Billionaire Bill Gates and Melinda Gates said in a joint statement on Monday that they have made the decision to end their marriage. “After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the two said in a statement posted by Bill Gates’ Twitter account. “We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life,” their statement said. 
 
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Facebook’s oversight board will soon be announcing its decision about whether to uphold the company’s ban on former President Donald Trump’s account.The quasi-independent body said the announcement will be made May 5 in a Twitter post.The Oversight Board will announce its decision on the case concerning former US President Trump on its website at https://t.co/NNQ9YCrcrh on May 5, 2021 at approximately 9:00 a.m. EDT.
— Oversight Board (@OversightBoard) May 3, 2021Facebook banned Trump’s account in the wake of the Jan. 6 violent pro-Trump protests at the U.S. Capitol.The board says it has received over 9,000 public comments on the Trump case.The board was created last October after the company faced criticism it was not quickly and effectively dealing with what some feel is problematic content.Decisions by the board are binding and cannot be overturned. 
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AOL and Yahoo are being sold again, this time to a private equity firm.  
Verizon will sell Verizon Media, which consists of the pioneering tech platforms, to Apollo Global Management in a $5 billion deal.
Verizon said Monday that it will keep a 10% stake in the new company, which will be called Yahoo.
Yahoo at the end of the last century was the face of the internet, preceding the behemoth tech platforms to follow, such as Google and Facebook.  
And AOL was the portal, bringing almost everyone who logged on during the internet’s earliest days.  
Verizon had hoped to ride the acquisition of AOL to a quick entry into the mobile market, spending more than $4 billion on the company in 2015. The plan was to use the advertising platform pioneered by AOL to sell digital advertising. Two years later, it spent even more to acquire Yahoo and combined the two.  
However the speed at which Google and Facebook have grown dashed those hopes and it became clear very quickly that it was unlikely to reach Verizon’s highest aspirations for the two.  
The year after buying Yahoo, Verizon wrote down the value of the combined operation, called “Oath,” by more than the $4.5 billion it had spent on Yahoo.  
As part of the deal announced Monday, Verizon will receive $4.25 billion in cash, preferred interests of $750 million and the minority stake. The transaction includes the assets of Verizon Media, including its brands and businesses such as Yahoo and AOL.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.  
Shares of Verizon Communications Inc., based in New York, rose slightly before the opening bell Monday.
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On Monday, Apple faces one of its most serious legal threats in recent years: A trial that threatens to upend its iron control over its app store, which brings in billions of dollars each year while feeding more than 1.6 billion iPhones, iPads, and other devices.The federal court case is being brought by Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite. Epic wants to topple the so-called “walled garden” of the app store, which Apple started building 13 years ago as part of a strategy masterminded by co-founder Steve Jobs.Epic charges that Apple has transformed a once-tiny digital storefront into an illegal monopoly that squeezes mobile apps for a significant slice of their earnings. Apple takes a commission of 15% to 30% on purchases made within apps, including everything from digital items in games to subscriptions. Apple denies Epic’s charge.Apple’s highly successful formula has helped turn the iPhone maker into one of the world’s most profitable companies, one with a market value that now tops $2.2 trillion.Privately held Epic is puny by comparison, with an estimated market value of $30 billion. Its aspirations to get bigger hinge in part on its plan to offer an alternative app store on the iPhone. The North Carolina company also wants to break free of Apple’s commissions. Epic says it forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple before Fortnite was expelled from its app store last August, after Epic added a payment system that bypassed Apple.Epic then sued Apple, prompting a courtroom drama that could shed new light on Apple’s management of its app store. Both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney will testify in a Oakland, California federal courtroom that will be set up to allow for social distancing and will require masks at all times.Neither side wanted a jury trial, leaving the decision to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who already seems to know her ruling will probably be appealed, given the stakes in the case.Much of the evidence will revolve around arcane but crucial arguments about market definitions.Epic contends the iPhone has become so ingrained in society that the device and its ecosystem have turned into a monopoly Apple can exploit to unfairly enrich itself and thwart competition.Apple claims it faces significant competition from various alternatives to video games on iPhones. For instance, it points out that about 2 billion other smartphones don’t run iPhone software or work with its app store — primarily those relying on Google’s Android system. Epic has filed a separate case against Google, accusing it of illegally gouging apps through its own app store for Android devices.Apple will also depict Epic as a desperate company hungry for sources of revenue beyond the aging Fortnite. It claims Epic merely wants to freeload off an iPhone ecosystem in which Apple has invested more than $100 billion over the past 15 years.Estimates of Apple’s app store revenue range from $15 billion to $18 billion annually. Apple disputes those estimates, although it hasn’t publicly disclosed its own figures. Instead, it has emphasized that it doesn’t collect a cent from 85% of the apps in its store.The commissions it pockets, Apple says, are a reasonable way for the company to recoup its investment while financing an app review process it calls essential to preserving the security of apps and their users. About 40% of the roughly 100,000 apps submitted for review each week are rejected for some sort of problem, according to Kyle Andeer, Apple’s chief compliance officer.Epic will try to prove that Apple uses the security issue to disguise its true motivation — maintaining a monopoly that wrings more profits from app makers who can’t afford not to be available on the iPhone.But the smaller company may face an uphill battle. Last fall, the judge expressed some skepticism in court before denying Epic’s request to reinstate Fortnite on Apple’s app store pending the outcome of the trial. At that time, Gonzalez Rogers asserted that Epic’s claims were “at the frontier edges of antitrust law.”The trial is expected to last most of May, with a decision to come in the ensuing weeks. 
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Videos of kids having fun are among the most popular on YouTube. They are also a fast-growing business, one that critics say comes with little regulation and oversight to protect children on either side of the screen. Michelle Quinn reports.
Producer: Michelle Quinn
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EU regulators accused Apple on Friday of distorting competition in the music streaming market, siding with Spotify in a case that could lead to a hefty fine and changes in the iPhone maker’s lucrative business practices.
 
