Today’s robots can be programmed to do many things – from vacuuming floors to assembling cars. But teaching them to recognize and correct a mistake is much harder to do. A group of scientists, led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, is trying to solve that problem. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is considering leading a buyout of the electric car maker in a stunning move that would end the maverick company’s eight-year history trading on the stock market.

In his typically unorthodox fashion, the eccentric Musk dropped his bombshell on his Twitter account, which he has used as a platform for pranks, vitriol and now for a proposal to pull off one of the biggest buyouts in U.S. history.

Musk got the ball rolling Tuesday after the stock market had already been open more than three hours with a tweet announcing he might buy all of Tesla’s stock at $420 per share with no further details.

At that price, the buyout would cost nearly $72 billion, based on Tesla’s outstanding stock as of July 27, but it’s unlikely the deal would cost that much because Musk owns a roughly 20 percent stake in the Palo Alto, California, company. He also said he intends to give Tesla’s existing shareholders the option of retaining a stake in the company through a special fund, if they want.

“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” Musk wrote in his first tweet, following up with “good morning” and a smiley emoji.

His tweet came hours after the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had built a significant stake in Tesla Inc., but it was unclear if that was the funding Musk was referring to. The Financial Times, citing unnamed people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had built a stake of between 3 and 5 percent of Telsa’s shares.

Musk’s announcement was initially met with widespread skepticism, with many people connecting the proposed $420-per-share offer with 420 being a common slang term for marijuana.

Musk also previously used his Twitter account to joke that Tesla was going bankrupt in an April Fool’s Day tweet and his stability was called into question last month after he called a British diver who helped rescue children from a Thailand cave a pedophile. That baseless tweet was quickly deleted and Musk apologized to the diver.

The confusion caused by Musk’s Tuesday announcement via Twitter also prompted regulators of the Nasdaq stock market to temporarily suspend trading in Tesla’s stock.

Musk later brought some clarity to the situation in an email to Tesla employees that was also posted on Tesla’s blog. Trading in Tesla’s stock resumed shortly after, and the stock climbed 11 percent to $379.57. Musk’s offer is 9 percent higher than Tesla’s peak closing price of $385 reached nearly a year ago.

By taking Tesla private, Musk believes that the company will be able to sharpen its long-term focus of revolutionizing an automobile industry dominated by fuel-combustion vehicles without having to cater to investors’ fixation on how the business is faring from one quarter to the next.

Making money has proven elusive for Tesla while it has been investing in electric car technology and ramping up production of its vehicle, including a sedan with a starting price of $35,000 to appeal to a broader audience.

The company has only posted a quarterly profit twice in its history and has never made money during an entire calendar year, something that Musk has been trying to change by cutting costs, including recent mass layoffs that trimmed Tesla’s workforce by 9 percent. Tesla lost another $717.5 million in its most recent quarter.

Despite its challenges, Tesla has remained a favorite among many investors, partly because of their faith in Musk, who made his initial fortune as a co-founder of PayPal and also is the CEO of a trail-blazing aerospace company, SpaceX, that’s already private.

But another substantial segment of investors are convinced Tesla is doomed to fail and are betting on the company’s eventual demise by becoming “short sellers” of its stock. Short sellers borrow shares from other investors and then immediately sell them on the premise that they will be able to buy them back at a lower price later to replace they stock they borrowed.

Musk has long raged against short sellers and mentioned his desire to be rid of them as one of his reasons for taking Tesla private. “Being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company,” he wrote.
…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is considering leading a buyout of the electric car maker in a stunning move that would end the maverick company’s eight-year history trading on the stock market.

In his typically unorthodox fashion, the eccentric Musk dropped his bombshell on his Twitter account, which he has used as a platform for pranks, vitriol and now for a proposal to pull off one of the biggest buyouts in U.S. history.

Musk got the ball rolling Tuesday after the stock market had already been open more than three hours with a tweet announcing he might buy all of Tesla’s stock at $420 per share with no further details.

At that price, the buyout would cost nearly $72 billion, based on Tesla’s outstanding stock as of July 27, but it’s unlikely the deal would cost that much because Musk owns a roughly 20 percent stake in the Palo Alto, California, company. He also said he intends to give Tesla’s existing shareholders the option of retaining a stake in the company through a special fund, if they want.

“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” Musk wrote in his first tweet, following up with “good morning” and a smiley emoji.

His tweet came hours after the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had built a significant stake in Tesla Inc., but it was unclear if that was the funding Musk was referring to. The Financial Times, citing unnamed people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had built a stake of between 3 and 5 percent of Telsa’s shares.

Musk’s announcement was initially met with widespread skepticism, with many people connecting the proposed $420-per-share offer with 420 being a common slang term for marijuana.

