet up tensions with Western nations that fear its space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian Communication Minister Isa Zarepour said the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit …
In Goma, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, residents say plastic and other waste is increasingly polluting Lake Kivu. A new initiative is keeping some of that waste out of the lake. Austere Malivika has this report from Goma, narrated by Aida Issa. …
Wildfires fueled by climate change have ravaged communities from Maui to the Mediterranean this summer, killing many people, exhausting firefighters and fueling demand for new solutions. Enter artificial intelligence. Firefighters and startups are using AI-enabled cameras to scan the horizon for signs of smoke. A German company is building a …
NASA’s first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military …
Earlier this year, Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC announced that it was delaying the opening of a computer chip plant in the U.S. state of Arizona because of a shortage of specialized workers. But during a visit to Taiwan this week, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs told officials that the project is …
Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman killed 14 students and three staff members there on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Seeing his peers — and himself — struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to help people manage their emotions …
For decades, Russian and eastern European hackers have dominated the cybercrime underworld. These days they may face a challenge from a new contender: China. Researchers at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint say they have detected an increase in the spread of Chinese language malware through email campaigns since early 2023, signaling a …
Germany’s interior ministry has proposed forcing telecommunications operators to curb their use of equipment made by China’s Huawei and ZTE, a government official said Wednesday, sparking warnings of likely disruption and possible legal action. The interior ministry wants to impose the changes to 5G networks after a review highlighted Germany’s …
Google announced Tuesday that its Bard chatbot would be integrated into Gmail, YouTube and other applications in a push to broaden Alphabet’s user experience. Google has spent years refining its generative AI without immediate plans to release a chatbot, until OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT late last year and partnered with Microsoft …
Britain has invited China to its global artificial intelligence summit in November, with foreign minister James Cleverly saying the risks of the technology could not be contained if one of its leading players was absent. “We cannot keep the UK public safe from the risks of AI if we exclude …