Women are woefully underrepresented in technology, science, engineering and mathematics jobs in South Africa. But for the last decade, a homegrown, UNICEF-supported program has worked to bring 11,000 lower-income high school girls into these industries. VOA’s Anita Powell catches up with a few such “TechnoGirls” in Johannesburg and brings us their stories.
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Women are woefully underrepresented in technology, science, engineering and mathematics jobs in South Africa. But for the last decade, a homegrown, UNICEF-supported program has worked to bring 11,000 lower-income high school girls into these industries. VOA’s Anita Powell catches up with a few such “TechnoGirls” in Johannesburg and brings us their stories.
…

The world’s largest aircraft took off over the Mojave Desert in California Saturday, the first flight for the carbon-composite plane built by Stratolaunch Systems Corp., started by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as the company enters the lucrative private space market.

The white airplane called Roc, which has a wingspan the length of an American football field and is powered by six engines on a twin fuselage, took to the air shortly before 7 a.m. Pacific time (1400 GMT) and stayed aloft for more than two hours before landing safely back at the Mojave Air and Space Port as a crowd of hundreds of people cheered.

First flight ‘fantastic’

“What a fantastic first flight,” Stratolaunch Chief Executive Officer Jean Floyd said in a statement posted to the company’s website.

“Today’s flight furthers our mission to provide a flexible alternative to ground launched systems,” Floyd said. “We are incredibly proud of the Stratolaunch team, today’s flight crew, our partners at Northrup Grumman’s Scaled Composites and the Mojave Air and Space Port.”

The plane is designed to drop rockets and other space vehicles weighing up to 500,000 pounds at an altitude of 35,000 feet and has been billed by the company as making satellite deployment as “easy as booking an airline flight.”

Saturday’s flight, which saw the plane reach a maximum speed of 189 mph and altitudes of 17,000 feet, was meant to test its performance and handling qualities, according to Stratolaunch.

Demand for satellite deployment

Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, announced in 2011 that he had formed the privately funded Stratolaunch.

The company seeks to cash in on higher demand in coming years for vessels that can put satellites in orbit, competing in the United States with other space entrepreneurs and industry stalwarts such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Stratolaunch has said that it intends to launch its first rockets from the Roc in 2020 at the earliest. Allen died in October 2018 while suffering from non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma, just months after the plane’s development was unveiled.

“We all know Paul would have been proud to witness today’s historic achievement,” said Jody Allen, Chair of Vulcan Inc and Trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust. “The aircraft is a remarkable engineering achievement and we congratulate everyone involved.”
…

The world’s largest aircraft took off over the Mojave Desert in California Saturday, the first flight for the carbon-composite plane built by Stratolaunch Systems Corp., started by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, as the company enters the lucrative private space market.

The white airplane called Roc, which has a wingspan the length of an American football field and is powered by six engines on a twin fuselage, took to the air shortly before 7 a.m. Pacific time (1400 GMT) and stayed aloft for more than two hours before landing safely back at the Mojave Air and Space Port as a crowd of hundreds of people cheered.

First flight ‘fantastic’

“What a fantastic first flight,” Stratolaunch Chief Executive Officer Jean Floyd said in a statement posted to the company’s website.

“Today’s flight furthers our mission to provide a flexible alternative to ground launched systems,” Floyd said. “We are incredibly proud of the Stratolaunch team, today’s flight crew, our partners at Northrup Grumman’s Scaled Composites and the Mojave Air and Space Port.”

The plane is designed to drop rockets and other space vehicles weighing up to 500,000 pounds at an altitude of 35,000 feet and has been billed by the company as making satellite deployment as “easy as booking an airline flight.”

Saturday’s flight, which saw the plane reach a maximum speed of 189 mph and altitudes of 17,000 feet, was meant to test its performance and handling qualities, according to Stratolaunch.

Demand for satellite deployment

Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, announced in 2011 that he had formed the privately funded Stratolaunch.

The company seeks to cash in on higher demand in coming years for vessels that can put satellites in orbit, competing in the United States with other space entrepreneurs and industry stalwarts such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Stratolaunch has said that it intends to launch its first rockets from the Roc in 2020 at the earliest. Allen died in October 2018 while suffering from non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma, just months after the plane’s development was unveiled.

“We all know Paul would have been proud to witness today’s historic achievement,” said Jody Allen, Chair of Vulcan Inc and Trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust. “The aircraft is a remarkable engineering achievement and we congratulate everyone involved.”
…

Even though the U.S. first landed on the moon 50 years ago this year, it’s never been — nor will it ever be — an easy thing to accomplish. The Israelis learned just how difficult it is. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

In the race to beat China in the fifth generation of wireless technology, known as 5G, U.S. President Donald Trump is announcing the largest-ever auction of radio frequencies and a $20 billion fund to build a rural fiber-optics backbone.

“We cannot allow any other country to outcompete the United States in this powerful industry of the future,” Trump said in the White House Roosevelt Room, flanked by a group of telecommunications tower climbers and farmers. “The race to 5G is a race that we must win.”

Starting Dec. 10, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will begin auctioning three chunks of millimeter-wave frequencies (upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz and 47 GHz) for cellphone companies to use.

Some Trump allies had tried to persuade him to effectively nationalize this technology as a matter of national security.

Trump acknowledged that he considered such a plan — opposed by the FCC and others — but ultimately backed away from it.

“We don’t want to do that. It wouldn’t be nearly as good, nearly as fast,” Trump said.