Musk also previously used his Twitter account to joke that Tesla was going bankrupt in an April Fool’s Day tweet and his stability was called into question last month after he called a British diver who helped rescue children from a Thailand cave a pedophile. That baseless tweet was quickly deleted and Musk apologized to the diver.

The confusion caused by Musk’s Tuesday announcement via Twitter also prompted regulators of the Nasdaq stock market to temporarily suspend trading in Tesla’s stock.

Musk later brought some clarity to the situation in an email to Tesla employees that was also posted on Tesla’s blog. Trading in Tesla’s stock resumed shortly after, and the stock climbed 11 percent to $379.57. Musk’s offer is 9 percent higher than Tesla’s peak closing price of $385 reached nearly a year ago.

By taking Tesla private, Musk believes that the company will be able to sharpen its long-term focus of revolutionizing an automobile industry dominated by fuel-combustion vehicles without having to cater to investors’ fixation on how the business is faring from one quarter to the next.

Making money has proven elusive for Tesla while it has been investing in electric car technology and ramping up production of its vehicle, including a sedan with a starting price of $35,000 to appeal to a broader audience.

The company has only posted a quarterly profit twice in its history and has never made money during an entire calendar year, something that Musk has been trying to change by cutting costs, including recent mass layoffs that trimmed Tesla’s workforce by 9 percent. Tesla lost another $717.5 million in its most recent quarter.

Despite its challenges, Tesla has remained a favorite among many investors, partly because of their faith in Musk, who made his initial fortune as a co-founder of PayPal and also is the CEO of a trail-blazing aerospace company, SpaceX, that’s already private.

But another substantial segment of investors are convinced Tesla is doomed to fail and are betting on the company’s eventual demise by becoming “short sellers” of its stock. Short sellers borrow shares from other investors and then immediately sell them on the premise that they will be able to buy them back at a lower price later to replace they stock they borrowed.

Musk has long raged against short sellers and mentioned his desire to be rid of them as one of his reasons for taking Tesla private. “Being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company,” he wrote.
…

The FBI has started sharing information about online trolls and other suspicious users with top technology companies as part of the bureau’s behind-the-scenes effort to disrupt foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections, with officials saying it is the service providers’ responsibility to police malign messaging by Russia and other countries.

“By sharing information with them, especially about who certain users and account holders actually are, we can assist their own, voluntary initiatives to track foreign influence activity and to enforce their own terms of service,” said Adam Dickey, a deputy assistant attorney general.

The information, described as “actionable intelligence,” is funneled through a foreign influence task force FBI Director Christopher Wray set up last fall November as part of a broader government approach to counter foreign influence operations and to prevent a repeat of Russian meddling in the 2018 midterm and the 2020 presidential elections.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election in part by orchestrating a massive social media campaign aimed at swaying American public opinion and sowing discord.

“Technology companies have a front-line responsibility to secure their own networks, products and platforms,” Wray said. “But we’re doing our part by providing actionable intelligence to better enable them to address abuse of their platforms by foreign actors.”

He said FBI officials have provided top social media and technology companies with several classified briefings so far this year, sharing “specific threat indicators and account information, and a variety of other pieces of information so that they can better monitor their own platforms.”

FBI expertise

The task force works with personnel in all 56 FBI field offices and “brings together the FBI’s expertise across the waterfront — counterintelligence, cyber, criminal and even counterterrorism — to root out and respond to foreign influence operations,” Wray said at a White House briefing.  

Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general, said on Monday that the FBI’s unpublicized sharing of information with the social media companies is a “key component” of the Justice Department’s to counter covert foreign influence efforts.

“It is those providers who bear the primary responsibility for securing their own products and platforms,” Hickey said this week at MisinfoCon, an annual conference on misinformation held in Washington, D.C.

The comments come as top U.S. security officials from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on down warned about continued attempts by Russia and potentially others to disrupt the November midterm elections. 

Coats said on Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies continue “to see a pervasive message campaign” by Russia, while Wray said Moscow “continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.” 

But the officials and social media company executives say the ongoing misinformation campaign does not reach the unprecedented levels seen during the 2016 election.  

Hickey, of the Justice Department’s national security division, said that the agency doesn’t often “expose and attribute” ongoing foreign influence operations partly to protect the investigations, methods and sources, and partly “to avoid even the appearance of partiality.”

Social media, technology companies

Social media and technology companies, widely criticized for their role in allowing Russian operatives to use their platforms during the 2016 election, have taken steps over the past year to crack down on misinformation.

In June, Twitter announced new measures to fight abuse and trolls, saying it is focused on “developing machine learning tools that identify and take action on networks of spammy or automated accounts automatically.”

In April, Facebook announced that it had taken down 135 Facebook and Instagram accounts and 138 Facebook pages linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm indicted in February for orchestrating Russia’s social media operations in 2016.  