The preliminary findings are the first time Brussels has leveled anti-competitive charges against Apple, although the two sides have had bruising clashes in the past, most notably a multibillion-dollar tax dispute involving Ireland.
 
Apple, Spotify and other parties can now respond. If the case is pursued, the EU could demand concessions and potentially impose a fine of up to 10% of Apple’s global turnover – as much as $27 billion, although it rarely levies the maximum penalty.
 
Apple found itself in the European Commission’s crosshairs after Sweden-based Spotify complained two years ago that the U.S. tech giant unfairly restricted rivals to its own music streaming service Apple Music on iPhones.
 
The EU competition enforcer, in its so-called statement of objections setting out the charge, said the issue related to Apple’s restrictive rules for its App Store that force developers to use its own in-app payment system and prevent them from informing users of other purchasing options.
 
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said there were clear signs Apple’s App Store rules were affecting music streaming rivals’ business development and affecting app developers more widely.
 
“They [app developers] depend on Apple App Store as a gatekeeper to access users of Apple’s iPhones and iPads. This significant market power cannot go unchecked as the conditions of access to the Apple App Store are key for the success of app developers,” she told a news conference.
 
Vestager said Apple should end restrictive practices and refrain from doing anything that would replicate them.
 
She also said other authorities were looking into the issue. “We have contact with other jurisdictions doing similar
cases, that could be the Dutch, the Australians, the Americans,”she said, adding she  also was interested in the app gaming market, although it was early days.
 
Apple rebuffed the EU charge. “Spotify has become the largest music subscription service in the world, and we’re proud of the role we played in that,” it said in a statement.
 
“They want all the benefits of the App Store but don’t think they should have to pay anything for that. The Commission’s argument on Spotify’s behalf is the opposite of fair competition,” it added.  
 Internet Gatekeepers
 
Spotify welcomed the EU move, describing it as “a critical step toward holding Apple accountable for its anticompetitive behavior, ensuring meaningful choice for all consumers and a level playing field for app developers.”
 
Reuters was first to report about the imminent EU antitrust charge in March.
 
Spotify, one of Europe’s few global success stories in consumer technology, is the market leader in music streaming with 356 million active users and 158 million paid subscribers.  
 
Apple Music, launched more recently in 2015, is estimated to have more than 70 million subscribers although the company does not give a separate figure for that part of its business.
 
Competition between the two companies has intensified in recent weeks, with both seeking to build their customer base via supremacy in the market for podcasts.
 
“Europe’s consumers expect and deserve access to a full range of music streaming services without their choices being restricted or prices being inflated unfairly by internet gatekeepers,” said European consumer organization BEUC.
 
The EU charge comes a week before Apple’s face off with Epic Games in a U.S. antitrust trial following a lawsuit by the “Fortnite” creator alleging that Apple has abused its dominance in the market for mobile apps.
 
