Hailing “great economic success” during the first 18 months of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for more companies to be like Taiwan’s electronics component manufacturer Foxconn and invest in the United States. 

At a groundbreaking event for the foreign company’s latest and largest investment in the upper Midwestern state of Wisconsin, Trump described the planned $10 billion manufacturing facility “as the eighth wonder of the world.” 

That may be a generous exaggeration, but the plant is one of the largest foreign direct investment projects ever in the United States. 

“We are demanding from foreign countries, friend and foe, fair and reciprocal trade,” Trump said, as he defended his confrontational trade policies and hailed further direct investment in the United States by manufacturers from other countries. 

Trump hailed Foxconn’s decision to increase its investment in Wisconsin, while criticizing a plan by an iconic American company in the same state to move some production overseas in response to retaliatory tariffs planned by European companies in response to the president’s punitive import taxes. 

“Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA,” Trump said. “Don’t get cute with us.” 

The president added: “Your customers won’t be happy if you don’t.”

Trump defended tariffs he has imposed on foreign steel and aluminum, proclaiming that “business is through the roof” in the United States as a result. 

The primary focus of Trump’s remarks on Thursday was Foxconn’s decision to build flat-screen, liquid crystal display panels in Racine County, Wisconsin. 

The maker of components for and assembler of Apple iPhones was offered what is described as the largest financial incentive ever for a foreign company by a U.S. state. 

Wisconsin is giving Foxconn $3 billion in tax credits and other incentives. In exchange, the state expects to see the facility create thousands of jobs. 

Trump spoke in front of a giant video display that said “USA Open for Business” after touring an existing Foxconn facility at the Wisconsin Valley Science and Technology Park. 

Foxconn’s founder and chairman Terry Gou told the audience that during each of his several previous meetings with the president, Trump always emphasized “jobs, jobs, jobs.” 

Added Gou, “He truly cares about improving the lives of the American people.” 

The new plant, which will take two years to build and employ 10,000 construction workers, will include a 1.8 million square meter campus situated on 1,200 hectares. Foxconn has promised that the LCD facility will eventually employ up to 13,000 people. 

Not everyone in the state is overjoyed about what is being billed as a transformational project for Wisconsin’s economy, better known for dairy products than high technology. 

The state’s legislative bureau predicts it will be a quarter of a century before Wisconsin receives enough tax revenue to match its initial investment. And others are raising concern about its environmental impact. 

“Building the Foxconn factory complex on prime farmland in rural Wisconsin constitutes a textbook example of unsustainable development,” said David Petering, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Petering told VOA News the facility will be a “major source of a variety of harmful air pollutants that will put nearby residents at risk and contribute to climate change. In addition, it will need to break the Great Lakes Compact law to get millions of gallons of water from Lake Michigan.” 
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Melting glaciers and rising seas in Greenland; raging fires in Northern California; a relentless drought in Somalia and the disappearing Amazon forests. Famine, Feast, Fire and Ice are the four installments in a virtual reality (VR) documentary on climate change by filmmakers Eric Strauss and Danfung Dennis.  

The series, showcased at AFI Docs, the American Film Institute’s Documentary festival in Washington, D.C., offers a 360-degree view of destructive phenomena brought by climate change on our planet. It immerses viewers into the extremes of Earth’s changing climate.  

Eric Strauss told VOA he hopes that when someone watches the series as it drives home this idea that there is no hiding from global warming. “This is coming for all of us, regardless of where we live or what our income is; it’s going to affect everyone.”

Ken Jacobson, AFI’s Virtual Reality Programmer, says viewers – who watch the film wearing virtual reality headsets – react in many different ways to this all immersive experience.

“Some people have a very visceral reaction where they jump, where they kind of yelp because they are very surprised by what they see, while other people, I think, are very reflective and can even be sad, depending on the content,” he said.

One of these viewers is James Willard, a film and TV production student at George Mason University.  He describes his experience of watching the installment Feast, about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforests to make space for industrial-sized cattle ranches to satisfy the global appetite for beef.

“You are completely immersed in this whole situation,” he says, “You are facing these animals eye-to-eye and watching as they are marching towards their death.”

The film needs no dialogue.  A few sentences set up the topic. “It is actually stripping away a lot of the information, putting you in environments that you then experience for yourself,” says Eric Strauss, “You are much more of a protagonist in some way in this type of stories than you would be in a traditional form of cinema.”