“The idea of state-designed and -operated 5G networks in the U.S. makes no sense on its own terms. A competitive, lightly regulated market is the hallmark of the U.S. system. This has delivered success in 4G and will encourage investment and innovation in 5G,” London-based Gabriel Brown, a principal analyst at telecommunications research firm Heavy Reading, told VOA.

“It also makes no sense in relation to competition with China — these are different markets in different phases of development.”

Riley Walters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, agreed, saying the “private sector is the most efficient way to distribute 5G capabilities, even if it’s not at the pace nationalization proponents would like to see. Deregulation should help cut the costs for domestic developers to move up their time horizon.”

Connecting America

5G — with speeds 100 times faster than the current 4G mobile internet — will allow the emergence of everything from so-called smart cities and farms to self-driving cars.

“We want Americans to be the first to benefit from this new digital revolution while protecting our innovators and our citizens,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “We don’t want rural Americans to be left behind.”

The $20.7 million Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, to come from existing FCC subsidy coffers, is intended to connect up to 4 million American homes over the next decade.

The expensive fiber rollout is seen as essential for carrying wireless network communications back to internet hubs.

“Intervention at this level will encourage private investment and accelerate coverage in these hard-to-reach areas — the economic and social benefits of rural coverage make it worth intervening to help make the market work,” Brown said.

“Creating a national fund to support these innovators is a great idea,” said Prakash Sangam, the founder of Tantra Analyst, which is involved in marketing and business development of wireless technology. “I also suggest that the U.S. government intervene and facilitate the resolution of conflicts between American technology companies so that they collaborate and effectively compete against the companies sponsored by foreign governments.” 

Security concerns

One challenge is the lack of U.S. manufacturers of 5G network equipment, an arena where China’s Huawei and ZTE are set to dominate.

Trump’s 5G goals are in conflict with the Federal Trade Commission’s stance on Qualcomm, the world’s largest chipmaker. The FTC has sued the American company over anti-competitive pricing, according to technology analyst Patrick Morehead.

“Qualcomm is the country’s only hope for 5G and 6G leadership and with the FTC about to potentially hobble it, the U.S. will never be a leader, China will,” predicted Morehead, a former industry executive.

A State Department senior official on Wednesday said the security concerns about Huawei and ZTE extend to all companies headquartered in China, contending they are effectively “under direction” of the Chinese Communist Party.

“It’s very important to distinguish how Western democracies operate relative to their private sector companies and vendors, and how the Chinese government operates with its companies,” said Ambassador Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber and international communications and information policy.

Strayer and other officials have warned that Huawei and ZTE could give China’s intelligence services secret access to sensitive communications networks and the ability to send commands to disrupt communications.

Trump did not mention the Chinese companies in his remarks Friday, but he said America’s 5G networks will “have to be guarded from the enemy.”

Riley, at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA that the United States “can still limit the proliferation of imports that have a security concern, but it will be hard for U.S. companies to compete in price in external markets.”

South Korea last week switched on its nationwide 5G network. South Korea-based Samsung is offering itself as a global alternative to Chinese equipment manufacturers, but it still lags Huawei and ZTE, as well as Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia.

Wireless companies operating in the United States, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, are deploying 5G this year, but widespread service for the majority of Americans could still be a decade away.

The radio spectrum coming up for auction will have very limited range, meaning small cell antennas will have to be mounted on about every fourth utility pole along streets, making 5G practical only in central business districts and other congested locations, such as stadiums, convention centers and shopping malls.

Lower frequencies, which are being licensed for 5G in several other countries, would need fewer cell sites, but that spectrum in the United States is held by satellite operators who are reluctant to give it up. 

“There are proposals to free some of it for fixed wireless, and the mobile industry wants it for 5G,” Brown said.
…

Facebook Inc. more than doubled the money it spent on Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s security in 2018 to $22.6 million, a regulatory filing showed Friday.

Zuckerberg has drawn a base salary of $1 for the past three years, and his “other” compensation was listed at $22.6 million, most of which was for his personal security.

Nearly $20 million went toward security for Zuckerberg and his family, up from about $9 million the year prior. Zuckerberg also received $2.6 million for personal use of private jets, which the company said was part of his overall security program.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg took home $23.7 million in 2018 compared to $25.2 million last year.

Facebook has in the past few years faced public outcry over its role in Russia’s alleged influence on the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has come under fire following revelations that Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from millions of Facebook profiles without consent. 

Russia fines Facebook $47

On Friday, a Russian court fined Facebook for failing to tell authorities where it stores Russian user data, Russian news agency reported.

The court fined Facebook 3,000 rubles ($47) for not providing the information in line with legislation that requires social media companies to store user data on servers located in Russia.

The only tools Moscow currently has to enforce its data rules are fines that often amount to very small sums or blocking the offending online services, an option fraught with technical difficulties.

Facebook shakes up its board

Separately, Facebook said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings would vacate his seat on the social media company’s board and not be nominated for re-election.

Hastings’ departure comes as the Menlo Park-based company beefs up its push into videos. Hastings has served on Facebook’s board since 2011.

The company also said it would nominate PayPal’s senior vice president of core markets, Peggy Alford, to its board in place of University of North Carolina President Emeritus Erskine Bowles, who will also not be re-nominated.

Facebook shares closed at $179.07 Friday evening.
…

SpaceX launched its second supersized rocket and for the first time landed all three boosters Thursday, a year after sending up a sports car on the initial test flight.

The new and improved Falcon Heavy thundered into the early evening sky with a communication satellite called Arabsat, the rocket’s first paying customer. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today, with 27 engines firing at liftoff — nine per booster.

Eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX landed two of the first-stage boosters back at Cape Canaveral, side by side, just like it did for the rocket’s debut last year. The core booster landed two minutes later on an ocean platform hundreds of miles offshore. That’s the only part of the first mission that missed.

“What an amazing day,” a SpaceX flight commentator exclaimed. “Three for three boosters today on Falcon Heavy, what an amazing accomplishment.”

​Launch from Apollo pad

The Falcon Heavy soared from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, using the same pad that shot Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago and later space shuttle crews.

Prime viewing spots were packed with tourists and locals eager to catch not just the launch but the rare and dramatic return of twin boosters, accompanied by sonic booms. The roads were also jammed for Wednesday night’s launch attempt, which was scuttled by high wind.

Because this was an upgraded version of the rocket with unproven changes, SpaceX chief Elon Musk cautioned in advance things might go wrong. But everything went exceedingly well. SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Southern California cheered every launch milestone and especially the three touchdowns.

“The Falcons have landed,” Musk said in a tweet that included pictures of all three boosters.

Tesla Roadster still in orbit

Musk put his own Tesla convertible on last year’s demo. The red Roadster, with a mannequin, dubbed Starman, likely still at the wheel, remains in a solar orbit stretching just past Mars.

The Roadster is thought to be on the other side of the sun from us right now, about three-quarters of the way around its first solar orbit, said Jon Giorgini, a senior analyst at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

A couple dozen ground telescopes kept tabs on the car during its first several days in space, but it gradually faded from view as it headed out toward the orbit of Mars, Giorgini added.

The Roadster could still look much the same as it did for the Feb. 6, 2018, launch, just not as shiny with perhaps some chips and flakes from the extreme temperature swings, according to Giorgini. It will take decades if not centuries for solar radiation to cause it to decompose, he said.

Air Force mission next

SpaceX plans to launch its next Falcon Heavy later this year on a mission for the U.S. Air Force. The boosters for that flight may be recycled from this one.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine last month suggested possibly using a Falcon Heavy, and another company’s big rocket, to get the space agency’s Orion capsule around the moon, minus a crew, in 2020. But the preferred method remains NASA’s own Space Launch System mega rocket, if it can be ready by then.

Bridenstine said everything is on the space table as NASA strives to meet the White House’s goal of landing astronauts back on the moon by 2024.

NASA’s Saturn V rockets, used for the Apollo moon shots, are the all-time launch leaders so far in size and might.

SpaceX typically launches Falcon 9 rockets. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of those single rockets strapped together.

Until SpaceX came along, boosters were discarded in the ocean after satellite launches. The company is intent on driving down launch costs by recycling rocket parts.
…

SpaceX launched its second supersized rocket and for the first time landed all three boosters Thursday, a year after sending up a sports car on the initial test flight.

The new and improved Falcon Heavy thundered into the early evening sky with a communication satellite called Arabsat, the rocket’s first paying customer. The Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket in use today, with 27 engines firing at liftoff — nine per booster.

Eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX landed two of the first-stage boosters back at Cape Canaveral, side by side, just like it did for the rocket’s debut last year. The core booster landed two minutes later on an ocean platform hundreds of miles offshore. That’s the only part of the first mission that missed.

“What an amazing day,” a SpaceX flight commentator exclaimed. “Three for three boosters today on Falcon Heavy, what an amazing accomplishment.”

​Launch from Apollo pad

The Falcon Heavy soared from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, using the same pad that shot Apollo astronauts to the moon a half-century ago and later space shuttle crews.

Prime viewing spots were packed with tourists and locals eager to catch not just the launch but the rare and dramatic return of twin boosters, accompanied by sonic booms. The roads were also jammed for Wednesday night’s launch attempt, which was scuttled by high wind.

Because this was an upgraded version of the rocket with unproven changes, SpaceX chief Elon Musk cautioned in advance things might go wrong. But everything went exceedingly well. SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Southern California cheered every launch milestone and especially the three touchdowns.

“The Falcons have landed,” Musk said in a tweet that included pictures of all three boosters.

Tesla Roadster still in orbit

Musk put his own Tesla convertible on last year’s demo. The red Roadster, with a mannequin, dubbed Starman, likely still at the wheel, remains in a solar orbit stretching just past Mars.

The Roadster is thought to be on the other side of the sun from us right now, about three-quarters of the way around its first solar orbit, said Jon Giorgini, a senior analyst at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

A couple dozen ground telescopes kept tabs on the car during its first several days in space, but it gradually faded from view as it headed out toward the orbit of Mars, Giorgini added.

The Roadster could still look much the same as it did for the Feb. 6, 2018, launch, just not as shiny with perhaps some chips and flakes from the extreme temperature swings, according to Giorgini. It will take decades if not centuries for solar radiation to cause it to decompose, he said.

Air Force mission next

SpaceX plans to launch its next Falcon Heavy later this year on a mission for the U.S. Air Force. The boosters for that flight may be recycled from this one.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine last month suggested possibly using a Falcon Heavy, and another company’s big rocket, to get the space agency’s Orion capsule around the moon, minus a crew, in 2020. But the preferred method remains NASA’s own Space Launch System mega rocket, if it can be ready by then.

Bridenstine said everything is on the space table as NASA strives to meet the White House’s goal of landing astronauts back on the moon by 2024.

NASA’s Saturn V rockets, used for the Apollo moon shots, are the all-time launch leaders so far in size and might.

SpaceX typically launches Falcon 9 rockets. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three of those single rockets strapped together.

