Imagine wearing a computer in the form of a jacket. Now, it is possible.

“When somebody calls you, your jacket vibrates and gives you lights and [you] know somebody is calling you,” said Ivan Poupyrev, who manages the Google’s Project Jacquard, a digital platform for smart clothing.

Project Jacquard formed a partnership with Levi’s to create the first Jacquard enabled garment in the form of Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket. What makes the jacket “smart” includes washable technology, created by Google, woven into the cuff of the jacket.

“These are highly conductive fibers, which are very strong and can be used in standard denim-weaving process,” said Poupyrev.

A tap on the cuff can also provide navigation and play music when paired with a mobile phone, headphones and a small piece of removable hardware, called a snap tag, that attaches to the cuff.

“You get the most important features of the phone without taking your eyes off the road,” said Paul Dillinger, vice president of global product innovation for Levi Strauss & Co.

Smart clothing

The Levi’s jacket is just one step to smarter clothing.

“Do they want to make shoes? Do they want to make bags? Do they want to make trousers?” Poupyrev explained, “The platform [is] being designed so that this technology can be applied to any type of garment. Right now, it’s Levi’s but right now, we’re very actively working with other partners in the apparel industry and try to help to make their products connected.”

That means designers need to be increasingly tech savvy.

“Fashion designers in the future are going to have to think about their craft differently. So, it’s not just sketching and pattern making and draping and drafting. It’s going to involve use case development and being a participant in cladding an app and becoming an industrial designer and figuring out what you want these components to look like.” Dillinger added, “What we found out is engineers and designers are kind of the same thing. They just use very different languages.”

New patterns and materials

From the functionality of clothes to how they are made, computing power is reshaping fashion. Designers can create structures and patterns that have never existed before current technology.

“Designers now have a new set of tools to actually design things they could never design before. We can use computational tools to make patterns and formats that we could not do individually, because they were too mathematically and technically complicated. So, we’re using algorithms to help us facilitate design,” said Syuzi Pakhchyan whose job is to envision the future as experience design lead at the innovation firm, BCG Digital Ventures.

New technologies are also being used to make bioengineered fabrics made with yeast cells in a lab. The company, Bolt Threads, is developing fabrics made out of spider silk.

“We take the DNA out of spiders, put it in yeast, grow it in a big tank like brewing beer or wine and then purify the material, the polymer and spin it into fibers so it’s a very deep technology that’s required many years to develop,” Dan Widmaier, chief executive officer and co-founder of Bolt Threads.

The company Modern Meadow grows leather from yeast cells.

“We engineer them to produce collagen which is the same natural protein that you find in your skin or an animal skin, and then we really grow billions of those cells, make a lot of collagen, purify it and then assemble it into whatever kinds of materials, the brands, the designers that we’re working with would like to see,” explained Suzanne Lee chief creative officer of Modern Meadow.

She said these bioengineered materials are more sustainable and can be described as both natural and man-made.

“So, we’re really bringing both of those fields together to create a new material revolution. The best of nature with the best of design and engineering,” said Lee

What’s hot and what’s not

Technology is also disrupting fashion trends.The prevalence of social media means it is not just the designers who decide what is the latest trendy styles in fashion.

“Fashion has been democratized. A lot of fashion is being made by influencers with zero design experience,” said Pakhchyan.

Replacing trend forecasters, artificial intelligence can now collect data from social media and the web to give designers insight on public preferences.

“This is actually I think changing the role of the designer. Cause now, you have all this information so what are you going to do with this information?” said Pakhchyan.

Shopping on-line

How clothes are marketed and sold are also increasingly dependent on technology. If a consumer has shopped on a website once, that data is collected to entice the user to buy other products through personalization.

“When I connect online with a brand, they know me. I feel like they know me. They know who I am, they know what I like, they know what I want,” said Pakhchyan.