Epic has complained to the Commission on the same issues. Last month, the UK Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into Apple after complaints the iPhone maker’s terms and conditions for app developers were unfair.
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Videos of kids having fun are among the most popular on YouTube. They are also a fast-growing business, one that critics say comes with little regulation and oversight to protect children on either side of the screen. Michelle Quinn reports.
Producer: Michelle Quinn
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For at least the third time since the beginning of this year, the U.S. government is investigating a hack against federal agencies that began during the Trump administration but was only recently discovered, according to senior U.S. officials and private sector cyber defenders.  It is the latest supply chain cyberattack, highlighting how sophisticated, often government-backed groups are targeting vulnerable software built by third parties as a steppingstone to sensitive government and corporate computer networks.  The new government breaches involve a popular virtual private network (VPN) known as Pulse Connect Secure, which hackers were able to break into as customers used it.  More than a dozen federal agencies run Pulse Connect Secure on their networks, according to public contract records. An emergency cybersecurity directive last week demanded that agencies scan their systems for related compromises and report back.  The results, collected Friday and analyzed this week, show evidence of potential breaches in at least five federal civilian agencies, said Matt Hartman, a senior official with the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency.  “This is a combination of traditional espionage with some element of economic theft,” said one cybersecurity consultant familiar with the matter. “We’ve already confirmed data exfiltration across numerous environments.”  The Ivanti logo and cyber binary codes are seen in this illustration taken April 20, 2021.The maker of Pulse Connect Secure, Utah-based software company Ivanti, said it expected to provide a patch to fix the problem by this coming Monday, two weeks after it was first publicized. Only a “very limited number of customer systems” had been penetrated, it added.  Over the last two months, CISA and the FBI have been working with Pulse Connect Secure’s maker and victims of the hack to kick out the intruders and uncover other evidence, said another senior U.S. official who declined to be named but is responding to the hacks. The FBI, Justice Department and National Security Agency declined to comment.  The U.S. government’s investigation into the Pulse Connect Secure activity is still in its early stages, said the senior U.S. official, who added the scope, impact and attribution remain unclear.  Security researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye and another firm, which declined to be named, say they’ve watched multiple hacking groups, including an elite team they associate with China, exploiting the new flaw and several others like it since 2019.  FILE – Security firm FireEye’s logo is seen outside the company’s offices in Milpitas, California.In a statement last week, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said China “firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks,” describing FireEye’s allegations as “irresponsible and ill-intentioned.”  The use of VPNs, which create encrypted tunnels for connecting remotely to corporate networks, has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet with the growth in VPN usage so too has the associated risk.  “This is another example in a recent pattern of cyber actors targeting vulnerabilities in widely used VPN products as our nation largely remains in remote and hybrid work postures,” Hartman said.  Three cybersecurity consultants involved in responding to the hacks told Reuters that the victim list is weighted toward the United States and so far includes defense contractors, civilian government agencies, solar energy companies, telecommunications firms and financial institutions.  The consultants also said they were aware of fewer than 100 combined victims so far between them, suggesting a fairly narrow focus by the hackers.  Analysts believe the malicious operation began around 2019 and exploited older flaws in Pulse Connect Secure and separate products made by cybersecurity firm Fortinet before invoking the new vulnerabilities.  Hartman said the civilian agency hacks date to at least June 2020.  Hacking the supplyA recent report by the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, studied 102 supply chain hacking incidents and found they surged the last three years. Thirty of the attacks came from government-backed groups, primarily in Russia and China, the report said.  The Pulse Connect Secure response comes as the government is still grappling with the fallout of three other cyberattacks.  FILE – The SolarWinds logo is seen outside its headquarters in Austin, Texas, Dec. 18, 2020.The first is known as the SolarWinds hack, in which suspected Russian government hackers commandeered the company’s network management program to burrow inside nine federal agencies.  A weakness in Microsoft’s email server software, named Exchange, exploited by a different group of Chinese hackers, also required a massive response effort, although there was ultimately no impact to federal networks, according to U.S. officials.  Then a weakness at a maker of programming tools called Codecov left thousands of customers exposed inside their coding environments, the company disclosed this month.  Some government agencies were among the customers whose credentials were taken by the Codecov hackers for further access to code repositories or other data, according to a person briefed on the investigation. Codecov, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on that case.  The U.S. plans to address some of these systemic issues with an upcoming executive order that will require agencies to identify their most critical software and promote a “bill of materials” that demands a certain level of digital security across products sold to the government.  “We think [this is] the most impactful way to really impose costs on these adversaries and make it that much harder,” said the senior U.S. official. 
