An intelligent robot equipped with emotion-sensing voice detectors was headed to the International Space Station after launching from Florida on Thursday, becoming the latest artificial intelligence-powered astronaut workmate in orbit.The Crew Interactive Mobile Companion 2, or CIMON 2, is a spherical droid with microphones, cameras and a slew of software to enable emotion recognition.The droid was among 5,700 pounds (2,585 kg) of supplies and experiments aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, whose midday launch had been delayed from Wednesday because of high winds.WATCH: ‘Mighty Mice’ Possible Key to Maintaining Muscle Mass
‘Mighty Mice’ Possible Key to Maintaining Muscle Mass video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkCreate a companion“The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important,” Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2, told Reuters. “It’s trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on.”Based on algorithms built by information technology giant IBM Corp and data from CIMON 1, a nearly identical prototype that launched in 2018, CIMON 2 will be more sociable with crew members. It will test technologies that could prove crucial for future crewed missions in deep space, where long-term isolation and communication lags to Earth pose risks to astronauts’ mental health.While designed to help astronauts conduct scientific experiments, the English-speaking robot is also being trained to help mitigate groupthink — a behavioral phenomenon in which isolated groups of humans can be driven to make irrational decisions.“Group-thinking is really dangerous,” Biniok said. In times of conflict or disagreement among astronauts, one of CIMON’s most important purposes would be to serve as “an objective outsider that you can talk to if you’re alone, or could actually help let the group collaborate again,” he said.Inspired by Professor Simon, HALEngineers have said CIMON’s concept was inspired by a 1940s science fiction comic series set in space, where a sentient, brain-shaped robot named Professor Simon mentors an astronaut named Captain Future. CIMON 2 also parallels HAL, the sentient computer in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” film.SpaceX is the first private company to fly to the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 nations. Along with CIMON 2, the cargo aboard its 19th resupply mission to the orbital research lab included 40 live mice that will show scientists how muscles change in the microgravity of space.
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Add facial cuts, bruises and fractures to the risks from cellphones and carelessly using them.
                   
That’s according to a study published Thursday that found a spike in U.S. emergency room treatment for these mostly minor injuries.
                   
The research was led by a facial plastic surgeon whose patients include a woman who broke her nose when she dropped her phone on her face. Dr. Boris Paskhover of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School said his experience treating patients with cellphone injuries prompted him to look into the problem.
                   
Paskhover and others analyzed 20 years of emergency room data and found an increase in cellphone injuries starting after 2006, around the time when the first smartphones were introduced.
                   
Some injuries were caused by phones themselves, including people getting hit by a thrown phone. But Paskhover said many were caused by distracted use including texting while walking, tripping and landing face-down on the sidewalk.
                   
Most patients in the study weren’t hospitalized, but the researchers said the problem should be taken seriously.
                   
The study involved cases in a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission database that collects emergency room visit information from about 100 hospitals. The researchers tallied 2,500 patients with cellphone-related head and neck injuries from 1998 through 2017.
                   
The study was published in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology.
                   
Nationwide, they estimated there were about 76,000 people injured during that time. Annual cases totaled fewer than 2,000 until 2006, but increased steeply after that. About 40% of those injured were ages 13 to 29, and many were hurt while walking, texting or driving.
                   
Cellphone use also has been linked with repetitive strain injuries in the hands and neck, and injuries to other parts of the body caused by distracted use.
                   
“I love my smartphone,” Paskhover said, but he added that it’s easy to get too absorbed and avoiding injury requires common sense.
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“People wouldn’t walk around reading a magazine,” he said. “Be careful.”