The Levi’s smart jacket can also be purchased online. The price tag: $350.
…

Muslims who are traveling and looking for a place to pray can now turn to their smart phones for help. A mobile app, called Islamic GPS, helps users find mosques around the world. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more about this helpful technology.
…

Russia says it may block Facebook if the social media company does not put its Russian user database on servers in Russian territory. The warning Wednesday by the head of the country’s state media regulator Roskomnadzor comes just days after a Russian move to block Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. VOA’s Iuliia Alieva has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice
…

The food industry uses plastic to wrap its products in many places around the world. Plastic manufacturers say that keeps produce and meat fresh longer, so less goes bad and is thrown away. But, according to a new European study, while the annual use of plastic packaging has grown since the 1950s, so has food waste. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
…

Recently, the world was stunned to learn that an island of mostly plastic trash, floating in the Pacific Ocean, grew to the size of France, Germany and Spain combined. Because plastics take centuries to decompose, could civilization someday choke in it? Scientists at Britain’s University of Portsmouth say they may have found a way to speed up the decomposition of plastics. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans.

The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of the British political consultancy, a firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani last week repeated his request to Zuckerberg to appear before the assembly, saying that sending a junior executive would not suffice.

EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who recently spoke to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, said Zuckerberg should heed the lawmakers’ call.

“This case is too important to treat as business as usual,” Jourova told an assembly of lawmakers.

“I advised Sheryl Sandberg that Zuckerberg should accept the invitation from the European Parliament. (EU digital chief Andrius) Ansip refers to the invitation as a measure of rebuilding trust,” she said.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. Zuckerberg fielded 10 hours of questions over two days from nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers last week and emerged largely unscathed. He will meet Ansip in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Another European lawmaker Sophia in’t Veld echoed the call from her colleagues, saying that the Facebook CEO should do them the same courtesy.

“I think Zuckerberg would be well advised to appear at the Parliament out of respect for Europeans,” she said.

Lawmaker Viviane Reding, the architect of the EU’s landmark privacy law which will come into effect on May 25, giving Europeans more control over their online data, said the right laws would bring back trust among users.

 
…

Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans.

The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of the British political consultancy, a firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani last week repeated his request to Zuckerberg to appear before the assembly, saying that sending a junior executive would not suffice.

EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who recently spoke to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, said Zuckerberg should heed the lawmakers’ call.

“This case is too important to treat as business as usual,” Jourova told an assembly of lawmakers.

“I advised Sheryl Sandberg that Zuckerberg should accept the invitation from the European Parliament. (EU digital chief Andrius) Ansip refers to the invitation as a measure of rebuilding trust,” she said.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. Zuckerberg fielded 10 hours of questions over two days from nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers last week and emerged largely unscathed. He will meet Ansip in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Another European lawmaker Sophia in’t Veld echoed the call from her colleagues, saying that the Facebook CEO should do them the same courtesy.

“I think Zuckerberg would be well advised to appear at the Parliament out of respect for Europeans,” she said.

Lawmaker Viviane Reding, the architect of the EU’s landmark privacy law which will come into effect on May 25, giving Europeans more control over their online data, said the right laws would bring back trust among users.

 
…

Iran’s presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, state media reported Wednesday, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year.

Chief among those apps is Telegram, used by over 40 million Iranians for everything from benign conversations to commerce and political campaigning. Iranians using Telegram, which describes itself as an encrypted message service, helped spread the word about the protests in December and January.

Telegram channels run on behalf of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri were already shut down Wednesday.

A report on the website of Iran’s state television broadcaster said the ban affected all public institutions. It was not clear if the ban applied to civil servants outside of work hours. The report did not elaborate on penalties for violating the ban.

Last month, officials said Iran would block Telegram for reasons of national security in response to the protests, which saw 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 reportedly arrested.

Authorities temporarily shut down Telegram during the protests, though many continued to access it through proxies and virtual private networks.

The move against Telegram suggests Iran may try to introduce its own government-approved, or “halal,” version of the messaging app, something long demanded by hard-liners. Already, Iran heavily restricts internet access and blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Iran has said foreign messaging apps can get licenses from authorities to operate if they transfer their databases into the country. Privacy experts worry that could more easily expose users’ private communications to government spying.

Khamenei, however, has stressed that invading people’s privacy is religiously forbidden.

Iran’s move also comes after a Russian court on Friday ordered Telegram to be blocked after the company refused to share its encryption data with authorities.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov responded to the ruling by writing on Twitter: “Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.”
…

Iran’s presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, state media reported Wednesday, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year.