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An FBI operation that gave law enforcement remote access to hundreds of computers to counter a massive hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software is a tool that is likely to be deployed “judiciously” in the future as the Justice Department, aware of privacy concerns, develops a framework for its use, a top national security official said Wednesday.The department this month announced that it had obtained a warrant from a federal judge in Texas to remove web shells, or malicious code that gives hackers a foothold into networks, from hundreds of vulnerable computers affected by a hack that Microsoft has blamed on a group operating from China.The FBI operation was designed to disrupt the effects of a hack that affected many thousands of servers running the Microsoft Exchange email program. Many victims took steps on their own to safeguard their systems, but for those that who did not, the Justice Department stepped in to do it for them with a judge’s approval.It was the virtual equivalent of police going around the neighborhood locking doors that criminals had opened remotely.”We have a decision to make, which is are we going to go ahead and do that action ourselves or are we just going to leave that malware there, sort of unremediated,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, speaking at a virtual discussion hosted by the Project for Media & National Security at George Washington University.He said the operation was one of the very first of its kind and was the subject of extensive discussion by the FBI and the Justice Department. The department is figuring out how it plans to use that capability in the future.”We don’t yet have sort of worked out what our criteria are going to be going forward,” Demers said. “Now that we’ve had this experience, that’s the kind of discussion we’re having internally now.”This is not a tool of first resort that we’re going to be using a couple times a week as different intrusions come up,” he added. “This does require working with the private sector on the right solution. It does require testing to be sure that you’re not going to otherwise disrupt someone’s computer system.”Such operations will be done judiciously in the future, he said.Demers acknowledged concerns from some privacy advocates that the government, without permission of the computer system operators, had gained remote access and removed the web shells.But he pointed out that the department did obtain a judge’s permission and said the government felt compelled to act because, after a period of several weeks, there were still unremediated web shells that continued to serve as access point for “hackers of all stripes.””And so the choice that the government had was just continue to leave those open or take the court-authorized action that we did, and ultimately we decided to move ahead,” Demers said. “But to the extent possible before then, we had been notifying every victim that we could identify of the intrusion.”
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American astronaut Michael Collins, who stayed behind in the command module of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin traveled to the lunar surface to become the first humans to walk on the moon, died on Wednesday at age 90, his family said.
A statement released by his family said Collins died of cancer.
Often described as the “forgotten” third astronaut on the historic mission, Collins remained alone for more than 21 hours until his two colleagues returned in the lunar module. He lost contact with mission control in Houston each time the spacecraft circled the dark side of the moon.
“Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins,” the mission log said, referring to the biblical figure.
Collins wrote an account of his experiences in his 1974 autobiography, “Carrying the Fire,” but largely shunned publicity.
“I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have,” Collins said in comments released by NASA in 2009.
Collins was born in Rome on Oct. 31, 1930 – the same year as both Armstrong and Aldrin. He was the son of a U.S. Army major general and, like his father, attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating in 1952.
Like many of the first generation of American astronauts, Collins started out as an Air Force test pilot.
In 1963, he was chosen by NASA for its astronaut program, still in its early days but ramping up quickly at the height of the Cold War as the United States sought to push ahead of the Soviet Union and fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s pledge of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
Collins’ first voyage into space came in July 1966 as pilot on Gemini X, part of the missions that prepared NASA’s Apollo program. The Gemini X mission carried out a successful docking with a separate target vehicle.
His second, and final, spaceflight was the historic Apollo 11.
He avoided much of the media fanfare that greeted the astronauts on their return to Earth, and was later often critical of the cult of celebrity.
After a short stint in government, Collins became director of the National Air and Space Museum, stepping down in 1978. He was also the author of a number of space-related books.
His strongest memory from Apollo 11, he said, was looking back at the Earth, which he said seemed “fragile.”
“I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles, their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced,” he said.
His family’s statement said they know “how lucky Mike felt to live the life he did.”
“Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purpose, and his wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.”
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America’s re-engagement with the world coincides with a weird new era: that of virtual diplomacy. Since the pandemic made travel unsafe, world leaders have taken their diplomacy digital, opening up new possibilities for engagement — but also, new concerns about fairness and transparency, and the occasional awkward moment. VOA’s Anita Powell follows this story — virtually, of course — and reports from Johannesburg.Camera: Zaheer Cassim/Nike Ching (cellphone video)   
Producer: Jon Spier 
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The family of the late Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, says it will pay $10.8 billion in taxes on the inheritance from his massive estate, the largest paid in South Korean history. Lee died last October leaving an estate estimated at more than $23 billion.   The family, which includes his wife and three children, says it will split payments of the hefty tax bill in six installments over five years, with the first payment coming this month.  It is believed they will use the shares they hold in the vast family-run conglomerate as a means to pay the taxes.People pass by Samsung Electronics’ shop in Seoul, South Korea, April 28, 2021.The Lee family will also donate the late patriarch’s vast collection of fine art to two state-run museums and other organizations to help ease the burden of the tax bill.  The collection includes rare Korean artifacts and works by such legendary artists as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet.   The family has also agreed to donate $900 million to build a new hospital devoted to treating infectious diseases, fund research on vaccines and treatment, and support a program that treats children suffering from cancer and rare diseases.   Under the elder Lee, Samsung Electronics became the crown jewel of the Samsung conglomerate, the biggest in South Korea, with holdings in such sectors as shipbuilding, insurance and trading.   Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest maker of semiconductors, smartphones and other consumer electronics.  But the family has been mired in a host of corruption scandals, with Lee’s son, Jae-yong, currently serving a two-and-a-half year prison sentence in connection with the scandal that brought down former President Park Geun-hye. 
