YCLOAK

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.”

 
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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.

 

 

 
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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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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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Three years ago, a Dutchman climbed into his electric car and set out on a journey. Sunday, a motorcade of electric vehicles escorted him and his converted Volkswagen across an iconic bridge in Australia as he finished his record-setting adventure. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us for a ride.
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Ever since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, the world has been fascinated with the idea of creating life in a lab. But it remained in the realm of fiction… until it became a bit closer to reality with genetic engineering work in a Swiss lab. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Emojis, those cute, vivid images that liven up emails and texts, seem to come in all shapes, colors and sizes.

After all, there are more than 2,800 to choose from. Among the favorites: the smiley face, the thumbs up, the birthday cake.

But it turns out, there is more people want to say with emojis than what is currently available, including showing two people with different skin tones, together.

Since 2015, it has been possible to pick skin tones for many of the people emojis, such as the mermaid, firefighter and baby.

But it began to frustrate some users that they couldn’t show two people of different races holding hands or families with different skin tones, says Jennifer Lee, co-founder of Emojination and vice chair of the Unicode Consortium’s emoji subcommittee. They could only use the default yellow image.

WATCH: Tailoring the Emoji to Match the Couple

​Frustration over lack of interracial couple emoji

“The interracial couple emoji was something we’ve have heard a lot of demand for in terms of people on Twitter,” she said. “People have gotten used to pressing and seeing all these skin tones whether or not it’s a thumbs up or it’s a woman who is a mermaid or a baby. They would long press on the multiple families and long press on the couples and be like, ‘Why is it only yellow?’ Because they were trained to expect skin tones.”

Turns out, the birth of a new emoji takes some work. Anyone can apply to the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit that is run by volunteers. They set the standards for text in all languages and oversees emojis.

“As our mission says, we want to make sure that every language makes it into the digital age,” said Greg Welch, a board member of the Unicode Consortium.

When it comes to emojis, Unicode’s goal is simple: To make sure that when a person sends a smiley face, no matter the age of the phone or the type of computer software, the receiver sees a smiley face. Unicode, which is working on bringing Rohingya and Mongolian to the Unicode standards, has overseen the tremendous growth in emojis since 2010.

​Emoji — a new language

“If you think about a language like English or Russian or Chinese, it’s evolved slowly over the course of centuries,” Welch said. “If you look at emoji, in the last five years, it’s exploded in use. It’s exploded in its vocabulary. This is almost like watching a new proto language emerge right before our eyes.”

With the help of Tinder, the dating site, Jennifer Lee pressed Unicode for an interracial emoji. There were technical complications as well as some tough choices, which of the many emojis that show love or families should be the first to be able to show different skin tones?

Unicode settled on two people holding hands after much discussion, Lee said.

“One of the reasons that that is the emoji of choice is that two people holding hands does not have to be a romantic kind of relationship,” she said. “It can be two friends, it can be a couple, it can represent family members. We felt it was the most versatile of the different emoji.”

The approved interracial couple emoji will allow users to pick one of five skin tones and the gender identity for each person in a couple who are holding hands.

Unicode gave the code for interracial couple to companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and others. They will come out with their own versions of the emoji, as well as 58 others, including a new menstruation emoji, a falafel emoji and a deaf emoji, later this year.
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Emojis, those cute vivid images that liven up emails and texts, seem to come in all shapes, colors and sizes. The smiley face, the thumbs up, the birthday cake. Add one more to the list — interracial couples. Michelle Quinn looked into the story behind this new emoji, expected to be released later this year.
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Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio are working on the next generation of batteries — a power supply that could theoretically almost never need to be recharged. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Xu Ning from VOA Mandarin and reporter Rob Garver contributed to this report.

STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States is acknowledging that many countries are not heeding warnings about the possible security risks in allowing Chinese tech giant Huawei to build the next generation of high-speech wireless networks known as 5G.

The trend is particularly clear in Southeast Asia, where even U.S. allies are racing ahead to partner with Huawei and launch 5G networks in the coming years.

In February, Thailand launched a Huawei 5G test network in Chonburi. Thai authorities indicated that the affordability of Huawei’s 5G services offset potential concerns over cybersecurity.

In the Philippines, its Globe Telecom is rolling out the nation’s 5G network in partnership with Huawei.