The company did not say whether it had removed the pages and accounts based on information provided by the FBI.  

Monika Bickert, head of Facebook’s product policy and counterterrorism, told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum last month that the social network has moved to shield its users against fake information by deploying artificial intelligence tools that detect fake accounts and instituting transparency in advertising requirements. 

Tom Burt, vice president for customer security and trust at Microsoft, speaking at the same event, disclosed that the company had worked with law enforcement earlier this year to foil a Russian attempt to hack the campaigns of three candidates running for office in the midterm elections.  

He did not identify the candidates by name but said they “were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint, as well as an election disruption standpoint.”

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri confirmed late last month that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network, raising questions about the extent to which Russia will try to interfere in the 2018 elections.

Wray stressed that the influence operations are not “an election cycle threat.”

“Our adversaries are trying to undermine our country on a persistent and regular basis, whether it’s election season or not,” he said.  
…

The FBI has started sharing information about online trolls and other suspicious users with top technology companies as part of the bureau’s behind-the-scenes effort to disrupt foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections, with officials saying it is the service providers’ responsibility to police malign messaging by Russia and other countries.

“By sharing information with them, especially about who certain users and account holders actually are, we can assist their own, voluntary initiatives to track foreign influence activity and to enforce their own terms of service,” said Adam Dickey, a deputy assistant attorney general.

The information, described as “actionable intelligence,” is funneled through a foreign influence task force FBI Director Christopher Wray set up last fall November as part of a broader government approach to counter foreign influence operations and to prevent a repeat of Russian meddling in the 2018 midterm and the 2020 presidential elections.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded last year that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election in part by orchestrating a massive social media campaign aimed at swaying American public opinion and sowing discord.

“Technology companies have a front-line responsibility to secure their own networks, products and platforms,” Wray said. “But we’re doing our part by providing actionable intelligence to better enable them to address abuse of their platforms by foreign actors.”

He said FBI officials have provided top social media and technology companies with several classified briefings so far this year, sharing “specific threat indicators and account information, and a variety of other pieces of information so that they can better monitor their own platforms.”

FBI expertise

The task force works with personnel in all 56 FBI field offices and “brings together the FBI’s expertise across the waterfront — counterintelligence, cyber, criminal and even counterterrorism — to root out and respond to foreign influence operations,” Wray said at a White House briefing.  

Adam Hickey, a deputy assistant attorney general, said on Monday that the FBI’s unpublicized sharing of information with the social media companies is a “key component” of the Justice Department’s to counter covert foreign influence efforts.

“It is those providers who bear the primary responsibility for securing their own products and platforms,” Hickey said this week at MisinfoCon, an annual conference on misinformation held in Washington, D.C.

The comments come as top U.S. security officials from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats on down warned about continued attempts by Russia and potentially others to disrupt the November midterm elections. 

Coats said on Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies continue “to see a pervasive message campaign” by Russia, while Wray said Moscow “continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day.” 

But the officials and social media company executives say the ongoing misinformation campaign does not reach the unprecedented levels seen during the 2016 election.  

Hickey, of the Justice Department’s national security division, said that the agency doesn’t often “expose and attribute” ongoing foreign influence operations partly to protect the investigations, methods and sources, and partly “to avoid even the appearance of partiality.”

Social media, technology companies

Social media and technology companies, widely criticized for their role in allowing Russian operatives to use their platforms during the 2016 election, have taken steps over the past year to crack down on misinformation.

In June, Twitter announced new measures to fight abuse and trolls, saying it is focused on “developing machine learning tools that identify and take action on networks of spammy or automated accounts automatically.”

In April, Facebook announced that it had taken down 135 Facebook and Instagram accounts and 138 Facebook pages linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm indicted in February for orchestrating Russia’s social media operations in 2016.  

The company did not say whether it had removed the pages and accounts based on information provided by the FBI.  

Monika Bickert, head of Facebook’s product policy and counterterrorism, told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum last month that the social network has moved to shield its users against fake information by deploying artificial intelligence tools that detect fake accounts and instituting transparency in advertising requirements. 

Tom Burt, vice president for customer security and trust at Microsoft, speaking at the same event, disclosed that the company had worked with law enforcement earlier this year to foil a Russian attempt to hack the campaigns of three candidates running for office in the midterm elections.  

He did not identify the candidates by name but said they “were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint, as well as an election disruption standpoint.”

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri confirmed late last month that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network, raising questions about the extent to which Russia will try to interfere in the 2018 elections.

Wray stressed that the influence operations are not “an election cycle threat.”