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Russia has fined Apple $12 million, alleging monopolistic activities.The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said Tuesday that Apple was gaining an unfair advantage over other companies through its app store.”Apple was found to have abused its dominant position in the iOS distribution market … which resulted in a competitive advantage for its own products,” the FAS said in a statement.The ruling was sparked by a complaint from Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, which said a version of its Safe Kids app had been rejected by Apple.”We worked with Kaspersky to get their app in compliance with rules that were put in place to protect children,” Apple said in a statement. “They now have 13 apps on the App Store and we have processed hundreds of updates for them.”Apple reportedly said it “respectfully disagreed” with the FAS decision, which it plans to appeal.Earlier this month, Russia began enforcing a law that demands devices sold in Russia come with pre-installed domestic software. The legislation was intended to boost Russian tech companies.Critics say the law is an attempt by the Russian government to control the internet.Starting in July, companies that don’t comply could face fines.Western tech firms have been facing pressure from Moscow. For example, Russia has slowed down Twitter, saying the company was not acting quickly enough to remove certain content not allowed in Russia.Facebook and Google have also come under increased scrutiny.
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Apple is following through on its pledge to crack down on Facebook and other snoopy apps that secretly shadow people on their iPhones in order to target more advertising at users. The new privacy feature, dubbed “App Tracking Transparency,” rolled out Monday as part of an update to the operating system powering the iPhone and iPad. The anti-tracking shield included in iOS 14.5 arrives after a seven-month delay during which Apple and Facebook attacked each other’s business models and motives for decisions that affect billions of people around the world.  “What this feud demonstrates more than anything is that Facebook and Apple have tremendous gatekeeping powers over the market,” said Elizabeth Renieris, founding director of the Technology Ethics Lab at the University of Notre Dame. But Apple says it is just looking out for the best interests of the more than 1 billion people using iPhones. “Now is a good time to bring this out, both because of the increasing amount of data they have on their devices, and their sensitivity (about the privacy risks) is increasing, too,” Erik Neuenschwander, Apple’s chief privacy engineer, told The Associated Press in an interview.  Once the software update is installed — something most iPhone users do — even existing apps already on the device will be required to ask and receive consent to track online activities. That’s a shift Facebook fiercely resisted, most prominently in a series of full-page newspaper ads blasting Apple.  Until now, Facebook and other apps have been able to automatically conduct their surveillance on iPhones unless users took the time and trouble to go into their settings to prevent it — a process that few people bother to navigate.  “This is an important step toward consumers getting the transparency and the controls they have clearly been looking for,” said Daniel Barber, CEO of DataGrail, a firm that helps companies manage personal privacy. In its attacks on Apple’s anti-tracking controls, Facebook blasted the move as an abuse of power designed to force more apps to charge for their services instead of relying on ads. Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut on most payments processed through an iPhone app. Online tracking has long helped Facebook and thousands of other apps accumulate information about their user’s interests and habits so they can show customized ads. Although Facebook executives initially acknowledged Apple’s changes would probably reduce its revenue by billions of dollars annually, the social networking company has framed most of its public criticism as a defense of small businesses that rely on online ads to stay alive. Apple, in turn, has pilloried Facebook and other apps for prying so deeply into people’s lives that it has created a societal crisis. FILE – Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., June 4, 2018.In a speech given a few weeks after the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out how personal information collected through tracking by Facebook and other social media can sometimes push people toward more misinformation and hate speech as part of the efforts to show more ads.  “What are the consequences of not just tolerating but rewarding content that undermines public trust in life-saving vaccinations?” Cook asked. “What are the consequences of seeing thousands of users join extremist groups and then perpetuating an algorithm that recommends more?”  It’s part of Apple’s attempt to use the privacy issue to its competitive advantage, Barber said, a tactic he now expects more major brands to embrace if the new anti-tracking controls prove popular among most consumers.  In a change of tone, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested that Apple’s new privacy controls could help his company in the long run. His rationale: The inability to automatically track iPhone users may prod more companies to sell their products directly on Facebook and affiliated services such as Instagram if they can’t collect enough personal information to effectively target ads within their own apps.  FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears on a screen as he speaks remotely during a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill, Oct. 28, 2020.”It’s possible that we may even be in a stronger position if Apple’s changes encourage more businesses to conduct more commerce on our platforms by making it harder for them to use their data in order to find the customers that would want to use their products outside of our platforms,” Zuckerberg said last month during a discussion held on the audio chat app Clubhouse.  In the same interview, Zuckerberg also asserted most people realize that advertising is a “time-tested model” that enables them to get more services for free or at extremely low prices. “People get for the most part that if they are going to see ads, they want them to be relevant ads,” Zuckerberg said. He didn’t say whether he believes most iPhone users will consent to tracking in exchange for ads tailored to their interests. Google also depends on personal information to fuel a digital ad network even bigger than Facebook’s, but it has said it would be able to adjust to the iPhone’s new privacy controls. Unlike Facebook, Google has close business ties with Apple. Google pays Apple an estimated $9 billion to $12 billion annually to be the preferred search engine on iPhone and iPad. That arrangement is currently one element of an antitrust case filed last year by the U.S. Justice Department. Facebook is also defending itself against a federal antitrust lawsuit seeking to break the company apart. Meanwhile, Apple is being scrutinized by lawmakers and regulators around the world for the commissions it collects on purchases made through iPhone apps and its ability to shake up markets through new rules that are turning it into a de facto regulator. “Even if Apple’s business model and side in this battle is more rights protective and better for consumer privacy, there is still a question of whether we want a large corporation like Apple effectively ‘legislating’ through the app store,” Renieris said. 
 