 
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Apple Inc on Thursday said it has bought the first-ever commercial batch of carbon-free aluminum from a joint venture between two of the world’s biggest aluminum suppliers.The metal is being made by Elysis, a Montreal-based joint venture of Alcoa Corp and Rio Tinto announced last year with $144 million in funding from the two companies, Apple and the governments of Canada and Quebec.The aluminum will be shipped this month from an Alcoa research facility in Pittsburgh and used in Apple products, although the technology company did not say which ones.Aluminum is carbon-intensive to produce. The smelting process involves passing electrical current through a large block of carbon called an anode, which burns off during the process and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.The carbon-free move is a response to consumer, activist and investor demand that miners and manufacturers show they are working to lessen their impact on climate change.“For more than 130 years, aluminum – a material common to so many products consumers use daily – has been produced the same way. That’s about to change,” Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said in a statement.Apple uses aluminum housings for many of its electronics, including iPhones, Apple Watches and Mac computers. Apple last year introduced Mac models that use recycled aluminum.The Alcoa-Rio joint venture wants to commercialize a technology by 2024 that uses a ceramic anode to make aluminum and emits only oxygen, eliminating direct greenhouse gas emissions from the smelting process.Alcoa has already produced test metal with the process and joined with Rio Tinto to bring it up to commercial scale. Elysis plans to license the technology and says that existing smelting facilities can be retrofitted to use it.The first batch was made in Pittsburgh, but Elysis also plans to manufacture it at a $50 million CAD research facility being built in Saguenay, Quebec, and that is expected to come online in the second half of 2020.Apple and Elysis would not disclose the size or cost of the first purchase. They described it as a “commercial batch,” and Elysis said the process is expected to have lower operating costs than traditional aluminum smelting.
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U.S. and British law enforcement officials announced criminal charges against a notorious Russian hacker on Wednesday, accusing him of a decade-long cybercrime spree that resulted in tens of millions of dollars in losses to victims around the world.Maksim Yakubets, 32, who used the online moniker “aqua,” was charged in connection with two separate international computer hacking and bank fraud schemes from May 2009 to the present.  In the first conspiracy, Yakubets faces charges in London for involvement in a long running conspiracy to employ widespread computer intrusions using the “Zeus” malware and stealing millions of dollars from banks in the United States and elsewhere.In the seecond scheme, Yakubets along with a second Russian national, Igor Turashev, 37, was charged in the Western district of Pennsylvania with distributing the “Bugat” malware to steal banking credentials and other personal information from infected computers.Both men remain at large.The U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Yakubets.“These two cases demonstrate our commitment to unmasking the perpetrators behind the world’s most egregious cyberattacks,” said assistant attorney general Brian A. Benczkowski. 
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Chinese telecom giant Huawei has filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court to throw out a Trump administration rule that bans phone carriers in rural areas from using money from an $8.5 billion government fund to purchase Huawei’s equipment.The lawsuit says the Federal Communications Commission acted improperly when it imposed the ban last month on Huawei and its domestic rival ZTE, citing national security concerns.At a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen Thursday, Song Liuping, Huawei’s chief legal counsel, said the FCC made its decision without any evidence that Huawei posed a national security threat.This is the second lawsuit filed by Huawei to combat U.S. government claims that it presents a threat to U.S. national security. The company first filed suit in March challenging the legality of a law passed by the U.S. Congress last year that bars government agencies and contractors from doing business with the tech giant.Huawei is also involved in a separate legal fight involving Meng Wanzhou, its chief financial officer and the daughter of founder Ren Zhengfei. Meng was arrested in Canada last December on a U.S. warrant seeking her extradition to face charges of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.The United States and others worry that technology companies located in countries with governments like China’s could be subject to state influence, making the networks insecure. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May that bars American companies from using telecommunications equipment that is made by companies that pose a national security risk.But the administration has since granted a series of limited reprieves so Huawei can continue to provide equipment to carriers that provide wireless networks in rural areas.