“Our adversaries are trying to undermine our country on a persistent and regular basis, whether it’s election season or not,” he said.  
…

Modern technology is transporting students back to the 20th century, to the exact moment during World War II when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. No, it’s not time travel, but with the help of Virtual Reality – students are able to relive the 1945 U.S. attack which devastated the Japanese city, and left more than 140,000 dead. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Modern technology is transporting students back to the 20th century, to the exact moment during World War II when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. No, it’s not time travel, but with the help of Virtual Reality – students are able to relive the 1945 U.S. attack which devastated the Japanese city, and left more than 140,000 dead. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

Several major media outlets announced Monday that they would be removing content from InfoWars, a far-right, conspiracy-peddling media source.

On Monday, Apple announced it had removed hundreds of podcasts produced by InfoWars from its iTunes and podcast apps.

Facebook said it had removed four pages belonging to InfoWars founder Alex Jones. And music-sharing app Spotify said it would be removing all InfoWars podcasts available on the site, following last week’s removal of some InfoWars content.

Jones has gained notoriety for spreading unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including claiming that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut were hoaxes perpetrated by the U.S. government.

Jones has also repeatedly used inflammatory language against transgender people and Muslims, one of the reasons Facebook said forced it to remove his content.

“We believe in giving people a voice, but we also want everyone using Facebook to feel safe,” the social media outlet said in a statement. “It’s why we have Community Standards and remove anything that violates them, including hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others.”

In July, Facebook suspended Jones’s personal profile for what it called “bullying and hate speech.”

Apple said it removed all of the content from five of six InfoWars shows from its platforms. As of Monday, only one InfoWars podcast, named RealNews with David Knight, remained on iTunes.

“We have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” Apple said in a statement. “We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”

In July, Facebook and YouTube announced they had removed four of Jones’s videos from their sites. Two of the videos claimed without evidence that Muslims were taking over several European countries. Another compared the creators of a show about drag queens to satanists.

YouTube followed suit and banned Jones’s channel on Monday afternoon, claiming the account, which had over 2.4 million subscribers, violated the site’s guidelines on hate speech.

In recent weeks, Jones garnered increased attention as the parents of children killed in the Connecticut shooting sued him for defamation. While Jones said he now believes the shooting was not a hoax, he said his earlier claims were protected under U.S. free speech laws.

In July, Jones also appeared to threaten special counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating U.S. President Donald Trump and his campaign for potential Russian influence.

“[Mueller is] a demon I will take down, or I’ll die trying,” Jones said, making a pistol motion with his hands. “You’re going to get it, or I’m going to die trying, bitch.”

While Jones’s beliefs have often been characterized as fringe, he has found some mainstream appeal. In December 2015, Trump, then a candidate, appeared on InfoWars via a satellite interview.

“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down,” Trump said to Jones.
…

Several major media outlets announced Monday that they would be removing content from InfoWars, a far-right, conspiracy-peddling media source.

On Monday, Apple announced it had removed hundreds of podcasts produced by InfoWars from its iTunes and podcast apps.

Facebook said it had removed four pages belonging to InfoWars founder Alex Jones. And music-sharing app Spotify said it would be removing all InfoWars podcasts available on the site, following last week’s removal of some InfoWars content.

Jones has gained notoriety for spreading unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including claiming that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut were hoaxes perpetrated by the U.S. government.

Jones has also repeatedly used inflammatory language against transgender people and Muslims, one of the reasons Facebook said forced it to remove his content.

“We believe in giving people a voice, but we also want everyone using Facebook to feel safe,” the social media outlet said in a statement. “It’s why we have Community Standards and remove anything that violates them, including hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others.”

In July, Facebook suspended Jones’s personal profile for what it called “bullying and hate speech.”

Apple said it removed all of the content from five of six InfoWars shows from its platforms. As of Monday, only one InfoWars podcast, named RealNews with David Knight, remained on iTunes.

“We have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” Apple said in a statement. “We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”

In July, Facebook and YouTube announced they had removed four of Jones’s videos from their sites. Two of the videos claimed without evidence that Muslims were taking over several European countries. Another compared the creators of a show about drag queens to satanists.

YouTube followed suit and banned Jones’s channel on Monday afternoon, claiming the account, which had over 2.4 million subscribers, violated the site’s guidelines on hate speech.

In recent weeks, Jones garnered increased attention as the parents of children killed in the Connecticut shooting sued him for defamation. While Jones said he now believes the shooting was not a hoax, he said his earlier claims were protected under U.S. free speech laws.

In July, Jones also appeared to threaten special counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating U.S. President Donald Trump and his campaign for potential Russian influence.

“[Mueller is] a demon I will take down, or I’ll die trying,” Jones said, making a pistol motion with his hands. “You’re going to get it, or I’m going to die trying, bitch.”

While Jones’s beliefs have often been characterized as fringe, he has found some mainstream appeal. In December 2015, Trump, then a candidate, appeared on InfoWars via a satellite interview.

“Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down,” Trump said to Jones.
…

Facebook says it has taken down four pages belonging to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating its hate speech and bullying policies.

The social media giant said in a statement Monday that it also blocked Jones’ account for 30 days because he repeatedly posted content that broke its rules.

The company said it “unpublished” the four pages after receiving reports that they contained content “glorifying violence” and used “dehumanizing language” to describe Muslims, immigrants and transgender people.

Facebook is the latest tech company to take action against Jones, who has been facing a growing backlash on social media.

Last week, music streaming service Spotify removed some episodes of “The Alex Jones Show” podcast for breaching its hate content policy.
…

Facebook says it has taken down four pages belonging to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating its hate speech and bullying policies.

The social media giant said in a statement Monday that it also blocked Jones’ account for 30 days because he repeatedly posted content that broke its rules.

The company said it “unpublished” the four pages after receiving reports that they contained content “glorifying violence” and used “dehumanizing language” to describe Muslims, immigrants and transgender people.

Facebook is the latest tech company to take action against Jones, who has been facing a growing backlash on social media.

Last week, music streaming service Spotify removed some episodes of “The Alex Jones Show” podcast for breaching its hate content policy.
…

A company that makes semiconductors for Apple iPhones says it is recovering from a virus outbreak but expects the incident to delay shipments and raise costs.

Taiwan Semiconductor Co. Ltd. said 80 percent of the fabrication tools affected by Friday’s virus had been recovered by Sunday. TSMC expects full recovery on Monday.

The company didn’t detail the impact on Apple or other customers. Apple Inc. did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The semiconductor company blames the outbreak on a mistake during installation of software for a new tool, which was then connected to its computer network. It says confidential information was not compromised.

The company says the incident will cut third-quarter revenue by about 3 percent. But it’s confident it will get that back in the fourth quarter.

 
…

Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile app about fire prevention to Silicon Valley’s tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls.

For the 11th graders from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the ticket of admission to the World Pitch Summit signals a particularly dramatic leap.

They come from middle class families that value education, but opportunities have been limited because of the omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prevailing norms of patriarchy in their traditional society and typically underequipped schools with outdated teaching methods.

“We are excited to travel in a plane for the first time in our lives, meet new people and see a new world,” said team member Wasan al-Sayed, 17. “We are excited to be in the most prestigious IT community in the world, Silicon Valley, where we can meet interesting people and see how the new world works.”

​Twelve finalists

Twelve teams made it to the finals of the “Technovation Challenge” in San Jose, California, presenting apps that tackle problems in their communities. The Palestinian teens compete in the senior division against teams from Egypt, the United States, Mexico, India and Spain, for scholarships of up to $15,000.

It’s a life-changing experience for al-Sayed and her teammates, Zubaida al-Sadder, Masa Halawa and Tamara Awaisa.

They are now determined to pursue careers in technology.

“Before this program, we had a vague idea about the future,” said al-Sayed, speaking at a computer lab at An Najah University in her native Nablus, the West Bank’s second largest city. “Now we have a clear idea. It helped us pick our path in life.”

The teens first heard about the competition a few months ago from an IT teacher at their school in a middle-class neighborhood in Nablus, where IT classes are a modest affair, held twice a week, with two students to a computer.

The girls, friends since 10th grade, each had a laptop at home, and worked with Yamama Shakaa, a local mentor provided by the competition organizers. The teens “did everything by themselves, with very few resources,” Shakaa said.

The team produced a virtual reality game, “Be a firefighter,” to teach fire prevention skills.

​Blackouts and fires

The subject is particularly relevant in some parts of the Palestinian territories, such as the Gaza Strip, where a border blockade by Israel and Egypt, imposed after the takeover of the Islamic militant group Hamas in 2007, has led to hours-long daily power cuts and the widespread use of candles and other potential fire hazards.

The teens now hope to expand their app to include wildfire prevention. They will also present a business and marketing plan at the California pitching session.

After the competition, they will give the app to the Palestinian Education Ministry for use in schools.

“This prize has changed our lives,” al-Sayed said.

About the competition

The competition, now in its ninth year, is run by Iridescent, a global nonprofit offering opportunities to young people, especially girls, through technology. The group said 60 percent of the U.S. participants enroll in additional computer science courses after the competition, with 30 percent majoring in that field in college, well above the national rate among female U.S. college students. Two-thirds of international participants show an interest in technology-related courses, the group said.

Palestinian Education Minister Sabri Saidam counts on technology, along with a new emphasis on vocational training, to overhaul Palestinian schools, where many students still learn by rote in crowded classrooms.