Until SpaceX came along, boosters were discarded in the ocean after satellite launches. The company is intent on driving down launch costs by recycling rocket parts.
…

Lin Feng contributed to this report

WASHINGTON — A senior official in the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday the security concerns the government has raised related to Chinese telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE extend to all companies headquartered in China, saying they are effectively “under direction” of the Chinese Communist Party.

“It’s very important to distinguish how Western democracies operate relative to their private sector companies and vendors, and how the Chinese government operates with its companies,” Ambassador Robert L. Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy, said during a conference call with reporters. 

Chinese companies don’t have the ability to mount a legal challenge to directives from the government, he said. 

“They don’t have the ability to go to court,” he said. “They’re basically under direction — what we call extra-judicial command — of the Communist Party of China … to take actions, when requested by the government. There’s not the same rule of law that we consider a part of our daily lives and all of our business dealings in Western democracies.”

Strayer has been the point person in the Trump administration’s effort to block Chinese firms, and Huawei in particular, from participating in the global rollout of 5G mobile communications technology, insisting that Chinese law requires the companies to cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services. 

Strayer and other officials have warned that Chinese telecommunications firms could give Beijing intelligence services secret “back-door” access to sensitive communications networks, or that in a crisis, they could disrupt communications on command.

His comments were among the administration’s most comprehensive justification for trying to block Huawei’s entry into the U.S. and European 5G markets.

The push has included warnings that the United States may restrict the kind of intelligence it shares, even with close allies, if Washington is not satisfied that communications networks are secure.

To this point, the U.S. has failed to produce hard evidence of Huawei or ZTE engaging in espionage for the Chinese government. However, both firms have been charged with theft of intellectual property from rival companies, and Huawei has been charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Huawei and ZTE have consistently denied they ever have or will act as an arm of Chinese intelligence services. 

Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s 74-year-old founder and president, recently told the BBC that to do so would be economic suicide.

“Our sales revenues are now hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “We are not going to risk the disgust of our country and our customers all over the world because of something like that. We will lose all our business. I’m not going to take that risk.”

Samm Sacks, cybersecurity policy and China digital economy fellow at the New America Foundation, said, “The reality is the Communist Party of China uses the law selectively as an instrument as it sees fit.”

“What does worry me is this hypothetical situation of what Huawei would be employed to do by the Chinese government,” she told VOA. “I think we have to look at what Huawei as a commercial company needing to succeed in global markets have in its interest. And I’d say right now, it’s not in its interests to use those vulnerabilities. But that could change in another scenario.”

The U.S. effort so far has achieved only limited success in its efforts to get allies to impose blanket restrictions on the use of equipment made by Huawei and ZTE in cutting edge, high-speed, next-generation infrastructure. However, Strayer said that as countries around the world begin looking closely at the risks, he believes an eventual ban on the two firms’ products is inevitable.

He cited a recent analysis of Huawei equipment by government investigators in the United Kingdom, which found myriad security flaws and engineering deficiencies in devices meant to support the rollout of 5G in that country. In Germany, he said, a set of strict security standards under consideration would amount to a de facto ban on Chinese-made 5G equipment.

The proposed German standards would require that telecommunications systems “be sourced from trustworthy suppliers whose compliance with national security regulations and provisions for the secrecy of telecommunications and for data protection is assured.”

Given the legal requirement that Chinese companies assist the intelligence services —and keep that assistance secret — “It’s hard to see how Chinese technology would meet that standard for protection of data,” he said.

Strayer said the U.S. is encouraging all countries to consider similar regulations.

“We have encouraged countries to adopt risk-based security frameworks,” Strayer said. “And we think that a rigorous application of those frameworks, if they include supply chain security risk and the consideration of the relationship between a 5G vendor and their government, will lead, inevitably, to the banning of Huawei and  ZTE.”

In his remarks Wednesday, Strayer focused on the issue of 5G infrastructure, but at times broadened his critique of Chinese government policies to encompass all firms based in China that deal with sensitive technology.

“We think it’s very important that countries deploying 5G networks consider the relationship between a foreign government, where a vendor is headquartered, and the companies themselves and that country,” he said. “When we look at the Chinese laws, relative to intelligence and national security, those allow the Chinese government to direct the actions of companies for their national interest of China, as well as require that companies to maintain secrecy, about the actions they’ve taken at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party.”

He also echoed a common complaint from Western countries that Chinese government policies provide advantages to domestic firms that give them an unfair competitive advantage when they move into international markets. 

“The Chinese government, through state-owned banks and other sources, has provided in some cases zero percent interest, 20-year loan offers, which are not commercially reasonable,” he said. “That kind of unfair playing field is not one that Western technology should have to compete with. It should be a level playing field for technology vendors.”

In addition, he said, government-supported “cross subsidization” allows Chinese firms another avenue by which they can undercut the prices of Western firms. 

“They can get large profits on what they sell into the Chinese market, which they largely have under their control through the government, and then use those subsidies to then offer lower prices in our markets in the West.”

 
…

Lin Feng contributed to this report

WASHINGTON — A senior official in the U.S. Department of State said Wednesday the security concerns the government has raised related to Chinese telecommunications firms Huawei and ZTE extend to all companies headquartered in China, saying they are effectively “under direction” of the Chinese Communist Party.

“It’s very important to distinguish how Western democracies operate relative to their private sector companies and vendors, and how the Chinese government operates with its companies,” Ambassador Robert L. Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for Cyber and International Communications and Information Policy, said during a conference call with reporters. 

Chinese companies don’t have the ability to mount a legal challenge to directives from the government, he said. 