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Malaysia may have an idea that will help startups, which typically do not have much funding or experience, as well as more established firms, which are often afraid of disruption from new competitors.Companies in the Southeast Asian nation are pairing up, with newer and older companies coming together to benefit from each other’s strengths and to help each other get past their weaknesses. The model could become an interesting trend across the region, as Malaysia is the most developed economy in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after Singapore, and it has given birth to a range of companies that have expanded their operations to other countries, from startups such as ride-hailing app Grab to large companies like AirAsia.A Grab pick-up and drop-off station is seen at the entrance of Kuala Lumpur City Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 3, 2019.Multinational consulting firm PwC’s Malaysian operation, for instance, has paired with startups such as Supahands, which uses machine learning to help clients analyze big data, online commerce firm Dropee, and affiliate marketing firm Involve Asia.Two-way mentorships“They have demonstrated commitment and tenacity in learning and exchanging knowledge with the PwC partners they were paired with,” Sridharan Nair, PwC Malaysia managing partner, said of the startups. “The insights they brought to our partners in the program were invaluable to PwC, as it deepens our understanding of the investments they have made in digitizing their organizations and their approach in disrupting the business.”The startups were able to use PwC partners’ expertise on subjects such as financing and initial public offerings. At the same time, it is useful for large companies to see how smaller ones are experimenting. With a heavy focus on compliance, companies such as PwC have to go through more approvals and bureaucracy, which may not make them as nimble as a startup.Supporters see such two-way mentorships as a way for the emerging market to develop.“With many Malaysian startups now growing into global market players, we feel it’s necessary for there to be more similar programs that can impart world-class business acumen to our base of upcoming entrepreneurs,” according to Norhizam Abdul Kadir, vice president of growth ecosystem development at the Malaysia Digital Economy Corp., a government agency whose mission is to promote the digital economy.Boost to economyThe partnerships are one idea to stir up an economy that could use a boost. Malaysia’s third-quarter consumption and exports did not grow as much as optimists had hoped, and the nation is waiting for the United States and China to resolve their trade war, which hurts demand for Malaysia’s products.At the same time, Malaysia has lowered poverty and is working toward official status as a high-income country. Its role as the host of next year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit may give it more influence over trends in Southeast Asia.“In recent research from the World Economic Forum, Malaysia ranks third in the world for companies embracing disruptive ideas and fourth overall for its entrepreneurial culture,” said Nic Chambers, regional director of Michael Page Malaysia, a human resource consulting firm. “The local business community enjoys the benefits of government initiatives such as the Industrial Revolution 4.0, which promotes automation and attracts new investment into the country.”
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Imagine if your car can sense your emotions and play happy music when you are sad. That’s what a team of researchers at Texas A&M University is working on — to look at brain waves that correlate to different human emotions and ultimately teach that to an autonomous vehicle. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from College Station, Texas.
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Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their roles within the parent company, Alphabet.Sundar Pichai, who has been leading Google as CEO for more than four years, will stay in his role and also become CEO of Alphabet.Page was Alphabet’s CEO, while Brin was its president. Both have been noticeably absent from Google events in the past year. Both stopped making appearances at the weekly question-and-answer sessions with employees, and Page didn’t attend this summer’s Alphabet shareholder’s meeting even though he was still in the CEO role.Alphabet has been positioning Pichai as the de facto leader for quite some time making him the top executive voice at company shareholders meetings, on earnings call and as a spokesperson at Congressional hearings.Page and Brin announced the news in a Google blog post Tuesday, saying the company has “evolved and matured” in the two decades since its founding.”Today, in 2019, if the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost,” they said.Page and Brin started the search giant in 1998 in Silicon Valley.Both founders promised they plan to stay actively involved as board members and shareholders, and lauded Pichai for his leadership of the company.The pair still hold more than 50% voting shares of Alphabet. According to an Alphabet SEC filing in April, Page holds 42.9% of the company’s Class B shares and 26.1% of its voting power. Brin holds 41.3% of the Class B shares and 25.2% of the voting power.
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Imagine if your car can sense your emotions and play happy music when you are sad. That’s what a team of researchers at Texas A&M University is working on — to look at brain waves that correlate to different human emotions and ultimately teach that to an autonomous vehicle. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from College Station, Texas.
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The U.N.’s trade and development agency estimates that Europe, led by the Netherlands, leads the world in readiness for online shopping.UNCTAD’s annual business-to-consumer e-commerce index ranked the United States again in the teens, at 13th — largely because of its relatively low share of people using the internet compared to other developed countries.Russia ranked 40th and China 56th, while Hong Kong came in at No. 15.The agency said Tuesday over 80% of internet users in six European countries shop online, versus under 10% in some poorer countries.The rankings are based on use of the internet as well as access to secure internet servers, reliable postal services, and financial institution or mobile-money-service providers.