Chief among those apps is Telegram, used by over 40 million Iranians for everything from benign conversations to commerce and political campaigning. Iranians using Telegram, which describes itself as an encrypted message service, helped spread the word about the protests in December and January.

Telegram channels run on behalf of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri were already shut down Wednesday.

A report on the website of Iran’s state television broadcaster said the ban affected all public institutions. It was not clear if the ban applied to civil servants outside of work hours. The report did not elaborate on penalties for violating the ban.

Last month, officials said Iran would block Telegram for reasons of national security in response to the protests, which saw 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 reportedly arrested.

Authorities temporarily shut down Telegram during the protests, though many continued to access it through proxies and virtual private networks.

The move against Telegram suggests Iran may try to introduce its own government-approved, or “halal,” version of the messaging app, something long demanded by hard-liners. Already, Iran heavily restricts internet access and blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Iran has said foreign messaging apps can get licenses from authorities to operate if they transfer their databases into the country. Privacy experts worry that could more easily expose users’ private communications to government spying.

Khamenei, however, has stressed that invading people’s privacy is religiously forbidden.

Iran’s move also comes after a Russian court on Friday ordered Telegram to be blocked after the company refused to share its encryption data with authorities.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov responded to the ruling by writing on Twitter: “Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.”
…

The chief of the Russian communications watchdog acknowledged Wednesday that millions of unrelated IP addresses have been frozen in a so-far futile attempt to block a popular messaging app.

Telegram, the messaging app that was ordered to be blocked last week, was still available to users in Russia despite authorities’ frantic attempts to hit it by blocking other services.

The row erupted after Telegram, which was developed by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, refused to hand its encryption keys to the intelligence agencies. The Russian government insists it needs them to pre-empt extremist attacks but Telegram dismissed the request as a breach of privacy.

Alexander Zharov, chief of the Federal Communications Agency, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published Wednesday that Russia is blocking 18 networks that are used by Amazon and Google and which host sites that they believe Telegram is using to circumvent the ban.

Countless Russian businesses – from online language schools to car dealerships – reported that their web services were down because of the communication watchdog’s moves to bloc networks.

Internet experts estimate that Russian authorities have blocked about 16 million IP addresses since Monday, affecting millions of Russian users and businesses.

In the interview, Zharov admitted that the authorities have been helplessly trying to block Telegram and had to shut down entire networks, some of which have over half a million IP addresses that are used by unrelated, “law-abiding companies,” he said.

Russia’s leading daily Vedomosti in Wednesday’s editorial likened the communications watchdog’s battle against Telegram, affecting millions of users of other web-services, to warfare.

“The large-scale indiscriminate blocking of foreign IP addresses in Russia in order to close the access to the messaging app Telegram is unprecedented and bears resemblance to carpet bombings,” the editorial said.

Zharov also indicated that Facebook could be the next target for the government if it refuses to comply with Russian law.

Authorities previously insisted that Facebook store its Russian users’ data in Russia but has not gone through with its threats to block Facebook if it refuses to comply.

Zharov said authorities will check before the end of the year if the company is complying with its demands and warned that if it does not, “then, obviously, the issue of blocking will arise.”

Elsewhere in Moscow, a court on Wednesday sentenced a member of the punk collective Pussy Riot, who spent nearly two years in prison for a protest in Russia’s main cathedral, to 100 hours of community work for a protest against the Telegram blocking. Maria Alekhina and a dozen activists were throwing paper planes outside the communications watchdog’s office on Monday.
…

The chief of the Russian communications watchdog acknowledged Wednesday that millions of unrelated IP addresses have been frozen in a so-far futile attempt to block a popular messaging app.

Telegram, the messaging app that was ordered to be blocked last week, was still available to users in Russia despite authorities’ frantic attempts to hit it by blocking other services.

The row erupted after Telegram, which was developed by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, refused to hand its encryption keys to the intelligence agencies. The Russian government insists it needs them to pre-empt extremist attacks but Telegram dismissed the request as a breach of privacy.