Youth unemployment, particularly among university graduates, is a central problem across the Arab world, in part because of a demographic “youth bulge.” Last year, unemployment among Palestinian college graduates younger than 30 reached 56 percent, including 41 percent in the West Bank and 73 percent in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Unemployment is particularly high among female university graduates, in part because young women are expected to marry and raise children, while young men are considered the main breadwinners. However, employers also complain that graduates studying outdated or irrelevant courses often lack the needed skills for employment.

Saidam said Palestinian schools have received 15,000 computers in the last couple of years. His ministry has also established 54 bookless “smart schools” for grades one to six where students use laptops and learn by doing, including educational trips and involvement with their society.
…

Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile app about fire prevention to Silicon Valley’s tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls.

For the 11th graders from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the ticket of admission to the World Pitch Summit signals a particularly dramatic leap.

They come from middle class families that value education, but opportunities have been limited because of the omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prevailing norms of patriarchy in their traditional society and typically underequipped schools with outdated teaching methods.

“We are excited to travel in a plane for the first time in our lives, meet new people and see a new world,” said team member Wasan al-Sayed, 17. “We are excited to be in the most prestigious IT community in the world, Silicon Valley, where we can meet interesting people and see how the new world works.”

​Twelve finalists

Twelve teams made it to the finals of the “Technovation Challenge” in San Jose, California, presenting apps that tackle problems in their communities. The Palestinian teens compete in the senior division against teams from Egypt, the United States, Mexico, India and Spain, for scholarships of up to $15,000.

It’s a life-changing experience for al-Sayed and her teammates, Zubaida al-Sadder, Masa Halawa and Tamara Awaisa.

They are now determined to pursue careers in technology.

“Before this program, we had a vague idea about the future,” said al-Sayed, speaking at a computer lab at An Najah University in her native Nablus, the West Bank’s second largest city. “Now we have a clear idea. It helped us pick our path in life.”

The teens first heard about the competition a few months ago from an IT teacher at their school in a middle-class neighborhood in Nablus, where IT classes are a modest affair, held twice a week, with two students to a computer.

The girls, friends since 10th grade, each had a laptop at home, and worked with Yamama Shakaa, a local mentor provided by the competition organizers. The teens “did everything by themselves, with very few resources,” Shakaa said.

The team produced a virtual reality game, “Be a firefighter,” to teach fire prevention skills.

​Blackouts and fires

The subject is particularly relevant in some parts of the Palestinian territories, such as the Gaza Strip, where a border blockade by Israel and Egypt, imposed after the takeover of the Islamic militant group Hamas in 2007, has led to hours-long daily power cuts and the widespread use of candles and other potential fire hazards.

The teens now hope to expand their app to include wildfire prevention. They will also present a business and marketing plan at the California pitching session.

After the competition, they will give the app to the Palestinian Education Ministry for use in schools.

“This prize has changed our lives,” al-Sayed said.

About the competition

The competition, now in its ninth year, is run by Iridescent, a global nonprofit offering opportunities to young people, especially girls, through technology. The group said 60 percent of the U.S. participants enroll in additional computer science courses after the competition, with 30 percent majoring in that field in college, well above the national rate among female U.S. college students. Two-thirds of international participants show an interest in technology-related courses, the group said.

Palestinian Education Minister Sabri Saidam counts on technology, along with a new emphasis on vocational training, to overhaul Palestinian schools, where many students still learn by rote in crowded classrooms.

Youth unemployment, particularly among university graduates, is a central problem across the Arab world, in part because of a demographic “youth bulge.” Last year, unemployment among Palestinian college graduates younger than 30 reached 56 percent, including 41 percent in the West Bank and 73 percent in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Unemployment is particularly high among female university graduates, in part because young women are expected to marry and raise children, while young men are considered the main breadwinners. However, employers also complain that graduates studying outdated or irrelevant courses often lack the needed skills for employment.

Saidam said Palestinian schools have received 15,000 computers in the last couple of years. His ministry has also established 54 bookless “smart schools” for grades one to six where students use laptops and learn by doing, including educational trips and involvement with their society.
…

Nina Tomasieski logs on to Twitter before the sun rises. Seated at her dining room table with a nearby TV constantly tuned to Fox News, the 70-year-old grandmother spends up to 14 hours a day tweeting the praises of President Trump and his political allies, particularly those on the ballot this fall, and deriding their opponents.

She’s part of a dedicated band of Trump supporters who tweet and retweet Keep America Great messages thousands of times a day.

“Time to walk away Dems and vote RED in the primaries,” she declared in one of her voluminous tweets, adding, “Say NO to socialism & hate.”

While her goal is simply to advance the agenda of a president she adores, she and her friends have been swept up in an expanded effort by Twitter and other social media companies to crack down on nefarious tactics used to meddle in the 2016 election.

And without meaning to, the tweeters have demonstrated the difficulty such crackdowns face — particularly when it comes to telling a political die-hard from a surreptitious computer robot.