UNCTAD called the report provisional, cautioning that some data dates to 2017.
 
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Four workers fired from Google last week are planning to file a federal labor complaint against the company, claiming it unfairly retaliated against them for organizing workers around social causes.The former employees said Tuesday they are preparing to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board this week. All four were fired Nov. 25 for what Google said were violations of its data security policy.Company officials wrote in a memo — without confirming the employees’ names — that the four were “searching for, accessing, and distributing business information outside the scope of their jobs.”But the four workers — Laurence Berland, Sophie Waldman, Rebecca Rivers and Paul Duke — say they believe they did not violate company policies and claim that Google is using the alleged violations as an excuse to terminate them for labor activity.“This is an expression of Google’s management power,” Duke said. “They are scared of worker power.”Google disputes that they fired the employees for organizing activity.“No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities,” the company said in a statement.Google employees are known for being some of the most outspoken across the tech industry. Thousands of employees walked out of work last year to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct claims, in what became known as the Google Walkout. Since then, employees have petitioned for better benefits for contract workers, successfully argued for the end of mandatory arbitration and have opposed Google’s involvement in some government projects.The company has also been known for an open, collaborative work culture since its early days, one that employee activists say is now getting closed off.CEO Sundar Pichai’s weekly question-and-answer sessions with employees became monthly meetings. Google also updated its community guidelines to tell employees to avoid “disrupting the workday” to debate politics or other topics. Some workers complain both moves were meant to discourage open speech and crack down on employee pushback.Waldman and Duke helped create a petition earlier this year that called for Google to refrain from bidding on a cloud computing contract with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Nearly 1,500 employees signed the petition, which said CBP had “engaged in human rights abuses” at the southern border and that Google should not work with the agency.Rivers and Berland also helped spread the petition, and Berland has been involved in organizing other campaigns at the company, including those involving LGBTQ rights.All four say they were questioned by Google officials in the past few months for sharing or accessing internal documents. Two say they were placed on administrative leave last month.The company said it found one worker set up notifications to be alerted about other employees’ calendar changes, which made those employees feel unsafe. It said screenshots of their calendars with their names were shared externally.“We have always taken information security very seriously, and will not tolerate efforts to intimidate Googlers or undermine their work, nor actions that lead to the leak of sensitive business or customer information,” read the memo sent by Chris Rackow, Royal Hansen and Heather Adkins from the company’s security and investigations team.The employees said any documents they viewed and shared were already accessible by Google workers, and they only shared them internally. They said others later shared them outside the company.The four fired workers said they received no severance payments. They are working with lawyers and have not yet determined the details of the NLRB complaint, but said it will address retaliation concerns and will likely take issue broadly with Google’s recent policy changes and alleged crackdowns against employee organizing.Google reached a separate settlement with the NLRB in September over employees’ ability to speak out about workplace issues. Google agreed to post notices to remind employees of their rights, including the ability to talk to each other about workplace conditions and push for changes such as raises.The situation of the four workers has led to additional protest. A few hundred people attended a rally at Google’s San Francisco office in November to call for Rivers’ and Berland’s reinstatement.