Alexander Zharov, chief of the Federal Communications Agency, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published Wednesday that Russia is blocking 18 networks that are used by Amazon and Google and which host sites that they believe Telegram is using to circumvent the ban.

Countless Russian businesses – from online language schools to car dealerships – reported that their web services were down because of the communication watchdog’s moves to bloc networks.

Internet experts estimate that Russian authorities have blocked about 16 million IP addresses since Monday, affecting millions of Russian users and businesses.

In the interview, Zharov admitted that the authorities have been helplessly trying to block Telegram and had to shut down entire networks, some of which have over half a million IP addresses that are used by unrelated, “law-abiding companies,” he said.

Russia’s leading daily Vedomosti in Wednesday’s editorial likened the communications watchdog’s battle against Telegram, affecting millions of users of other web-services, to warfare.

“The large-scale indiscriminate blocking of foreign IP addresses in Russia in order to close the access to the messaging app Telegram is unprecedented and bears resemblance to carpet bombings,” the editorial said.

Zharov also indicated that Facebook could be the next target for the government if it refuses to comply with Russian law.

Authorities previously insisted that Facebook store its Russian users’ data in Russia but has not gone through with its threats to block Facebook if it refuses to comply.

Zharov said authorities will check before the end of the year if the company is complying with its demands and warned that if it does not, “then, obviously, the issue of blocking will arise.”

Elsewhere in Moscow, a court on Wednesday sentenced a member of the punk collective Pussy Riot, who spent nearly two years in prison for a protest in Russia’s main cathedral, to 100 hours of community work for a protest against the Telegram blocking. Maria Alekhina and a dozen activists were throwing paper planes outside the communications watchdog’s office on Monday.
…

Since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to the world’s first robotic surgical system, almost 4,000 of these sophisticated machines have been deployed in operating suites around the world. Recognizing that the proficiency of the surgeons who use them can be subjective, a group of surgeons at the University of Southern California, in cooperation with the manufacturer Intuitive Research, is developing a system for more objective evaluation. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

Since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to the world’s first robotic surgical system, almost 4,000 of these sophisticated machines have been deployed in operating suites around the world. Recognizing that the proficiency of the surgeons who use them can be subjective, a group of surgeons at the University of Southern California, in cooperation with the manufacturer Intuitive Research, is developing a system for more objective evaluation. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him.

“There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue a formal summons for him to appear on a named day in the very near future.”

Nix gave evidence to the committee in February, but was recalled after former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie sparked a global debate over electronic privacy when he alleged the company used data from millions of Facebook accounts to help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Wylie worked on Cambridge Analytica’s “information operations” in 2014 and 2015.

Wylie has also said the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union had access to the Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica has previously said that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company also says it did no paid or unpaid work on the Brexit campaign. The company did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday that it had written to Nix to “invite him” to be interviewed by investigators. The office is investigating Facebook and 30 other organizations over their use of data and analytics.

“Our investigation is looking at whether criminal and civil offences have been committed under the Data Protection Act,” the office said in a statement.

Nix’s refusal to appear comes as the seriousness of the British inquiry becomes more evident.

Facebook has said it directed Cambridge Analytica to delete all of the data harvested from user accounts as soon as it learned of the problem.

But former Cambridge Analytica business development director Brittany Kaiser testified Tuesday that the U.S. tech giant didn’t really try to verify Cambridge Analytica’s assurances that it had done so.

“I find it incredibly irresponsible that a company with as much money as Facebook … had no due diligence mechanisms in place for protecting the data of U.K. citizens, U.S. citizens or their users in general,” she said.

Kaiser suggested that the number of individuals whose Facebook data was misused could be far higher than the 87 million acknowledged by the Silicon Valley giant.

In an atmosphere where data abuse was rife, Kaiser told lawmakers she believed the leadership of the Leave.EU campaign had combined data from members of the U.K. Independence Party and customers from two insurance companies, Eldon Insurance and GoSkippy Insurance. The data was then sent the University of Mississippi for analysis.

“If the personal data of U.K. citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU,” she said in written testimony to the committee.

Leave.EU’s communications director, Andy Wigmore, called Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies.”

It is how the data was used that alarms some members of the committee and has captured the attention of the public.