Another viewer, Patricia, has just watched Famine, the episode that looks at the extreme drought in Somalia. “It makes it even more powerful because you feel like you are there. I think, it’s a great medium to spread the word on critical subjects,” she says.  

That’s what Strauss wants to hear. “That is the goal; to effect change, to effect positive change.”

VR films are becoming more accessible as the technology evolves, and are often viewed on smart phone applications.  But VR Programmer Ken Jacobson says watching them through a virtual reality headset is the best way to experience them.

But can VR films ever replace traditional 2D or even 3D films?

“I think it is going to add another aspect on how we are going to watch movies,” says student James Willard.  “Virtual reality can be very dangerous because you are completely immersing yourself within the story to the point where you don’t see anything else.  At least in the movie theater you are fully aware that this is a screen in front of you, but if you look to your sides you don’t have another screen there completely immersing you within that story.  And with virtual reality that’s exactly what it does.  For some people, it will be okay to take off the goggles and go on with their lives, but for others it may be too much.  I don’t think it will completely take over.”

Eric Strauss agrees that VR will not overtake traditional cinema, but he says virtual reality can allow viewers to relate deeply with socially conscious stories.

“The technology creates a situation where you truly feel transported to that location because you are not just witnessing something or watching it on a screen.  You are occupying the space.  And that creates an emotional connection where you can’t really turn away.  I mean, there is no getting away from what you’ve allowed yourself to be teleported to and hopefully that will create a visceral, emotional response in viewers and what they are seeing will prompt them to want to get involved.”

 
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Your Amazon packages, which usually show up in a UPS truck, an unmarked vehicle or in the hands of a mail carrier, may soon be delivered from an Amazon van.

The online retailer has been looking for a while to find a way to have more control over how its packages are delivered. With its new program rolling out Thursday, contractors around the country can launch businesses that deliver Amazon packages. The move gives Amazon more ways to ship its packages to shoppers without having to rely on UPS, FedEx and other package delivery services.

With these vans on the road, Amazon said more shoppers would be able to track their packages on a map, contact the driver or change where a package is left — all of which it can’t do if the package is in the back of a UPS or FedEx truck.

Amazon has beefed up its delivery network in other ways: It has a fleet of cargo planes it calls “Prime Air,” announced last year that it was building an air cargo hub in Kentucky and pays people as much as $25 an hour to deliver packages with their cars through Amazon Flex.

Recently, the company has come under fire from President Donald Trump who tweeted that Amazon should pay the U.S. Postal Service more for shipping its packages. Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said the new program is not a response to Trump, but a way to make sure that the company can deliver its growing number of orders. “This is really about meeting growth for our future,” Clark said.

Through the program , Amazon said it can cost as little as $10,000 for someone to start the delivery business. Contractors that participate in the program will be able to lease blue vans with the Amazon logo stamped on it, buy Amazon uniforms for drivers and get support from Amazon to grow their business.

Contractors don’t have to lease the vans, but if they do, those vehicles can only be used to deliver Amazon packages, the company said. The contractor will be responsible for hiring delivery people, and Amazon would be the customer, paying the business to pick up packages from its 75 U.S. delivery centers and dropping them off at shoppers’ doorsteps. An Amazon representative declined to give details on how much it will pay for the deliveries.

Olaoluwa Abimbola, who was part of Amazon’s test of the program, said that the amount of packages Amazon needs delivered keeps his business busy. He’s hired 40 workers in five months.

“We don’t have to go make sales speeches,” Abimbola said. “There’s constant work, every day. All we have to do is show up.”
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Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday settled a seven-year patent dispute over Apple’s allegations that Samsung violated its patents by “slavishly” copying the design of the iPhone.

Terms of the settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, were not available.

In May, a U.S. jury awarded Apple $539 million, after Samsung had previously paid Apple $399 million to compensate for patent infringement. Samsung would need to make an additional payment to Apple of nearly $140 million if the verdict was upheld.

How much, if anything, Samsung must now pay Apple under Wednesday’s settlement could not immediately be learned. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the terms of the settlement but said Apple “cares deeply about design” and that “this case has always been about more than money.” A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment.

Apple and Samsung are rivals for the title of world’s largest smartphone maker, and the dollar sums involved in the decision are unlikely to have an impact on either’s bottom line. But the case has had a lasting impact on U.S. patent law.

After a loss at trial, Samsung appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 2016, the court sided unanimously with Samsung’s argument that a patent violator does not have to hand over the entire profit it made from stolen designs if those designs covered only certain portions of a product but not the entire object.

