The Senate this week took a key step toward passing a bill meant to provide $52 billion in subsidies to the semiconductor industry in the United States, part of an effort that lawmakers have characterized as protecting the country from supply shortages such as those that struck during the coronavirus pandemic. The bill, called the…
read moreTwitter appeared to be working again after a widespread outage earlier Thursday. The site Downdetector.com, which logs service outages, reported it was the first such outage since February and impacted people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Italy and others. Starting around 8 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast, many users received…
read moreCryptocurrencies use an enormous amount of energy, and as the industry grows rapidly, so do concerns about its impact on the climate. Matt Dibble has the story. …
read moreTwitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday to force him to complete the $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. Musk and Twitter have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said on Friday he was backing off of his April agreement to buy the company. Twitter’s lawsuit opens with a…
read moreThe U.S. space agency NASA released the set of the first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope Tuesday, a day after sharing a full-color picture of stars and galaxies deeper into the cosmos than ever seen before. Watch here: U.S. President Joe Biden said the telescope offered “a new window into the history…
read moreAs the U.S. reels from a surge of recent mass shootings, some technologists are focusing on how to prevent casualties. VOA’s Julie Taboh spoke with a couple of entrepreneurs who have developed gun-detecting technologies. …
read moreShares of Twitter slid more than 6% in the first day of trading after billionaire Elon Musk said that he was abandoning his $44 billion bid for the company and the social media platform vowed to challenge Musk in court to uphold the agreement. Twitter is now preparing to sue Musk in Delaware where the…
read moreAs Uber aggressively pushed into markets around the world, the ride-sharing service lobbied political leaders to relax labor and taxi laws, used a “kill switch” to thwart regulators and law enforcement, channeled money through Bermuda and other tax havens and considered portraying violence against its drivers as a way to gain public sympathy, according to…
read moreMillions of Canadians found out Friday what it is like to live without access to the internet and mobile phone service. Rogers Communications, the country’s largest mobile and internet provider, experienced a major outage, beginning Friday morning and lasting most of the day. The outage affected retailers, credit card and debit transactions, court proceedings, government…
read moreTwitter said Thursday it removes more than 1 million spam and bot accounts every day. The removals come as Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is in the process of acquiring the company, continues to pressure Twitter to reduce spam accounts. He has threatened to cancel the $44 billion deal if Twitter cannot prove spam and…
read moreMany people struggle with feelings of loneliness and social isolation. For some, a robot companion might make a difference, and states like New York are starting to provide them to residents free of charge. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Videographer: Adam Greenbaum Produced by: Julie Taboh, Adam Greenbaum …
read moreA rural town in central Texas is home to the largest bitcoin mining facility in North America, bringing jobs and welcomed vitality into the community. But critics warn the operations are part of a volatile new industry. Deana Mitchell has the story. …
read moreElon Musk’s deployment of thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine has been a major help for the country in its fight against Russia. VOA’s Russia Service has the story. …
read moreInstagram is blocking posts that mention abortion from public view, in some cases requiring its users to confirm their age before letting them view posts that offer up information about the procedure. Over the last day, several Instagram accounts run by abortion rights advocacy groups have found their posts or stories hidden with a warning…
read moreFuture waves of COVID-19 might be predicted using internet search data, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the study, researchers watched the number of COVID-related Google searches made across the country and used that information, together with conventional COVID-19 metrics such as confirmed cases, to predict hospital admission rates weeks…
read moreThis week, the Group of Seven leaders launched a $600 billion global infrastructure initiative they say will compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Telfs, Austria, with reporting from Patsy Widakuswara in Washington. …
read moreNASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, has successfully completed its first rocket launch from a commercial space facility outside of the United States. A 13-meter rocket blasted off Monday from a site in the Australian outback. A 13-meter sub-orbital rocket took off from the newly built Arnhem Space Centre in Australia’s Northern Territory Monday.…
read moreCoinciding with unrelenting cyberattacks against Ukraine, state-backed Russian hackers have engaged in “strategic espionage” against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday. “Since the start of the war, the Russian targeting [of Ukraine’s allies] has been successful 29 percent of the time,” Microsoft President…
read moreTwitter’s board has recommended unanimously that shareholders approve the proposed $44 billion sale of the company to billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. Musk reiterated his desire to move forward with the acquisition last week during a virtual meeting with Twitter employees, though shares of Twitter remain far below…
read more“I’m in a cryptocurrency chat group at work,” software engineer Adam Hickey of San Diego, California told VOA. Over the last few days, Hickey said, members of the group have been writing things like, “Bloodbath” and, “Are we still good?” “It shook me, honestly,” he admitted. “I just had to stop looking at my balance.…
read moreAmazon and Cartier joined forces Wednesday in U.S. court to accuse a social media influencer of working with Chinese firms to sell knock-offs of the luxury brand’s jewelry on the e-commerce giant’s site. The online personality used sites like Instagram to pitch Cartier jewelry such as “Love bracelets” to followers and then provided links that…
read moreA new study has found that Facebook has failed to catch Islamic State group and al-Shabab extremist content in posts aimed at East Africa as the region remains under threat from violent attacks and Kenya prepares to vote in a closely contested national election. An Associated Press series last year, drawing on leaked documents shared…
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