An expert on propaganda told the committee Monday that Cambridge Analytica used techniques developed by the Nazis to help Trump’s presidential campaign, turning Muslims and immigrants into an “artificial enemy” to win support from fearful voters.

University of Essex lecturer Emma Briant, who has for a decade studied the SCL Group – a conglomerate of companies, including Cambridge Analytica – interviewed company founder Nigel Oakes when she was doing research for a book. Oakes compared Trump’s tactics to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in singling out Jews for reprisals.

“Hitler attacked the Jews, because … the people didn’t like the Jews,” he said on tapes of the interview conducted with Briant. “He could just use them to . leverage an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”
…

Cambridge Analytica’s ex-CEO, Alexander Nix, has refused to testify before the U.K. Parliament’s media committee, citing British authorities’ investigation into his former company’s alleged misuse of data from millions of Facebook accounts in political campaigns.

Committee Chairman Damian Collins announced Nix’s decision a day before his scheduled appearance but flatly rejected the notion that he should be let off the hook, saying Nix hasn’t been charged with a crime and there are no active legal proceedings against him.

“There is therefore no legal reason why Mr. Nix cannot appear,” Collins said in a statement. “The committee is minded to issue a formal summons for him to appear on a named day in the very near future.”

Nix gave evidence to the committee in February, but was recalled after former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie sparked a global debate over electronic privacy when he alleged the company used data from millions of Facebook accounts to help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. Wylie worked on Cambridge Analytica’s “information operations” in 2014 and 2015.

Wylie has also said the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union had access to the Facebook data.

Cambridge Analytica has previously said that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company also says it did no paid or unpaid work on the Brexit campaign. The company did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday that it had written to Nix to “invite him” to be interviewed by investigators. The office is investigating Facebook and 30 other organizations over their use of data and analytics.

“Our investigation is looking at whether criminal and civil offences have been committed under the Data Protection Act,” the office said in a statement.

Nix’s refusal to appear comes as the seriousness of the British inquiry becomes more evident.

Facebook has said it directed Cambridge Analytica to delete all of the data harvested from user accounts as soon as it learned of the problem.

But former Cambridge Analytica business development director Brittany Kaiser testified Tuesday that the U.S. tech giant didn’t really try to verify Cambridge Analytica’s assurances that it had done so.

“I find it incredibly irresponsible that a company with as much money as Facebook … had no due diligence mechanisms in place for protecting the data of U.K. citizens, U.S. citizens or their users in general,” she said.

Kaiser suggested that the number of individuals whose Facebook data was misused could be far higher than the 87 million acknowledged by the Silicon Valley giant.

In an atmosphere where data abuse was rife, Kaiser told lawmakers she believed the leadership of the Leave.EU campaign had combined data from members of the U.K. Independence Party and customers from two insurance companies, Eldon Insurance and GoSkippy Insurance. The data was then sent the University of Mississippi for analysis.

“If the personal data of U.K. citizens who just wanted to buy car insurance was used by GoSkippy and Eldon Insurance for political purposes, as may have been the case, people clearly did not opt in for their data to be used in this way by Leave.EU,” she said in written testimony to the committee.

Leave.EU’s communications director, Andy Wigmore, called Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies.”

It is how the data was used that alarms some members of the committee and has captured the attention of the public.

An expert on propaganda told the committee Monday that Cambridge Analytica used techniques developed by the Nazis to help Trump’s presidential campaign, turning Muslims and immigrants into an “artificial enemy” to win support from fearful voters.

University of Essex lecturer Emma Briant, who has for a decade studied the SCL Group – a conglomerate of companies, including Cambridge Analytica – interviewed company founder Nigel Oakes when she was doing research for a book. Oakes compared Trump’s tactics to those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in singling out Jews for reprisals.

“Hitler attacked the Jews, because … the people didn’t like the Jews,” he said on tapes of the interview conducted with Briant. “He could just use them to . leverage an artificial enemy. Well that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”
…

More than 100 parts for U.S. space agency NASA’s deep-space capsule Orion will be made by 3-D printers, using technology that experts say will eventually become key to efforts to send humans to Mars.