Last week, Facebook said it had removed 32 fake accounts apparently created to manipulate U.S. politics — efforts that may be linked to Russia.

Twitter and other sites also have targeted automated or robot-like accounts known as bots, which authorities say were used to cloak efforts by foreign governments and political bad actors in the 2016 elections.

But the screening has repeatedly and erroneously flagged Tomasieski and users like her.

Their accounts have been suspended or frozen for “suspicious” behavior — apparently because of the frequency and relentlessness of their messages. When they started tweeting support for a conservative lawmaker in the GOP primary for Illinois governor this spring, news stories warned that right-wing “propaganda bots” were trying to influence the election.

“Almost all of us are considered a bot,” says Tomasieski, who lives in Tennessee but is tweeting for GOP candidates across the U.S.

Cynthia Smith has been locked out of her account and “shadow banned,” meaning tweets aren’t as visible to others, because of suspected “automated behavior.”

“I’m a gal in Southern California,” Smith said. “I am no bot.”

The actions have drawn criticism from conservatives, who have accused Twitter, Facebook and other companies of having a liberal bias and censorship. It also raises a question: Can the companies outsmart the ever-evolving tactics of U.S. adversaries if they can’t be sure who’s a robot and who’s Nina?

“It’s going to take a really long time, I think years, before Twitter and Facebook and other platforms are able to deal with a lot of these issues,” said Timothy Carone, who teaches technology at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.

The core problem is that people are coming up with new ways to use the platforms faster than the companies can manage them, he said.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. But the company has said it identified and challenged close to 10 million suspected bot or spam accounts in May, up from 3.2 million last September. It’s also trying to weed out “trolls,” or accounts that harass other users, pick fights or tweet material that’s considered inflammatory.

Twitter acknowledges that there will be some “false positives.”

“Our goal is to learn fast and make our processes and tools smarter,” Twitter executives said in a blog post earlier this year.

Tomasieski and her conservative friends use so-called Twitter “rooms” — which operate using the group messaging function — to amplify their voices.

She participates in about 10 rooms, each with 50 members who are invited in once they hit a certain number of followers. That number varies, but “newbies” might have around 3,000, Tomasieski says. Some have far more.

Everyone in the room tweets their own material and also retweets everyone else’s. So a tweet that Tomasieski sends may be seen by her roughly 51,000 followers, but then be retweeted by dozens more people, each of whom may have 50,000 or more followers.

She says she’s learned some tricks to avoid trouble with Twitter. She’s careful not to exceed limits of roughly 100 tweets or retweets an hour. She doesn’t use profanity and she tries to mix up her subjects to appear more human and less bot-like.

During a recent afternoon, Tomasieski retweeted messages criticizing immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Democratic socialists and the media. One noted an Associated Press story about an increase in the number of Muslims running for public office — news the user described as “alarming.”

Tomasieski says she loves to write. But most important is helping “my guy.”

“There is as much enthusiasm today as there was when Trump was elected. It’s very quiet, but it’s there. My job is to get them to the polls,” she said. “That’s rewarding. I go to bed feeling like I have accomplished something.”
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A new era in American spaceflight was unveiled Friday, with NASA presenting the flight crews that will carry out the first test flights and operational missions aboard commercial spacecraft to be launched from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. The test flights of the modules, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, are expected next year. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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A new era in American spaceflight was unveiled Friday, with NASA presenting the flight crews that will carry out the first test flights and operational missions aboard commercial spacecraft to be launched from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. The test flights of the modules, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, are expected next year. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Remembering to take medications can be challenging for some people. But one day an implant may replace medications that need to be taken orally in certain cases. One lab in Houston is developing refillable implants placed under the skin to potentially deliver life-saving medicine at a low cost for various diseases. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
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Remembering to take medications can be challenging for some people. But one day an implant may replace medications that need to be taken orally in certain cases. One lab in Houston is developing refillable implants placed under the skin to potentially deliver life-saving medicine at a low cost for various diseases. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
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A Pakistani engineer has designed a system to help developing countries avoid fuel imports by making ethanol with the millions of tons of straw that are wasted each year. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The U.S. “remains deeply concerned with China’s long-standing restrictions on freedom of expression online,” a State Department official said Thursday, reacting to Google’s reported plan to relaunch its search engine in China.

“We strongly object to all efforts by China to force U.S. companies to block or censor online content as a condition for market access,” the official said.

Google shut down its Chinese search engine in 2010, citing government attempts to “limit free speech on the web.” But a company whistle-blower who spoke to the online publication The Intercept said Google was in the advanced stages of launching a custom Android search app in China that will comply with the Communist Party’s censorship policies on human rights, democracy, free speech and religion. 