“They don’t have the ability to go to court,” he said. “They’re basically under direction — what we call extra-judicial command — of the Communist Party of China … to take actions, when requested by the government. There’s not the same rule of law that we consider a part of our daily lives and all of our business dealings in Western democracies.”

Strayer has been the point person in the Trump administration’s effort to block Chinese firms, and Huawei in particular, from participating in the global rollout of 5G mobile communications technology, insisting that Chinese law requires the companies to cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services. 

Strayer and other officials have warned that Chinese telecommunications firms could give Beijing intelligence services secret “back-door” access to sensitive communications networks, or that in a crisis, they could disrupt communications on command.

His comments were among the administration’s most comprehensive justification for trying to block Huawei’s entry into the U.S. and European 5G markets.

The push has included warnings that the United States may restrict the kind of intelligence it shares, even with close allies, if Washington is not satisfied that communications networks are secure.

To this point, the U.S. has failed to produce hard evidence of Huawei or ZTE engaging in espionage for the Chinese government. However, both firms have been charged with theft of intellectual property from rival companies, and Huawei has been charged with conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Huawei and ZTE have consistently denied they ever have or will act as an arm of Chinese intelligence services. 

Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s 74-year-old founder and president, recently told the BBC that to do so would be economic suicide.

“Our sales revenues are now hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “We are not going to risk the disgust of our country and our customers all over the world because of something like that. We will lose all our business. I’m not going to take that risk.”

Samm Sacks, cybersecurity policy and China digital economy fellow at the New America Foundation, said, “The reality is the Communist Party of China uses the law selectively as an instrument as it sees fit.”

“What does worry me is this hypothetical situation of what Huawei would be employed to do by the Chinese government,” she told VOA. “I think we have to look at what Huawei as a commercial company needing to succeed in global markets have in its interest. And I’d say right now, it’s not in its interests to use those vulnerabilities. But that could change in another scenario.”

The U.S. effort so far has achieved only limited success in its efforts to get allies to impose blanket restrictions on the use of equipment made by Huawei and ZTE in cutting edge, high-speed, next-generation infrastructure. However, Strayer said that as countries around the world begin looking closely at the risks, he believes an eventual ban on the two firms’ products is inevitable.

He cited a recent analysis of Huawei equipment by government investigators in the United Kingdom, which found myriad security flaws and engineering deficiencies in devices meant to support the rollout of 5G in that country. In Germany, he said, a set of strict security standards under consideration would amount to a de facto ban on Chinese-made 5G equipment.

The proposed German standards would require that telecommunications systems “be sourced from trustworthy suppliers whose compliance with national security regulations and provisions for the secrecy of telecommunications and for data protection is assured.”

Given the legal requirement that Chinese companies assist the intelligence services —and keep that assistance secret — “It’s hard to see how Chinese technology would meet that standard for protection of data,” he said.

Strayer said the U.S. is encouraging all countries to consider similar regulations.

“We have encouraged countries to adopt risk-based security frameworks,” Strayer said. “And we think that a rigorous application of those frameworks, if they include supply chain security risk and the consideration of the relationship between a 5G vendor and their government, will lead, inevitably, to the banning of Huawei and  ZTE.”

In his remarks Wednesday, Strayer focused on the issue of 5G infrastructure, but at times broadened his critique of Chinese government policies to encompass all firms based in China that deal with sensitive technology.

“We think it’s very important that countries deploying 5G networks consider the relationship between a foreign government, where a vendor is headquartered, and the companies themselves and that country,” he said. “When we look at the Chinese laws, relative to intelligence and national security, those allow the Chinese government to direct the actions of companies for their national interest of China, as well as require that companies to maintain secrecy, about the actions they’ve taken at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party.”

He also echoed a common complaint from Western countries that Chinese government policies provide advantages to domestic firms that give them an unfair competitive advantage when they move into international markets. 

“The Chinese government, through state-owned banks and other sources, has provided in some cases zero percent interest, 20-year loan offers, which are not commercially reasonable,” he said. “That kind of unfair playing field is not one that Western technology should have to compete with. It should be a level playing field for technology vendors.”

In addition, he said, government-supported “cross subsidization” allows Chinese firms another avenue by which they can undercut the prices of Western firms. 

“They can get large profits on what they sell into the Chinese market, which they largely have under their control through the government, and then use those subsidies to then offer lower prices in our markets in the West.”

 
…

The arched stone-built hall in Jerusalem venerated by Christians as the site of Jesus’ Last Supper has been digitally recreated by archaeologists using laser scanners and advanced photography.

The Cenacle, a popular site for pilgrims near Jerusalem’s walled Old City, has ancient, worn surfaces and poor illumination, hampering a study of its history.

So researchers from Israel’s Antiquities Authority and European research institutions used laser technology and advanced photographic techniques to create richly detailed three-dimensional models of the hall built in the Crusader era.

The project helped highlight obscure artwork and decipher some theological aspects of the second-floor room, built above what Jewish tradition says is the burial site of King David.

“We managed, in one of the… holiest places in Jerusalem, to use this technology and this is a breakthrough,” Amit Re’em, Jerusalem district archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority, told Reuters of the project, which began in 2016.

Re’em pointed to reliefs of what he described as the symbols of the “Agnus Dei,” a lamb that is an emblem of Christ, and the “Lion of Judah” on keystones in the hall’s vaulted ceiling.

“It tells the story of this room,” Re’em said. “It delivers the message of the Last [Supper] Room, Christ as a Messiah, as victorious, as a victim — and the lion, the lion is a symbol of the Davidic dynasty. They combine together in this room.”