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A Cameroonian company has created a veterinary counseling app designed to help farmers and ranchers who live far away from veterinarians to detect animal diseases and give them guidance online.Cameroonian rabbit breeder Thierry Bayabon lost three-quarters of his stock to disease a few months ago. Like most small-scale Cameroonian farmers, he was not familiar with diseases that affect animals. Bayabon says the deaths could have been prevented, but it took too long to find a veterinarian to visit his remote farm. He says two weeks after the cases, as the situation was getting worse, he was successful in getting a veterinarian. The vet came on-site and was able to determine the problem.To help breeders like Bayabon avoid such costly losses, a Cameroonian startup designed the free online application, Veto.The app analyzes audio questions about symptoms, gives treatment advice, and helps breeders and ranchers share information.It also allows them to send photos and videos to actual veterinarians, like Mangoua Cédrick, for analysis.”In those villages, they have no vet personnel,” Cédrick said. “And with an advent of a zoonotic disease like tuberculosis, I mean, you taking the picture for the analysis may help you save life, because zoonoses are diseases that attack humans or that are transmissible between animal to human.”The Veto app’s main challenge is that it requires an internet connection, which is expensive and hard to come by in Cameroon’s remote villages.The app’s developers say they are working on the problem so it can be useful to more people raising livestock.Franklin Djomo, chief marketing officer for Veto, says their research and development teams are actively working to develop a module that is not connected to the internet so that it can operate in rural areas. While the veterinary diagnostic app has connection limitations, its practical use is not limited to Cameroon, or even West Africa. The Veto app is currently available in Cameroon’s official languages — French and English — and also in Arabic and Swahili.  
 