The Intercept cited internal Google documents and people familiar with the rollout. The publication said the project, code-named Dragonfly, has been in development since 2017. It said the project began to progress more quickly following a December meeting between Google CEO Sundar Pichai and a senior Chinese government official.

According to the documents obtained by The Intercept, Google said it would automatically filter websites blocked by China’s so-called Great Firewall. Banned websites will be removed from the first page of search results with the disclaimer: “Some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.”

Empty searches

The documents also say that Google’s app will “blacklist sensitive queries” by returning no results when people search for certain words or phrases.

“We provide a number of mobile apps in China … [to] help Chinese developers and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com. But we don’t comment on speculation about future plans,” a Google spokesman told VOA in a statement in response to the alleged plans.

China has 772 million internet users — more than any other country — and hundreds of millions of potential users who are not yet connected to the internet.

China’s top internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, has not commented on the plans.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and former presidential candidate, posted on Twitter that Google’s reported plans to set up “a censored search engine” in China were “very disturbing” and could help China “suppress the truth.”

VOA’s Nike Ching at the State Department contributed to this report.
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Apple made history Thursday when it became the first publicly listed U.S. company to be valued at $1 trillion.

The tech giant’s share price climbed well over 2 percent in mid-session trading, boosting it about 9 percent higher since Tuesday, when it announced better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and a buyback of $20 billion worth of its own shares.

The Silicon Valley company’s stock has skyrocketed more than 50,000 percent since it went public in 1980, greatly exceeding the S&P 500’s impressive 2,000 percent gain during the same period.

Apple’s success was fueled in large part by its iPhone, which transformed it from a niche player in the burgeoning personal computer sector into a global technological powerhouse.

The company was co-founded by the late Steve Jobs, a product innovator who helped prevent the company’s collapse in the late 1990s.

As the company’s market value climbed over the decades, it revolutionized how consumers communicate with each other and how companies conduct business on a daily basis.

 
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One day after Facebook shut down 32 fake social media accounts that spewed politically divisive messages, U.S. lawmakers were warned that Russian efforts to confuse and polarize the American people are as robust and pernicious as ever. VOA Senate correspondent Michael Bowman reports both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are concerned.
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The U.S. Congress is sending President Donald Trump legislation that would force technology companies to disclose if they allowed countries like China and Russia to examine the inner workings of software sold to the U.S. military.       

The legislation, part of the Pentagon’s spending bill, was drafted after a Reuters investigation last year found software makers allowed a Russian defense agency to hunt for vulnerabilities in software used by some agencies of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon and intelligence services.      

The final version of the bill was approved by the Senate in a 87-10 vote on Wednesday after passing the House last week. The spending bill is expected to be signed into law by Trump.      

Security experts said allowing Russian authorities to probe the internal workings of software, known as source code, could help Moscow discover vulnerabilities they could exploit to more easily attack U.S. government systems.      

The new rules were drafted by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

“This disclosure mandate is the first of its kind, and is necessary to close a critical security gap in our federal acquisition process,” Shaheen said in an emailed statement.

“The Department of Defense and other federal agencies must be aware of foreign source code exposure and other risky business practices that can make our national security systems vulnerable to adversaries,” she said.   

Disclosure + database   

The law would force U.S. and foreign technology companies to reveal to the Pentagon if they allowed cyber adversaries, like China or Russia, to probe software sold to the U.S. military.      

Companies would be required to address any security risks posed by the foreign source code reviews to the satisfaction of the Pentagon, or lose the contract.      

The legislation also creates a database, searchable by other government agencies, of which software was examined by foreign states that the Pentagon considers a cyber security risk.      

It makes the database available to public records requests, an unusual step for a system likely to include proprietary company secrets.       

Tommy Ross, a senior director for policy at the industry group The Software Alliance, said software companies had concerns that such legislation could force companies to choose between selling to the U.S. and foreign markets.

“We are seeing a worrying trend globally where companies are looking at cyber threats and deciding the best way to mitigate risk is to hunker down and close down to the outside world,” Ross told Reuters last week.

A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment on the legislation.      

Source code revealed

In order to sell in the Russian market, technology companies including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co, SAP SE and McAfee have allowed a Russian defense agency to scour software source code for vulnerabilities, the Reuters investigation found last year.      

In many cases, Reuters found that the software companies had not informed U.S. agencies that Russian authorities had been allowed to conduct the source code reviews. In most cases, the U.S. military does not require comparable source code reviews before it buys software, procurement experts have told Reuters.

The companies had previously said the source code reviews were conducted by the Russians in company-controlled facilities, where the reviewer could not copy or alter the software. The companies said those steps ensured the process did not jeopardize the safety of their products.      

McAfee announced last year that it no longer allows government source code reviews. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has said none of its current software has gone through the process.      

SAP did not respond to requests for comment on the legislation. HPE and McAfee spokespeople declined further comment.    
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