Some archaeologists have questioned whether the room is the actual venue of the Last Supper, the final meal which the New Testament says Jesus shared with disciples before his crucifixion.

Ilya Berkovich, a historian at the INZ research institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences who worked on the project, said the endeavor opens “incredibly new horizons” with enormous potential.

 
…

The world will need new breakthroughs to tackle the growing threat of climate change. Whoever comes up with them stands to make a lot of money. And the places where those entrepreneurs do business will reap the benefits. Greentown Labs outside Boston, Massachusetts, wants to play a major role in spawning new clean technology. VOA’s Steve Baragona went to have a look.
…

The world will need new breakthroughs to tackle the growing threat of climate change. Whoever comes up with them stands to make a lot of money. And the places where those entrepreneurs do business will reap the benefits. Greentown Labs outside Boston, Massachusetts, wants to play a major role in spawning new clean technology. VOA’s Steve Baragona went to have a look.
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Facebook says it is rolling out a wide range of updates aimed at combatting the spread of false and harmful information on the social media site.

The updates will limit the visibility of links found to be significantly more prominent on Facebook than across the web as a whole. The company is also expanding its fact-checking program with outside expert sources, including The Associated Press, to vet videos and other material posted on Facebook.

Facebook groups will also be more closely monitored to prevent the spread of fake information.

The company has been facing criticism for the spread of extremism and misinformation on its flagship site and on Instagram. Congress members questioned a company representative Tuesday about how Facebook prevents violent material from being uploaded and shared on the site.
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Facebook says it is rolling out a wide range of updates aimed at combatting the spread of false and harmful information on the social media site.

The updates will limit the visibility of links found to be significantly more prominent on Facebook than across the web as a whole. The company is also expanding its fact-checking program with outside expert sources, including The Associated Press, to vet videos and other material posted on Facebook.

Facebook groups will also be more closely monitored to prevent the spread of fake information.

The company has been facing criticism for the spread of extremism and misinformation on its flagship site and on Instagram. Congress members questioned a company representative Tuesday about how Facebook prevents violent material from being uploaded and shared on the site.
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The top U.S. diplomat for cybersecurity policy has praised Germany’s draft security standards for next generation mobile networks, which he said could effectively shut out China’s Huawei.

Rob Strayer said Wednesday the standards published last month were a “positive step.”

They call for mobile providers to use “trustworthy” telecom equipment suppliers that comply with national security regulations covering secrecy of communications and data protection.

The U.S. has been lobbying European allies to ban Huawei from new 5G networks over concerns China’s communist leaders could force the company to use its equipment for cyberespionage.

While no European countries have issued blanket bans, Strayer said a “risk-based” approach to evaluating telecom suppliers, including their relationship with their national government, would “lead inevitably” to banning Huawei.
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The live-streamed video of the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooting last month highlighted the continuing struggle by social media companies to police extremist content on their platforms. Facebook and Google representatives told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday the effort to balance free speech with oversight of white supremacist content is ongoing. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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Virgin Galactic’s first test passenger received her commercial astronaut wings from the U.S. aviation regulator on Tuesday after flying on the company’s rocket plane to evaluate the customer experience in February.

Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses, who is a former NASA engineer, became the first woman to fly to space on a commercial vehicle when she joined pilots David Mackay and Mike Masucci on SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity.

The wings were presented to the three-person crew at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado by the Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator for commercial space, Wayne Monteith.

“Commercial human space flight is now a reality,” he said.

The February test flight nudged Richard Branson’s space travel company closer to delivering suborbital flights for the more than 600 people who have paid Virgin Galactic about $80 million in deposits. Branson has said he hopes to be the first passenger on a commercial flight in 2019.

The 90-minute flight, during which passengers will be able to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the Earth’s curvature, costs $250,000 — a price that the company said will increase before it falls.

Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are also in the space tourism race. Blue Origin has launched its New Shepard rocket to space, but its trips have not yet carried humans.

SpaceX last year named Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa as its first passenger on a voyage around the moon, tentatively scheduled for 2023.

Moses, who as a NASA engineer worked on the assembly of the International Space Station, is designing a three-day training program for Virgin Galactic’s future space tourists.

“I gleaned a lot of firsthand information that we can roll into the design and then also into the training,” she said on her return to earth in Mojave, California, in February.

The passengers, some of whom have been signed up since 2004, will train in a mock-up cabin at New Mexico’s Spaceport America before their flights.

Moses told Reuters she aims for customers to arrive in space “not wondering what noise they just heard or being surprised by the G they just felt.”

Virgin Galactic’s Branson will also receive the annual Space Achievement Award at the symposium in recognition of the company’s two crewed test flights, the first from U.S. soil since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011.
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Two U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday to ban online social media companies like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. from tricking consumers into giving up their personal data.

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The bill from Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Deb Fischer, a Republican, would also ban online platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users from designing addicting games or other websites for children under age 13.

The bill takes aim at practices that online platforms use to mislead people into giving personal data to companies or otherwise trick them. The so-called “dark patterns” were developed using behavioral psychology.

“Misleading prompts to just click the ‘OK’ button can often transfer your contacts, messages, browsing activity, photos, or location information without you even realizing it,” Fischer said in a statement issued by both senators.

Restrictions on how social media companies collect information about users could hurt their ability to sell advertisements, a key source of profit.

A website aimed at tracking dark patterns identifies behavior, such as a website or app showing that a user has new notifications when they do not.