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U.S. space agency NASA said the experimental Mars helicopter Ingenuity — in its third flight Sunday on the red planet — flew farther and faster than ever, including during test flights on Earth.NASA scientists said the vehicle took off and rose to about 5 meters off the surface of the planet — the same height it reached on its second flight Thursday and slightly higher than on its initial flight a week ago. This time, Ingenuity flew about 50 meters down range from its position, traveling at a top speed of about 2 meters a second. The entire flight was about 80 seconds.As data from the flight was received at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the Ingenuity team said it was “ecstatic” to see how the helicopter performed. Program director Dave Lavery said the flight Sunday was what the team had planned for, “and yet, it was nothing short of amazing.”The initial data from the flight came in from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, which is parked several meters from where the helicopter took flight. The agency said segments of that video showing most of the helicopter’s 80-second journey across its flight zone will be sent back to Earth in the days ahead.  The Ingenuity team has been pushing the helicopter’s limits by adding instructions to capture more photos of its own, including from the color camera, which captured its first images on the flight last Thursday.  Ingenuity weighs just 1.8 kilograms and was packed away on the Perseverance rover when it landed on Mars in February. It was unfolded and dropped from the rover about three weeks ago.NASA considers Ingenuity a technology demonstration designed to test flight capability in the thin Martian atmosphere. It has specially designed rotors that spin much faster than they would have to on Earth to achieve flight. It also has innovative batteries and solar cells for recharging.Aside from cameras, Ingenuity carries no scientific instruments. 
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During Ramadan many mosques are open, but because of attendance limits there’s no guarantee of a place to pray. But new phone apps can help solve that problem, as VOA’s Yuni Salim found out, in this report narrated by Nova Poerwadi.
Camera: Yuni Salim      Producer: Bronwyn Benito
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Ghanaian social media users were in a state of ecstasy earlier this month when the U.S. social networking service, Twitter, announced it was setting up its first African office in Ghana.   President Nana Akufo-Addo described the move as “excellent news.” A statement by Twitter said Ghana’s democratic credentials and support for free speech and online freedoms made it the company’s choice.   Twitter joins Google and other IT firms with offices in Ghana. But why are top IT firms like Twitter choosing the West African country instead of other African nations?   Ghana’s minister of communications and digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, says apart from good governance, the country has set high standards for doing business. “We’re the envy and the toast of many countries around the world. We hold ourselves to high standards,” she said. “The pull factor with Twitter here [is] if their business thrives, other global tec.h giants will also say Ghana is not such a bad place to locate your business on the continent after all.” According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 Report, there were 14.7 million internet users in Ghana in January 2020 while internet use in the country stood at 48 percent. Ghana also has six million social media users. For his part, the head of the international non-profit Hacklab Foundation, Foster Akugri, says Ghana’s attraction for tech giants is not simply about the numbers. He said the firms have taken note that the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area is located in Accra.   “The gateway to Africa is Ghana. So, for Twitter to have chosen Ghana, I believe it’s very strategic. As a multinational I believe you want to be closer to where the decisions are made,” he said.Meanwhile, Twitter is looking to fill jobs in Ghana, including positions in engineering and marketing.   All this has spurred Ghanaians to look forward to scoring another first on the continent in hopes of bringing more opportunities and development to the country.      
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The European Union’s executive branch on Wednesday announced proposals designed to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI), banning its use in practices such as surveillance and facial scanning that threaten personal rights.At a news briefing in Brussels, European Commission Executive Vice President and Tech Commissioner Margrethe Vestager noted the benefits of AI in the medical field, agriculture and engineering.“I think those examples illustrate very well what we want AI in Europe to be: a force for progress,” she said.The proposed regulations address the human and societal risks associated with specific uses of AI, such as mass surveillance and biometric identification in public places.The draft EU regulations include rules for other uses of artificial intelligence in some risky categories such as choosing schools, jobs or loan applicants, while banning it outright in cases such as “social scoring” or systems used to manipulate human behavior.The proposals are the bloc’s latest move to maintain its role as the world’s standard-bearer for technology regulation, putting it ahead of the world’s two big tech superpowers, the U.S. and China. EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton told reporters that Europe would become the first continent to provide guidelines over the use of artificial intelligence.The commission is continuing to work out details of the proposals and how they will be enacted with EU member governments and the European Parliament before coming into force.
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This week the Biden administration is promoting a plan to boost electric bus production, proposing $45 billion spending to reduce American-made bus emissions to zero by 2030. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Cameroon’s agricultural sector employs the majority of the country’s workers, but too many know too little about the soil, resulting in inefficient farming. To help Cameroon’s farmers, a computer engineer created an electronic analysis kit to test soil quality and suitability for crops. Moki Edwin Kindzeka has this report by Anne Nzouankeu in Edéa, Cameroon. Camera: Anne Nzouankeu   Produced by: Jason Godman 
 