But when the case went back to lower court for trial this year, the jury sided with Apple’s argument that, in this specific case, Samsung’s profits were attributable to the design elements that violated Apple’s patents.

Michael Risch, a professor of patent law at Villanova University, said that because of the recent verdict the settlement likely called for Samsung to make an additional payment to Apple.

But he said there was no clear winner in the dispute, which involved hefty legal fees for both companies. While Apple scored a major public relations victory with an initial $1 billion verdict in 2012, Samsung also obtained rulings in its favor and avoided an injunction that would have blocked it from selling phones in the U.S. market, Risch said.
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With parents often playing catch-up with the fast pace of technology, it’s often difficult to really know what their children are doing on their electronic devices. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing Congress to approve legislation that would give the government new ways to review foreign technology investments in the United States to guard against national security threats.

Trump had at first called for imposing limits on Chinese investments in U.S. technology companies and high-tech exports to China, but shifted to urging lawmakers to enhance an existing review process.

He said Wednesday the revamped reviews would give the government the “ability to protect the United States from new and evolving threats posed by foreign investment while also sustaining the strong, open investment environment to which our country is committed and which benefits our economy and our people.”

He said the legislation would give the government “additional tools to combat the predatory investment practices that threaten our critical technology leadership, national security, and future economic prosperity.”

Trump said that if Congress fails to pass the legislation he would use “existing authorities” to conduct global reviews of security threats in technology transactions.
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As gigabytes of data flow from field to fingertips, click by click, the technological divide has been closing between teams at the World Cup.

While the focus has been on the debut of video assistant referees, less obvious technical advances have been at work in Russia and the coaches have control over this area, at least. 

No longer are the flashiest gizmos to trace player movements and gather data the preserve of the best-resourced nations. All World Cup finalists have had an array of electronic performance and tracking systems made available to them by FIFA.

“We pay great attention to these tools,” Poland coach Adam Nawalka said. “Statistics play an important role for us. We analyze our strength and weaknesses.”

The enhanced tech at the teams’ disposal came after football’s law-making body — on the same day in March it approved VAR — approved the use of hand-held electronic and communications equipment in the technical area for tactical and coaching purposes. That allows live conversations between the coaches on the bench and analysts in the stands, a change from the 2014 World Cup when the information gathered from player and ball tracking systems couldn’t be transmitted in real-time from the tribune.

“It’s the first time that they can communicate during the match,” FIFA head of technology Johannes Holzmueller told The Associated Press. “We provide the basic and most important metrics to the teams to be analyzed at the analysis desk. There they have the opportunity either to use the equipment provided by FIFA or that they use their own.”

The KPI — key performance indicators — fed by tracking cameras and satellites provide another perspective when coaches make judgments on substitutions or tactical switches if gaps exposed on the field are identified.

“These tools are very practical, they give us analysis, it’s very positive,” Colombia coach Jose Pekerman said. “They provide us with insight. They complement the tools we already have. It improves our work as coaches, and it will help footballers too. I think technologies are a very positive thing.”

 It’s not just about success in games. Player welfare can be enhanced with high-tech tools to assess injuries in real time allowed for use by medics at this World Cup. Footage of incidents can now be evaluated to supplement any on-field diagnosis, particularly concussion cases.

A second medic “can review very clearly, very concretely what happened on the field, what the doctor sitting on the bench perhaps could not see,” FIFA medical committee chairman Michel D’Hooghe said.

Pekerman is pleased “football is advancing very quickly.” Too quickly, though, for some coaches who are more resistant to the growing role for machines rather than the mind. 

“Football is evolving and these tools help us on the tactical and physiological side,” Senegal coach Senegal coach Aliou Cisse said. “We do look at it with my staff, but it doesn’t really have an impact on my decision making.”

Hernan Dario Gomez, coach of World Cup newcomer Panama, has reviewed the data feeds. But ultimately the team has been eliminated in the group stage after facing superior opponents.

“This is obviously very important information, but not more important than the actual players,” Gomez said. “We think first and foremost about the players and the teamwork that is done.”

 The data provided on players by FIFA is still reliant the quality of analysts interpreting it.

 “You can have millions of data points, but what are you doing with it?” Holzmueller said. “At the end even if you’re not such a rich country you could have a very, very clever good guy who is the analyst who could get probably more out of it than a country of 20 analysts if they don’t know really how they should read the data and what they should do with it.