Warner said in an interview on CNBC that the legislation could be included in a federal privacy bill that lawmakers in the Senate Commerce Committee are drafting. Congress has been expected to take up privacy legislation after California passed a strict privacy law that goes into effect next year.

Warner noted that Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, Google and others have expressed support for privacy regulation.

“The platform companies are now going to have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, to see if they support this legislation and other approaches,” he said.

The bill would bar companies from choosing groups of people for behavioral experiments unless the companies get informed consent.

Under the terms of the bill, social media companies would create a professional standards body to create best practices to deal with the issue. The Federal Trade Commission, which investigates deceptive advertising, would work with the group.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and other free online services rely on advertising for revenue, and use data collected on users to more effectively target those ads.

 
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U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday a Democratic bid to restore the 2015 net neutrality rules is “dead on arrival in the Senate.”

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote later on Tuesday on a Democratic plan to reinstate the Obama-era rules and overturn a December 2017 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to reverse the rules and hand sweeping authority to internet providers to recast how Americans access the internet.

The bill mirrors an effort last year to reverse the FCC’s order, approved on a 3-2 vote, that repealed rules barring providers from blocking or slowing internet content or offering paid “fast lanes.”

The reversal of net neutrality rules was a win for internet providers such as Comcast Corp, AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., but was opposed by companies like Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc.

On Monday, the White House told Congress that if the bill were approved, President Donald Trump’s advisers would recommend he veto it. The White House “strongly opposes” the measure that would “return to the heavy-handed regulatory approach of the previous administration,” it said in a statement.

The bill would repeal the order introduced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, bar the FCC from reinstating it or a substantially similar order and reinstate the 2015 net neutrality order. The House will also consider a series of amendments.

Representative Mike Doyle, a Democrat, said Tuesday the bill “puts a cop on the beat to make sure our internet service providers aren’t acting in an unjust, unreasonable or discriminatory way.”

 
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Momentum is gaining in Washington for a privacy law that could sharply rein in the ability of the largest technology companies to collect and distribute people’s personal data.

A national law, the first of its kind in the U.S., could allow people to see or prohibit the use of their data. Companies would need permission to release such information. If it takes effect, a law would also likely shrink Big Tech’s profits from its lucrative business of making personal data available to advertisers so they can pinpoint specific consumers to target.

Behind the drive for a law is rising concern over private data being compromised or distributed by Facebook, Google and other tech giants that have earned riches from collecting and distributing consumer information. The industry traditionally has been lightly regulated and has resisted closer oversight as a threat to its culture of free-wheeling innovation.

Support for a privacy law is part of a broader effort by regulators and lawmakers to lessen the domination of companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon. Some, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic presidential candidate, have called for the tech giants to be split up.

The Trump White House has said in the past that it could endorse a broad data privacy law.

The big tech companies have been nervously eyeing a tough privacy law taking effect next year in California. That measure will allow Californians to see the personal data being collected on them and where it’s being distributed and to forbid the sale of it. With some exceptions, consumers could also request that their personal information be deleted entirely.   

Whatever federal privacy law eventually emerges is expected to be less stringent than the California measure and to supersede it. As a result, the tech industry is trying to help shape any national restrictions.

“This is the first time ever that the industry wants legislation,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group. “The industry is terrified.”

On Tuesday, a House committee will press Google and Facebook executives about another urgent concern involving Big Tech: Whether they’re doing enough to curb the spread of hate crimes and white nationalism through online platforms. The Judiciary Committee hearing follows a series of violent incidents fueled in part by online communication.

Zuckerberg: New rules needed

Facebook, used by 2-billion-plus people including over 200 million in the U.S., has been a particular lightning rod for industry critics. Having had its reputation tarnished over data privacy lapses, a tide of hate speech and a spread of disinformation that allowed Russian agents to target propaganda campaigns, Facebook appears ready to embrace a national privacy law.

Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, published a column last month in the Washington Post calling for tighter regulations to protect consumer data, control harmful content and ensure election integrity and data portability.

“The internet,” Zuckerberg wrote, “needs new rules.”

Amazon says it has built its business on protecting people’s information, “and we have been working with policymakers on how best to do that.”

“There is real momentum to develop baseline rules of the road for data protection,” Google’s chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, has said in a policy paper. “Google welcomes this and supports comprehensive, baseline privacy regulation.”

A sweeping “privacy shield” law in the European Union, covering how tech companies handle personal data in the 28-country bloc, should be a model, Zuckerberg wrote. EU regulators recently fined Google $1.7 billion for freezing out rivals in the online ad business — their third penalty against the search giant in two years. The EU watchdogs have also ordered Apple and Amazon to pay back taxes and fined Facebook for providing misleading information in its acquisition of WhatsApp.

Advertising revenue

On Monday, Britain unveiled plans to vastly increase government oversight of social media companies, with a watchdog that could fine executives or even ban companies that fail to block such content as terrorist propaganda and images of child abuse.

The entire debate cuts to the heart of Big Tech’s hugely profitable commerce in online users’ personal data. The companies gather vast data on what users read and like and leverage it to help advertisers target their messages to the individuals they want to reach. Facebook drew 99% of its revenue from advertising last year. For Google’s parent Alphabet, it was 85%, according to Scott Kessler of the research firm CFRA.

Amazon, too, doesn’t just sell products online; it provides ad space, too. The company doesn’t say how much but has said that the “other” revenue in its financial reports is mainly from ads. Its “other” revenue topped $10 billion last year, more than double what it was in 2017.