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Twitter is updating its global privacy policy to give users more information about what data advertisers might receive and is launching a site to provide clarity on its data protection efforts, the company said on Monday.The changes, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2020, will comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).The California law requires large businesses to give consumers more transparency and control over their personal information, such as allowing them to request that their data be deleted and to opt out of having their data sold to third parties.Social media companies including Facebook and Alphabet’s Google have come under scrutiny on data privacy issues, fueled by Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal in which personal data were harvested from millions of users without their consent.Twitter also announced on Monday that it is moving the accounts of users outside of the United States and European Union which were previously contracted by Twitter International Company in Dublin, Ireland, to the San Francisco-based Twitter.The company said this move would allow it the flexibility to test different settings and controls with these users, such as additional opt-in or opt-out privacy preferences, that would likely be restricted by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe’s landmark digital privacy law.”We want to be able to experiment without immediately running afoul of the GDPR provisions,” Twitter’s data protection officer Damien Kieran told Reuters in a phone interview.”The goal is to learn from those experiments and then to provide those same experiences to people all around the world,” he said.The company, which said it has upped its communications about data and security-related disclosures over the last two years, emphasized in a Monday blog post that it was working to upgrade systems and build privacy into new products.In October, Twitter announced it had found that phone numbers and email addresses used for two-factor authentication may inadvertently have been used for advertising purposes.Twitter’s new privacy site, dubbed the ‘Twitter Privacy Center’ is part of the company’s efforts to showcase its work on data protection and will also give users another route to access and download their data.Twitter joins other internet companies who have recently staked out their positions ahead of CCPA coming into effect.Last month, Microsoft said it would honor the law throughout the United States and Google told clients that it would let sites and apps using its advertising tools block personalized ads as part of its efforts to comply with CCPA. 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation requiring all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in the country to come pre-installed with Russian software.The law, which will come into force on July 1 next year, has been met with resistance by some electronics retailers, who say the legislation was adopted without consulting them.The law has been presented as a way to help Russian IT firms compete with foreign companies and spare consumers from having to download software upon purchasing a new device.The country’s mobile phone market is dominated by foreign companies including Apple, Samsung and Huawei. The legislation signed by Putin said the government would come up with a list of Russian applications that would need to be installed on the different devices.Russia has introduced tougher internet laws in recent years, requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services and social networks to store user data on servers in the country.
 
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EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s collection of data, the European Commission told Reuters Saturday, suggesting the world’s most popular internet search engine remains in its sights despite record fines in recent years.Competition enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are now looking into how dominant tech companies use and monetize data.The EU executive said it was seeking information on how and why Alphabet unit Google is collecting data, confirming a Reuters story Friday.“The Commission has sent out questionnaires as part of a preliminary investigation into Google’s practices relating to Google’s collection and use of data. The preliminary investigation is ongoing,” the EU regulator told Reuters in an email.A document seen by Reuters shows the EU’s focus is on data related to local search services, online advertising, online ad targeting services, login services, web browsers and others.European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has handed down fines totaling more than 8 billion euros to Google in the last two years and ordered it to change its business practices.Google has said it uses data to better its services and that users can manage, delete and transfer their data at any time.
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Facebook said Saturday it had issued a correction notice on a user’s post at the request of the Singapore government, but called for a measured approach to the implementation of a new “fake news” law in the city-state.“Facebook is legally required to tell you that the Singapore government says this post has false information,” said the notice, which is visible only to Singapore users.The correction label was embedded at the bottom of the original post without any alterations to the text.Singapore requests noticeThe Singapore government said Friday it had instructed Facebook “to publish a correction notice” on a Nov. 23 post that contained accusations about the arrest of a supposed whistleblower and election rigging.Singapore, which is expected to call a general elections within months, said the allegations were “false” and “scurrilous” and initially ordered user Alex Tan, who runs the States Times Review blog, to issue the correction notice on the post.Tan, who does not live in Singapore and says he is an Australian citizen, refused, and authorities said he is now under investigation. Reuters could not immediately reach Tan for comment.“As required by Singapore law, Facebook applied a label to these posts, which were determined by the Singapore government to contain false information,” a spokesman for Facebook said in an emailed statement. “As it is early days of the law coming into effect, we hope the Singapore government’s assurances that it will not impact free expression will lead to a measured and transparent approach to implementation.”Some Singapore users however said that they could not see the correction notice. Facebook could not immediately explain why the notice was unavailable to some users.Blocked contentFacebook often blocks content that governments allege violate local laws, with nearly 18,000 cases globally in the year to June, according to the company’s “transparency report.”Two years in the making and implemented only last month, Singapore’s law is the first to demand that Facebook publish corrections when directed to do so by the government.The Asia Internet Coalition, an association of internet and technology companies, called the law the “most far-reaching legislation of its kind to date,” while rights groups have said it could undermine internet freedoms, not just in Singapore, but elsewhere in Southeast Asia.In the only other case under the law, which covers statements that are communicated in the country even if they originate elsewhere, opposition political figure Brad Bowyer swiftly complied with a correction request.The penalties range from prison terms of as much as 10 years or fines up to S$1 million ($733,192).