In Malaysia, the country’s leading communications and digital services company Maxis signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei to cooperate and accelerate 5G development.

This week, six former top U.S. military officials, including two who were commanders for the U.S. Pacific Command, issued a blunt warning of a future where a Chinese-developed 5G network could be widely adopted among American allies.

“There is reason for concern that in the future the U.S. will not be able to use networks that rely on Chinese technology for military operations in the territories of traditional U.S. allies or emerging partners in Europe, Asia and beyond,” said the former military leaders in a statement.

“The immense bandwidth and access potential inherent in commercial 5G systems means effective military operations in the future could benefit from military data being pushed over these networks,” they added.

And U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday warned some European countries could soon find themselves cut off from U.S. intelligence and other critical information if they continue to cultivate relationships with Chinese technology firms.

“We’ve done our risk analysis,” Pompeo said, following a NATO ministerial meeting in Washington.  “We have now shared that with our NATO partners, with countries all around the world. We’ve made clear that if the risk exceeds the threshold for the United States, we simply won’t be able to share that information any longer.”

For U.S. officials, the threat posed by a Chinese-built communication network could not be clearer.

“Huawei is not a state-owned enterprise. But Huawei is a Chinese company and what we do know is several things. One, broadly speaking, Chinese companies will respond to requests for demands from the Chinese government. Telecommunications is a vital part of national backbones. It has military security implications. It has financial and economic implications,” said Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow of Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

​Cheap. Fast. Secure?

Huawei insists that it would not turn information over to Chinese authorities if they demanded it, but few outside analysts believe any Chinese company would stand up the country’s authoritarian government. U.S. officials are even more direct. 

“What we do is in our national interests, we see with companies like Huawei that are supported, if not directed, by central authorities in China. We see challenges and potential threats to the sanctity, the security of our systems in our networks, and the best we can do with our friends and partners and allies, is to share our information, share our experience,” Patrick Murphy, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told VOA at a recent seminar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

That message clearly has had a mixed reception, especially after years when the United States’ vast electronic eavesdropping capabilities have drawn criticism.

Richard Kramer, founder of Arete, a technology research firm based in London, said leaks from U.S. security agencies in recent years have revealed close cooperation between the federal government and U.S. telecoms and tech firms around intelligence gathering.

The U.S. position, he said, seems to be: “We don’t want China to spy on us, but we want to be able to spy on them.”

Will pressure backfire?

Even in countries where there are open political concerns over the growing power of Chinese influence, too much U.S. pressure could backfire, said Anthony Nelson, Director of the East Asia and Pacific practice at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business strategy firm.

“Southeast Asian countries that are looking to balance their military relationships with the U.S. and China are not motivated by Washington’s security concerns, with the notable exception of Vietnam,” Nelson said.

Vietnam has had tensions with China in recent years over disputed territory and trade issues.  Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S., Ha Kim Ngoc, told VOA that all companies operating in the country need to respect Vietnam’s sovereignty.

“We have one principle: They need to respect our sovereignty, national sovereignty,” said the ambassador at the recent USIP event.
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Some of the nation’s top research universities are cutting ties with Chinese tech giant Huawei as the company faces allegations of bank fraud and trade theft.

Colleges including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, have said they will accept no new funding from the company, citing the recent federal charges against Huawei along with broader cybersecurity concerns previously raised by the U.S. government.

The schools are among at least nine that have received funding from Huawei over the past six years, amounting a combined $10.5 million, according to data provided by the U.S. Education Department. The data, which is reported by schools, does not include gifts of less than $250,000. It’s not uncommon for big companies to provide research dollars to schools in the U.S. and elsewhere.

At MIT, which received a $500,000 gift in 2017, officials announced in a memo Wednesday they will not approve any new deals with the company and won’t renew existing ones. The memo ties the decision to recent Justice Department charges against Huawei, adding that the shift will be revisited “as circumstances dictate.”

Company officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal prosecutors in January unsealed two cases against Huawei. One, filed in New York, accuses the company of bank fraud and says it plotted to violate U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. The other, filed in Washington state, accuses Huawei of stealing technology from T-Mobile’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. The company pleaded not guilty in both cases.

The U.S. government previously barred federal agencies from buying certain equipment from Huawei and labeled the company a cybersecurity risk.