The tech giants’ problematic relationship with advertisers was spotlighted by action regulators took last month. The Department of Housing and Urban Development filed civil charges against Facebook, accusing it of allowing landlords and real estate brokers to exclude certain racial or ethnic groups from seeing ads for houses and apartments. Facebook could face penalties.

The company has separately agreed to overhaul its ad targeting system and end some of the practices noted by HUD to prevent discrimination in housing listings as well as credit and employment ads. That move was part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other activists.

Besides crafting a bipartisan data-privacy measure in Congress, lawmakers are considering restoring Obama-era rules that formerly barred internet providers — like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast — from discriminating against certain technologies and services.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has proposed fines and jail time for executives of companies guilty of data breaches.

Allegations of bias

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, representing CEOs of major companies, have presented their own proposals to curb privacy abuses. At the same time, President Donald Trump has echoed complaints from some conservative lawmakers and commentators that the big tech platforms are politically tilted against them.

“Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous!” he has tweeted. And he told a rally crowd, “We’re not going to let them control what we can and cannot see, read and learn from.”

Tech executives and many Democrats have rejected those assertions as themselves politically biased. Still, Trump has threatened to push regulators to investigate whether Google has abused its role as an internet gateway to stifle competition. And referring to Amazon, Facebook and Google, Trump told Bloomberg News, “Many people think it is a very antitrust situation, the three of them.”

Among the tech giants that are trying to shape any final restrictions is the chipmaker Intel, which has developed its own legislative proposal.

“I think it’s likely we are going to pass a national privacy law by the end of 2020,” David Hoffman, Intel’s associate general counsel and global privacy officer, said in an interview.

By then, the privacy measure emerging in California will have taken effect.

“The California bill is responsible for 90% of the lobbying and political pressure to pass a national law,” said Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, whose board includes tech executives.

Four senators — Republicans Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii — are working on a national measure. They say it would protect consumers from the abuse of their data and provide legal certainty to ensure that tech companies continue to hire and innovate.

“It would be nice,” said Wicker, who leads the key Senate Commerce Committee, “to have it on the president’s desk this year.”
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Pinterest, among the gaggle of tech companies hoping to go public this year, set a conservative price range Monday for its initial public offering. It hopes to raise as much as $1.5 billion in its initial offering of shares.

The digital scrapbooking site said in a regulatory filing that it will put about 75 million shares up for sale at a price between $15 and $17 each.

That, at the higher end, could put the value of the company at around $9 billion. But it falls below the estimated $12 billion value from earlier sales of shares to private investors, according to reports two years ago.

Companies set their price range for an initial public offering with a tricky calculus set by investment banks and underwriters. They don’t want to set the bar too low, but going too high can lead to a sell-off.

And those tech companies still planning to go public this year may be treading more carefully following the debut of Lyft 11 days ago. After a much ballyhooed debut , the stock slumped for two days. While its shares bounced back from their lows last week, they remain far below the heights reached in the flurry of first-day trading, and they fell 3% Monday, again dipping under the initial offering price.

The Lyft drop was a “major gut check time for Lyft and the tech IPO world to see how this stock trades given it was the first one out of the box,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives after Lyft shares tumbled.

Other tech companies pushing to go public this year include Uber, Lyft’s rival, the messaging app Slack and the video conferencing company Zoom are expected to make their debut soon.

Pinterest claims more than 250 million active monthly users and more than 2 billion monthly searches.

The platform allows people to search for and “pin” images that interest them, whether it’s fashion, sports, pets or travel.

Pinterest has long shunned the label of being a social network. It doesn’t push users to add friends or build connections. That means it’s avoided the privacy tangles that have ensnared companies like Facebook. Pinterest makes advertising revenue when businesses promote pins in users’ feeds.

The San Francisco company had revenue of $756 million last year, a 60% bump from 2017. It had a loss of $63 million in 2018, compared with a loss of $130 million in 2017.

Pinterest was founded in 2010 by Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp, who are the company’s CEO and chief product officer, respectively.

The company has been working on developing its artificial intelligence search, which allows people to take a photo or upload a screenshot of an item and find similar products on Pinterest.

Pinterest’s stock will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the “PINS” ticker symbol.
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Companies working with artificial intelligence need to install accountability mechanisms to prevent its being misused, the European Commission said on Monday, under new ethical guidelines for a technology open to abuse.

AI projects should be transparent, have human oversight and secure and reliable algorithms, and they must be subject to privacy and data protection rules, the commission said, among other recommendations.

The European Union initiative taps in to a global debate about when or whether companies should put ethical concerns before business interests, and how tough a line regulators can afford to take on new projects without risking killing off innovation.

“The ethical dimension of AI is not a luxury feature or an add-on. It is only with trust that our society can fully benefit from technologies,” the Commission digital chief, Andrus Ansip, said in a statement.

AI can help detect fraud and cybersecurity threats, improve healthcare and financial risk management and cope with climate change. But it can also be used to support unscrupulous business practices and authoritarian governments.

The EU executive last year enlisted the help of 52 experts from academia, industry bodies and companies including Google , SAP, Santander and Bayer to help it draft the principles.

Companies and organizations can sign up to a pilot phase in June, after which the experts will review the results and the Commission decide on the next steps.

IBM Europe Chairman Martin Jetter, who was part of the group of experts, said guidelines “set a global standard for efforts to advance AI that is ethical and responsible.”

The guidelines should not hold Europe back, said Achim Berg, president of BITKOM, Germany’s Federal Association of Information Technology, Telecommunications, and New Media.

“We must ensure in Germany and Europe that we do not only discuss AI but also make AI,” he said.
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