EU regulators are quizzing merchants and others on U.S. online retailer Amazon’s use of their data to discover whether there is a need for action, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Wednesday. The comments by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager came as the world’s largest online retailer faces calls for more regulatory intervention and even its…
read moreGerman luxury car brand Audi this week staged the global launch of a new electric sport utility vehicle on the home turf of rival Tesla, and highlighted a deal with Amazon.com Inc. to make recharging its forthcoming e-tron models easier. The Audi e-tron midsize SUV will be offered in the United States next year at…
read moreA volunteer medic and the man whose life he saved. A lawmaker whose Facebook post calling for protests in Kyiv’s Maidan square helped bring down a president. These are some of the characters featured in a virtual reality reconstruction of the bloodiest day in the 2013-14 street demonstrations in Ukraine, when dozens of protesters were…
read moreElectric drones booked through smartphones pick people up from office rooftops, shortening travel time by hours, reducing the need for parking and clearing smog from the air. This vision of the future is driving the Japanese government’s “flying car” project. Major carrier All Nippon Airways, electronics company NEC Corp. and more than a dozen other…
read moreSpaceX, Elon Musk’s space transportation company, on Monday named its first private passenger as Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, the founder and chief executive of online fashion retailer Zozo. A former drummer in a punk band, billionaire Maezawa will take a trip around the moon planned for 2023 aboard its forthcoming Big Falcon Rocket spaceship, taking…
read moreElon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, was sued for defamation on Monday for falsely suggesting that a British caver who helped save 12 boys and their soccer coach from a Thailand cave in July was a pedophile and child rapist. Vernon Unsworth sued over Musk’s reference to him in a July 15 tweet as…
read moreSaudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund invested $1 billion Monday in an American electric car manufacturer just weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier claimed the kingdom would help his own firm go private. Tesla stock dropped Monday on reaction to the news, the same day that the Saudi fund announced it had taken its first…
read moreResearchers are working to create robots that can do all types of jobs and now some scientists are trying to make androids – or robots that appear human. But androids can make some people feel uneasy. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains this feeling or phenomenon known as the “uncanny valley.” …
read moreFacebook is better prepared to defend against efforts to manipulate the platform to influence elections and has recently thwarted foreign influence campaigns targeting several countries, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday. Zuckerberg, posting on his Facebook page, outlined a series of steps the leading social network has taken to protect against misinformation and manipulation campaigns…
read moreApple’s polished iPhone line-up comes with tools to help users dial back their smartphone obsessions, amid growing concerns over “addiction” and harmful effects on children. An iOS 12 mobile operating system that will power new iPhones unveiled on Wednesday, and be pushed out as an update to prior models, has new features to reduce how…
read moreApple Inc unveiled larger iPhones and watches based on the design of current models on Wednesday, confirming Wall Street expectations that the company is making only minor changes to its lineup. The world’s most valuable tech company wants users to upgrade to newer, more expensive devices as a way to boost revenue as global demand…
read moreA group representing major internet companies including Facebook, Amazon.com and Alphabet said on Tuesday it backed modernizing U.S. data privacy rules but wants a national approach that would preempt California’s new regulations that take effect in 2020. The Internet Association, a group representing more than 40 major internet and technology firms including Netflix, Microsoft and…
read moreAmerican teenagers are starting to prefer communicating via text instead of meeting face-to-face, according to a study published Monday by the independent organization Common Sense Media. Some 35 percent of kids aged 13 to 17 years old said they would rather send a text than meet up with people, which received 32 percent. The last…
read moreAbout two-thirds of American adults say they occasionally get their news from social media, according to a survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center. The number is 1 percent more than last year, indicating a slowdown in the growth of news consumption on social media. Despite the popularity of social media, 57 percent said…
read moreA stuffed toy monkey called Tiwa holds some of Nigeria’s oldest folk tales and is helping to revive the traditional practice of storytelling by appealing to a younger generation. Faith Lapidus reports. …
read moreThe number of wearable technologies that use sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being – is on the rise. All of them – need an electric charge or a battery source to operate, but a handful of researchers are trying to take batteries out of the equation. At the Texas A&M University in…
read moreThere has been an increasing number of wearable technologies that have health sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being. Many of these devices need to be charged or are battery-powered. A handful of researchers want to take batteries out of the equation and instead, use waste body heat and convert that into useful…
read moreTwitter has permanently banned far-right media personality Alex Jones for violating its policy against “abusive behavior.” Jones, who is known as a conspiracy theorist, has about 900,000 followers on Twitter. His Infowars website has hundreds of thousands of followers, as well. Twitter accused Jones of violating its policy after he was seen on television berating…
read moreTennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world’s best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra help, in the form of…
read moreFacebook and Twitter executives defended their efforts to prevent Russian meddling in U.S. midterm elections before congressional panels Wednesday. The social media companies’ efforts to provide assurances to lawmakers come amid warnings from internet researchers that Moscow still has active social media accounts aimed at influencing U.S. political discourse. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has…
read moreJosh Russell works as a systems analyst and programmer at Indiana University, has two daughters, and exposes Russian internet trolls in his spare time. Russell first became interested in the phenomenon of Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, when he noticed a large amount of misinformation distributed about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He noticed…
read moreFacebook and Twitter executives insisted at a Senate hearing Wednesday that they were aggressively trying to identify foreign actors who wanted to inflict damage on the U.S. before the November midterm elections. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told the Senate Intelligence Committee her company was “now blocking millions of attempts to register false accounts each…
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