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This week the Biden administration is promoting a plan to boost electric bus production, proposing $45 billion spending to reduce American-made bus emissions to zero by 2030. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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This week the Biden administration is promoting a plan to boost electric bus production, proposing $45 billion spending to reduce American-made bus emissions to zero by 2030. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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With America’s electrical infrastructure getting zapped daily by an unprecedented number of cyberattacks, the federal government is taking action to prevent a potentially crippling hack of the grid.  A 100-day plan was announced Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Department to harden security systems for the country’s electrical infrastructure and increase the ability to detect and neutralize cyber threats.  “The United States faces a well-documented and increasing cyber threat from malicious actors seeking to disrupt the electricity Americans rely on to power our homes and businesses,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “It’s up to both government and industry to prevent possible harms — that’s why we’re working together to take these decisive measures so Americans can rely on a resilient, secure, and clean energy system.”  The electric industry was among those hit by recent cyberattacks and data breaches targeting Solar Winds and Microsoft Exchange software, but officials stress the timing of Tuesday’s announcement is not directly tied to those events.In this Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, photo a Microsoft computer is among items displayed at a Microsoft store in suburban Boston. Microsoft reports financial results on Jan. 29, 2020.The U.S. government has blamed Russia’s spy agency for the Solar Winds attack. Microsoft said vulnerabilities in its mail and calendar software for corporate and government data centers were primarily exploited by the so-called Hafnium group in China.  The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a non-profit regulatory authority that oversees utilities in the United States and Canada, said about 25 percent of electric utilities on the North American power grid downloaded the SolarWinds backdoor. “Given the sophisticated and constantly changing threats posed by adversaries, America’s electric companies remain focused on securing the industrial control systems that operate the North American energy grid,” said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies.  Kuhn said the new initiative is appreciated and indicates “the Biden administration is making cybersecurity for operations a high priority.” Tuesday’s announcement comes after some industry criticism that funding for grid security was not included in the recent infrastructure package announced by President Joe Biden. The 100-day plan includes “aggressive but achievable milestones and will assist owners and operators as they modernize cybersecurity defenses, including enhancing detection, mitigation, and forensic capabilities,” said National Security Council Spokesperson Emily Horne in a statement.  Among the fears—that an enemy of the United States or a cybercriminal group could replicate what happened in Ukraine in 2015 when the information systems of the country’s three energy distribution companies were remotely accessed by Russia, causing 200,000 consumers to lose power. A year later in Ukraine, a power transmission station was knocked offline by Russian hackers who were able to trip circuit breakers after planting malware in the network of the national grid operator.  “The safety and security of the American people depend on the resilience of our nation’s critical infrastructure,” said Brandon Wales, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security. Officials describe this effort to harden the power system against cyberattacks as a pilot project of the Biden administration before such measures are enacted for other vulnerable sectors of the country’s infrastructure.  A Government Accountability Office report issued last month warned that the U.S. grid’s distributions systems “are growing more vulnerable, in part because their industrial control systems increasingly allow remote access and connect to business networks.”  The Biden administration also is lifting a temporary ban on acquiring and installing bulk-power systems that serve critical defense systems, while the Energy Department receives industry input for a new executive order on guidelines for purchasing equipment.  Last May, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring “the unrestricted foreign supply of bulk-power system electric equipment” an “unusual and extraordinary threat to national security.” The order restricted purchases and use of such foreign equipment.   
The large, interconnected bulk electric system consists of facilities necessary for operating the power transmission network and maintaining a balance of generation and demand from second to second.  
 
Biden, in his first day in office, suspended Trump’s order for 90 days and directed the Energy Department and the Office of Management and Budget to “jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued.” 
 
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