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Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey has wrapped up of a trip to Africa by pledging to reside on the continent next year for up to six months. Dorsey tweeted this week: “Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020.”The CEO of the social media giant did not say what he planned to do on the African continent.Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, did not offer more details on Dorsey’s plans. On Dorsey’s recent trip, he visited entrepreneurs in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Dorsey, 43, co-founded Twitter with several other entrepreneurs in 2006. He ran the company until he was ousted in 2008 but was brought back seven years later to again lead the platform.Dorsey also co-founded the payment processing app Square and is also CEO of that operation. The tech exec holds millions of stock shares in both companies, and Forbes estimates his net worth at $4.3 billion.Twitter, along with other social media companies, has faced criticism of its handling of misinformation and has come under scrutiny ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential election. Dorsey announced in October that Twitter would ban political advertisements on the platform. 
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Social media app TikTok apologized to a user Thursday for removing a video that criticized China’s treatment of Muslims, blaming a “human moderation error” and saying the images had been restored within less than an hour.The controversy over the video, viewed 1.6 million times, comes as TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, faces an inquiry by a U.S. national security panel over its handling of personal data, while U.S. lawmakers fear it may be censoring politically sensitive content.In the video she posted last week, the user, who identifies herself as Feroza Aziz, gave a tutorial on eyelash curling, while talking about how Muslims were being treated and saying she wanted to spread awareness of the situation.But on Twitter this week she said she had been blocked from posting on TikTok for a month, and Wednesday posted that her viral video had been taken down, only to be restored later.TikTok logo on a mobile phoneTikTok statementThe video was offline for 50 minutes, TikTok said on its website.“We would like to apologize to the user for the error on our part,” said Eric Han, the app’s U.S. head of safety. “Due to a human moderation error, the viral video from Nov. 23 was removed. It’s important to clarify that nothing in our community guidelines precludes content such as this video, and it should not have been removed.”The TikTok user did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for additional comment.China’s foreign ministry said it had no specifics of the case, when queried by Reuters about the incident Wednesday.But it added that it required Chinese firms to operate in a way that respected international norms and local laws and regulations, and hoped that relevant countries also provided a fair and non-discriminatory environment.TikTok is not available in China, but ByteDance has a domestic version called Douyin.UighursThe user did not mention Uighurs in the video, but said later on Twitter she had been referring to the minority ethnic group.United Nations experts and rights groups estimate more than a million Uighurs and members of other ethnic groups have been detained in camps in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, which has triggered international condemnation.China says the camps are vocational training centers to impart new skills and help root out and prevent extremism.ByteDance has stepped up efforts to shield TikTok, popular with U.S. teenagers and those in their 20s, from much of its Chinese operations, Reuters reported Thursday.In a timeline on its blog post, TikTok said it had blocked another account set up by Aziz that had posted an image of Osama Bin Laden, which violated its content policies regarding “terrorist imagery.”On Monday, it enforced a device ban on accounts associated with violations. This affected the new account from which Aziz had posted the eyelash curling video and sent from the same device, it said.It said it had decided to override the device ban and was directly contacting her to do so.Aziz confirmed on Twitter that TikTok had restored her account but said other past videos had been deleted.“Do I believe they took it away because of a unrelated satirical video that was deleted on a previous deleted account of mine? Right after I finished posting a three-part video about the Uyghurs? No,” she posted on Twitter.
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Mobile device makers are constantly reinventing their products to keep consumers coming back, and paying, for more. The race to outdo each other has resulted in new form factors like foldable and dual screens. Not to be left out, Microsoft recently unveiled its take on the trend. VOA’s Tina Trinh examines whether the new look prizes form over function?