“So it’s really up to each team and also up to each coach because we realize that for some coaches they say, ‘Look I have a gut feeling … I don’t need this information.’”

FIFA is happy with that. The governing body’s technical staff — the side often eclipsed by the high-profile members of the ruling-council — will continue to innovate. 

But artificial intelligence isn’t taking over. For some time, at least.

“People think now it’s all driven by computers,” Holzmueller said.  “We don’t want that at FIFA.”
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Barbie, the world’s most iconic doll, is venturing into coding skills in her latest career as a robotics engineer.

The new doll, launched Tuesday, aims to encourage girls as young as seven to learn real coding skills, thanks to a partnership with the kids game-based computing platform Tynker, toymaker Mattel said.

Robotics engineer Barbie, dressed in jeans, a graphic T-shirt and denim jacket and wearing safety glasses, comes with six free Barbie-inspired coding lessons designed to teach logic, problem solving and the building blocks of coding.

The lessons, for example, show girls how to build robots, get them to move at a dance party, or do jumping jacks.

According to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics, 24 percent of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) jobs were held by women in 2017.

Barbie has held more than 200 careers in her almost 60-year life, including president, video game developer and astronaut.

Tynker co-founder Krishna Vedati said in a statement that the company’s mission to empower youth worldwide made Barbie an ideal partner “to help us introduce programming to a large number of kids in a fun engaging way.”

Watch Tynker promotional video:
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A former top U.S. Defense Department official is questioning the morality of Google’s decision not to renew a partnership with the Pentagon.

“I believe the Google employees have created a moral hazard for themselves,” former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work said Tuesday.

Google announced earlier this month that it would not renew its contract for Project Maven, after 13 employees resigned and more than 4,600 employees signed a petition objecting to their work being used for warfare.

Project Maven seeks to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to help detect and identify images captured using drones.

Many of the Google employees who objected to the project cited Google’s principle of ensuring its products are not used to do harm. But Work, who served as deputy defense secretary from 2014 through July 2017, described Google’s thinking as short-sighted. “It might wind up with us taking a shot, but it could easily save lives” he told an audience at the Defense One Tech Summit in Washington.

Work also described Google as hypocritical, given the company’s endeavors with other countries, such as China. “Google has opened an AI [artificial intelligence] center in China,” he said. “Anything that’s going on in the AI center in China is going to the Chinese government and then will ultimately end up in the hands of the Chinese military.”

The Pentagon’s Project Maven was approved under Work’s watch in 2016 had an initial budget of about $70 million. Google officials had told employees the company was earning less than $10 million, though the deal could lead to additional work.

Current military officials have declined to comment on Google’s decision to not renew the contract, explaining the tech giant is not the main contractor.

“It would not be appropriate for us to comment on the relationship between a prime and sub-prime contractor holder,” Pentagon spokeswoman, Maj. Audricia Harris told VOA in an email.

“We value all of our relationships with academic institutions and commercial companies involved with Project Maven,” she added. “Partnering with the best universities and commercial companies in the world will help preserve the United States’ critical lead in artificial intelligence.” VOA has asked Google for a response, but has received no reply.

While declining to comment directly on Google and Project Maven, the executive director of the Defense Innovation Board said the hope is that, eventually, ethical consideration will push tech companies to work with the military.

“AI [artificlal intelligence] done properly is really, really dangerous,” said Josh Marcuse “We want to work with these companies, these engineers.”

“We are going to have to defend these democracies against adversaries or competitors who see the world every differently,” he said at the same conference in Washington as Work. “I don’t want to show up with a dumb weapon on a smart battlefield.”

But experts say questions of ethics and business viability are likely to continue to plague Google and otherbig tech companies who are asked to work with the Pentagon.

“Their customer base is not just the United States,” said Heather Roff with the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. “Aiding the U.S. defense industry will potentially hinder their economic success or viability in other countries.”

Still, Paul Scharre, a former Defense Department official who worked on emerging technologies, said he was disappointed by Google’s decision.

“There are weapons companies that build weapons – I understand why Google might not want to be part of that,” said Scharre, now with the Center for a New American Security.

“I don’t think Project Maven crosses the line at all,” he added. “It’s clearly not a weapons technology. It’s helping people better understand the battle space. If you are only worried about civilian and collateral damage that’s only good.”

VOA’s Michelle Quinn contributed to this report. Some information from Reuters was used in this report.
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