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, 3-D printing specialist Stratasys, and engineering firm PADT have developed the parts using new materials that can withstand the extreme temperatures and chemical exposure of deep-space missions, Stratasys said Tuesday.

“In space, for instance, materials will build up a charge. If that was to shock the electronics on a space craft, there could be significant damage,” Scott Sevcik, Vice President Manufacturing Solutions at Stratasys told Reuters.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been used for making prototypes across a range of industries for many years, but is being increasingly eyed for scale production.

The technology can help make light-weight parts made of plastics more quickly and cheaply than traditional assembly lines that require major investments into equipment.

“But even more significant is that we have more freedom with the design … parts can look more organic, more skeletal,” Sevcik said.

Stratasys’ partner Lockheed Martin said the use of 3-D printing on the Orion project would also pay off at other parts of its business.

“We look to apply benefits across our programs — missile defense, satellites, planetary probes, especially as we create more and more common products,” said Brian Kaplun, additive manufacturing manager at Lockheed Martin Space.

Orion is part of NASA’s follow-up program to the now-retired space shuttles that will allow astronauts to travel beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 260 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The agency’s European counterpart, ESA, has suggested that moon rock and Mars dust could be used to 3-D print structures and tools, which could significantly reduce the cost of future space missions because less material would need to be brought along from Earth.
…

More than 100 parts for U.S. space agency NASA’s deep-space capsule Orion will be made by 3-D printers, using technology that experts say will eventually become key to efforts to send humans to Mars.

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, 3-D printing specialist Stratasys, and engineering firm PADT have developed the parts using new materials that can withstand the extreme temperatures and chemical exposure of deep-space missions, Stratasys said Tuesday.

“In space, for instance, materials will build up a charge. If that was to shock the electronics on a space craft, there could be significant damage,” Scott Sevcik, Vice President Manufacturing Solutions at Stratasys told Reuters.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been used for making prototypes across a range of industries for many years, but is being increasingly eyed for scale production.

The technology can help make light-weight parts made of plastics more quickly and cheaply than traditional assembly lines that require major investments into equipment.

“But even more significant is that we have more freedom with the design … parts can look more organic, more skeletal,” Sevcik said.

Stratasys’ partner Lockheed Martin said the use of 3-D printing on the Orion project would also pay off at other parts of its business.

“We look to apply benefits across our programs — missile defense, satellites, planetary probes, especially as we create more and more common products,” said Brian Kaplun, additive manufacturing manager at Lockheed Martin Space.

Orion is part of NASA’s follow-up program to the now-retired space shuttles that will allow astronauts to travel beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 260 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The agency’s European counterpart, ESA, has suggested that moon rock and Mars dust could be used to 3-D print structures and tools, which could significantly reduce the cost of future space missions because less material would need to be brought along from Earth.
…

In the United States less than 18 percent of the women who graduate from college major in computer science. The shortage of females with computer skills comes at a time when there are a lot of jobs available in computer science, a field that pays better than most. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee looks at the cultural and other reasons for the shortage of women in this important area — and what one university in Los Angeles is doing to inspire girls.
…

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start selling U.S. vehicles that can talk to each other using short-range wireless technology in 2021, the Japanese automaker said on Monday, potentially preventing thousands of accidents annually.

The U.S. Transportation Department must decide whether to adopt a pending proposal that would require all future vehicles to have the advanced technology.

Toyota hopes to adopt the dedicated short-range communications systems in the United States across most of its lineup by the mid-2020s. Toyota said it hopes that by announcing its plans, other automakers will follow suit.

The Obama administration in December 2016 proposed requiring the technology and giving automakers at least four years to comply. The proposal requires automakers to ensure all vehicles “speak the same language through a standard technology.”

Automakers were granted a block of spectrum in 1999 in the 5.9 GHz band for “vehicle-to-vehicle” and “vehicle to infrastructure” communications and have studied the technology for more than a decade, but it has gone largely unused. Some in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission think it should be opened to other uses.

In 2017, General Motors Co began offering vehicle-to-vehicle technologies on its Cadillac CTS model, but it is currently the only commercially available vehicle with the system.