  
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Amazon has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Defense Department.The complaint, filed Friday in a federal U.S. court, challenges the Pentagon’s decision to award a $10 billion computing contract to Microsoft.Amazon had been widely expected to receive the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract for the digital modernization of the Pentagon.In August, however, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly questioned whether Amazon should be awarded the contract.Jeff Bezos is the CEO of Amazon. He is also the owner of The Washington Post which has been critical of Trump and his administration.Trump has called The Post part of the “fake news media.”Amazon has previously said that politics got in the way of a fair contracting process.Last week, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the contract was awarded fairly and without any bias after Amazon announced its intention to challenge Microsoft receiving the contract. 
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Amazon.com Inc. Friday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims contesting the Pentagon’s award of an up to $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft Corp.An Amazon spokesman said the company filed a complaint and supplemental motion for discovery. The filing was under seal. “The complaint and related filings contain source selection sensitive information, as well as AWS’s proprietary information, trade secrets, and confidential financial information, the public release of which would cause either party severe competitive harm,” Amazon said in a court document seeking a protective order. “The record in this bid protest likely will contain similarly sensitive information.”Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper rejected any suggestion of bias in the Pentagon’s decision to award Microsoft the contract after Amazon announced plans to challenge it.Amazon was considered a favorite for the contract, part of a broader digital modernization process of the Pentagon, before Microsoft emerged as the surprise winner. The company has previously said that politics got in the way of a fair contracting process. U.S. President Donald Trump has long criticized Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos.
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President Donald Trump’s visit this week to a Texas manufacturing plant highlights the ongoing dance between the iPhone maker and the Trump administration over China and tariffs.The visit came as the U.S. is set Dec. 15 to raise new tariffs on imports from China, as part of its trade war with Beijing.Among U.S. technology companies, Apple has much at risk since many of its products, including the iPhone, Apple Watch and the iPad, are made in China.Two economiesThe economies of China and Silicon Valley are knitted together in complicated ways. Chinese factories make Apple products from components that come from the U.S. But Chinese factories also make some of the components for Apple’s Mac Pro, which has been made in the U.S. for years.The trade war between Washington and Beijing has put pressure on these cross-border supply chains.In July, Trump said no to Apple’s request for tariff waivers.Apple will not be given Tariff waiver, or relief, for Mac Pro parts that are made in China. Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2019But in September, the administration granted 10 waivers for those parts. In response, Apple said its Mac Pro would continue to be made in Texas by a firm called Flex.“I think the conversation about perhaps exempting Apple from these tariffs is a recognition that in fact that tariffs can differentially impact in a negative way various U.S. companies,” Sean Randolph, senior director at the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, said. “And if it’s a flagship company like Apple with a global brand, that becomes an issue.”WATCH: Trump’s Visit to Apple Factory Brings Possibility of More Tariff Relief
Trump’s Visit to Apple Factory Brings Possibility of More Tariff Relief video player.
Embed” />Copy LinkHighlighting US manufacturingFlash forward to the photo opportunity this week in Texas. With Apple CEO Tim Cook by his side, Trump toured the plant and received a plate that said “Assembled in the USA.”Referring to Cook, Trump said, “The nice part here is he doesn’t have to worry about tariffs. Because when you build in the United States, you don’t have to worry about tariffs.”During the visit, Trump appeared to take credit for the manufacturing plant. Later, he incorrectly tweeted that he had opened “a major Apple Manufacturing plant,” at the same time taking a jab at the Democrats, which was also false.Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America. Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn’t care about American Workers!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2019More tariff waivers ahead?Trump said he was looking at more possible waivers for Apple, which competes with Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant.“The problem we have is you have Samsung, it’s a great company, but it’s a competitor of Apple,” he said. “And it’s not fair because we have a trade deal, we made a great trade deal with South Korea. But we have to treat Apple in a somewhat similar basis as we treat Samsung.”It remains to be seen how the Trump administration uses tariffs to not only pressure China but also U.S. companies.