Talking vehicles, which have been tested in pilot projects and by U.S. carmakers for more than a decade, use dedicated short-range communications to transmit data up to 300 meters, including location, direction and speed, to nearby vehicles.

The data is broadcast up to 10 times per second to nearby vehicles, which can identify risks and provide warnings to avoid imminent crashes, especially at intersections.

Toyota has deployed the technology in Japan to more than 100,000 vehicles since 2015.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said last year the regulation could eventually cost between $135 and $300 per new vehicle, or up to $5 billion annually but could prevent up to 600,000 crashes and reduce costs by $71 billion annually when fully deployed. 

NHTSA said last year it has “not made any final decision” on requiring the technology, but no decision is expected before December.

Last year, major automakers, state regulators and others urged U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to finalize standards for the technology and protect the spectrum that has been reserved, saying there is a need to expand deployment and uses of the traffic safety technology.
…

A British technology firm has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use biometric facial verification technology to improve border control, the first foreign firm to win such a contract in the United States.

London-based iProov will develop technology to improve border controls at unmanned ports of entry with a verification system that uses the traveler’s cell phone.

British trade minister Liam Fox said in a statement on Monday that the contract was “one example of our shared economic and security ties” with the United States.

IProov said it was the first non-U.S. firm to be awarded a contract under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP), which is run by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate.
…

 Russia began implementing a ban on popular instant messaging service Telegram after the app refused to provide encrypted messages to Russia’s security services. 

Russia’s state telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said Monday that it had sent a notice to telecommunications operators in the country instructing them to block the service following last week’s court ruling that sided with the government to ban the app.

“Roskomnadzor has received the ruling by the Tagansky District Court on restricting access in Russia to the web resources of the online information dissemination organizer, Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership. This information was sent to providers on Monday 16th of April,” the watchdog said in a statement.

In a statement posted on social media, Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov said, “We consider the decision to block the app to be unconstitutional, and we will continue to defend the right to secret correspondence for Russians.”

Durov is a Russian entrepreneur who left the country in 2014 and is now based in Dubai. He has long said he will reject any attempt by Russia’s security services to gain access to the app, arguing such access would violate users’ privacy.

Roskomnadzor is implementing a decision handed down by a Russian court, which ruled on April 13 that Telegram should be blocked. The court said the app was in violation of Russian regulations to provide information to state security.

Telegram is ranked the world’s ninth most popular messaging app with over 200 million users worldwide. It is widely used in countries across the former Soviet Union and the Middle East and is popular among political activists and journalists. Russian authorities said the app is also used by violent extremists.

 
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 Russia began implementing a ban on popular instant messaging service Telegram after the app refused to provide encrypted messages to Russia’s security services. 

Russia’s state telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said Monday that it had sent a notice to telecommunications operators in the country instructing them to block the service following last week’s court ruling that sided with the government to ban the app.

“Roskomnadzor has received the ruling by the Tagansky District Court on restricting access in Russia to the web resources of the online information dissemination organizer, Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership. This information was sent to providers on Monday 16th of April,” the watchdog said in a statement.

In a statement posted on social media, Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov said, “We consider the decision to block the app to be unconstitutional, and we will continue to defend the right to secret correspondence for Russians.”

Durov is a Russian entrepreneur who left the country in 2014 and is now based in Dubai. He has long said he will reject any attempt by Russia’s security services to gain access to the app, arguing such access would violate users’ privacy.

Roskomnadzor is implementing a decision handed down by a Russian court, which ruled on April 13 that Telegram should be blocked. The court said the app was in violation of Russian regulations to provide information to state security.

Telegram is ranked the world’s ninth most popular messaging app with over 200 million users worldwide. It is widely used in countries across the former Soviet Union and the Middle East and is popular among political activists and journalists. Russian authorities said the app is also used by violent extremists.

 
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Farmers in the American South are upgrading their cattle to the 21st Century.  With tech tools like AI (artificial intelligence) and Wi-Fi, they are now able to monitor the herd and keep tabs on the animals that drive their business. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Farmers in the American South are upgrading their cattle to the 21st Century.  With tech tools like AI (artificial intelligence) and Wi-Fi, they are now able to monitor the herd and keep tabs on the animals that drive their business. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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