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President Trump’s Thursday visit to a manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas, where Apple makes a line of computers, highlighted the iPhone maker’s delicate dance with the Trump administration over China, tariffs and U.S. manufacturing. Michelle Quinn takes a look  at the relationship.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is taking on the workhorse heavy pickup truck market with his latest electric vehicle.The “cybertruck,” an electric pickup truck, will be in production in 2021, Musk said at the Los Angeles Auto Show Thursday.The pickup, which Musk said will cost $39,900 and up, will have an estimated battery range of more than 500 miles.With the launch, Tesla is edging into the most profitable corner of the U.S. auto market, where buyers tend to have fierce brand loyalty.Brand-loyal buyersMany pickup buyers stick with the same brand for life, choosing a truck based on what their mom or dad drove or what they decided was the toughest model, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.“They’re very much creatures of habit,” Gordon said. Getting a loyal Ford F-150 buyer to consider switching to another brand such as a Chevy Silverado, “it’s like asking him to leave his family,” he said.Tesla’s pickup is more likely to appeal to weekend warriors who want an electric vehicle that can handle some outdoor adventure. And it could end up cutting into Tesla’s electric vehicle sedan sales instead of winning over traditional pickup truck drivers.“The needs-based truck buyer, the haulers, the towers at the worksites of the world, that’s going to be a much tougher sell,” said Akshay Anand, executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book.However, it will help Musk fill out his portfolio and offer a broader range of electric vehicles.“Elon Musk is trying to not be one-dimensional when it comes to automotive,” said Alyssa Altman, transportation lead at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient. “He doesn’t want to look like he only has a small selection. He wants to build a brand with a diverse offering and in doing that he wants to see where he could enter in the market.”Electric truck competitionMusk stands to face competition when his truck hits the market. Ford, which has long dominated the pickup landscape, plans to launch an all-electric F-150 pickup. General Motors CEO Mary Barra said that its battery-electric pickup will come out by the fall of 2021.Rivian, a startup based near Detroit, plans to begin production in the second half of 2020 on an electric pickup that starts at $69,000 and has a battery range of 400-plus miles (643.7-kilometers). The Rivian truck will be able to tow 11,000 pounds (4,989.5 kilograms), go from zero to 60 mph (96.6 kph) in three seconds and wade into 3 feet (0.91 meters) of water, the company said. Ford said in April it would invest $500 million in Rivian.Tesla has struggled to meet delivery targets for its sedans, and some fear the new vehicle will shift the company’s attention away from the goal of more consistently meeting its targets.“We have yet to see Tesla really make good on some of the very tight deadlines they imposed on themselves, and this has the added challenge of having architecture that is going to be challenging because we haven’t seen an EV pickup before,” said Jeremy Acevedo, manager of industry analysis at Edmunds.
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The U.S. Army is undertaking a security assessment of China-owned social media platform TikTok after a Democratic lawmaker raised national security concerns over the app’s handling of user data, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Thursday.Speaking to reporters at an event at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, McCarthy said he ordered the assessment after the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer, asked him to investigate the possible risks in the military’s use of the popular video app for recruiting American teenagers.“National security experts have raised concerns about TikTok’s collection and handling of user data, including user content and communications, IP addresses, location-related data, metadata, and other sensitive personal information,” Schumer wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to McCarthy.Schumer said he was especially concerned about Chinese laws requiring domestic companies “to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.”Tik Tok logo is displayed on the smartphone while standing on the U.S. flag in this illustration picture taken, Nov. 8, 2019.The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co.’s $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly.TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The company has previously emphasized its independence from China but has failed to assuage congressional concerns about the security of the personal data of U.S. citizens who use the platform and whether content on the platform is subject to any censorship from Beijing.In a Nov. 5 blog post, TikTok’s U.S. general manager, Vanessa Pappas, said that the company’s data centers “are located entirely outside of China.” She said U.S. user data is stored in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore.ByteDance is one of China’s fastest-growing startups. About 60% of TikTok’s 26.5 million monthly active users in the United States are between the ages of 16 and 24, the company said this year.Earlier this year, Schumer also called on the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission to conduct a national security and privacy investigation into FaceApp, a face-editing photo app developed in Russia.The potential for the sharing of army information through the use of apps was highlighted after researchers found in 2018 that fitness-tracking app Strava was inadvertently exposing military posts and other sensitive sites.In 2017, the Army ordered its members to stop using drones made by Chinese manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd because of “cyber vulnerabilities” in the products.
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