Just days after the federal cases were unsealed, officials at the University of California, Berkeley, issued a ban on new research funding from Huawei until the charges are resolved.

“UC Berkeley holds its research partners to the highest possible standards of corporate conduct, and the severity of these accusations raises questions and concerns that only our judicial system can address,” Howard Katz, the school’s vice chancellor for research, said in the Jan. 30 directive.

Still, the school is honoring its existing multi-year deals with the company, which amount to $7.8 million. Officials say most of the funding supports research centers rather than specific projects, and Katz’s memo emphasized that “none of these projects involve sensitive technological secrets or knowledge.”

Berkeley officials investigated whether it had any technology provided by Huawei that could pose a cybersecurity threat. Officials removed one off-campus video conferencing set-up donated by the company, but said it had never been used for research. The school’s projects funded by Huawei cover a wide range of science fields, from artificial intelligence and deep learning to wireless technology and cybersecurity.

At Princeton, officials told Huawei in January they would not accept the final $150,000 installment of a gift that supported computer science research. Ben Chang, a Princeton spokesman, said the school had decided last July not to accept new gifts from the company, and has no current projects backed by it.

Cornell University has received more than $5.3 million from Huawei in recent years, by far more than any other U.S. college, according to the Education Department data. Officials there also said they will heed the government’s warnings and bar new funding.

Existing projects were carefully reviewed, according to a statement from the school, “to confirm that appropriate safeguards were in place to address data and information security, to protect the independence of our research and to comply with all federal and state laws and regulations.”

Ohio State University is also opting not to pursue any other funding from Huawei. The school has received $1.2 million for engineering research, according to federal data. School spokesman Ben John said officials are “in the process of closing out the final contract, and are not accepting or pursuing any other gifts or contracts from Huawei.” 
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MacKenzie Bezos, ex-wife of Amazon.com Inc founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, will give 75 percent of their stake in the company and all voting rights to the billionaire entrepreneur.

MacKenzie Bezos will also relinquish all her interests in the Washington Post newspaper and rocket company Blue Origin, she said in a tweet on Thursday.

The announcement resolves questions about the direction of the world’s largest online retailer that have abounded since the couple announced their divorce in January.

Jeff Bezos, widely viewed as a management guru whose long-term focus has been essential to Amazon’s meteoric stock rise, will retain company control.

The settlement also suggests that Amazon will be spared the kind of boardroom battle that has plagued other companies whose owners are dealing with family rifts.

“Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75 percent of our Amazon stock,” MacKenzie Bezos said in the tweet.

Her remaining stake is worth about $36 billion at current market prices. The couple’s total stake of $143 billion had made them the richest in the world.

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to next phase as co-parents and friends,” MacKenzie Bezos wrote.
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Facebook Inc’s messaging app WhatsApp on Thursday launched its WhatsApp Business app for Apple Inc’s iOS operating system, allowing small businesses to communicate with customers through the platform.

WhatsApp Business will be available for free download from the App Store in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, India, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. starting Thursday and will be rolled out around the world in the coming weeks, WhatsApp said.

The service has been available on Android since last year and has over 5 million users.

 
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South Korea launched the world’s first nationwide 5G mobile networks two days early, its top mobile carriers said Thursday, giving a handful of users access in a late-night scramble to be the first providers of the super-fast wireless technology.

Three top telecom providers — SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus — began their 5G services at 11 pm local time Wednesday, despite previously announcing the launch date would be April 5.

Hyper-wired South Korea has long had a reputation for technical prowess, and Seoul had made the 5G rollout a priority as it seeks to stimulate stuttering economic growth.

Along with the US, China and Japan, South Korea had been racing to claim the title as the world’s first provider of the ultra-fast network.

But speculation that US mobile carrier Verizon might start its 5G services early forced South Korean providers to hastily organize a late-night launch, Yonhap news agency reported.

In the event, Verizon began rolling out its 5G services in Chicago and Minneapolis on Wednesday in the US, a week ahead of schedule.

But according to Yonhap, the South Korean launches came two hours earlier.

“SK Telecom today announced that it has activated 5G services for six celebrities representing Korea as of 11 pm April 3, 2019,” the country’s biggest mobile operator said in a news release Thursday.

The celebrities — including two members of K-pop band EXO and Olympic ice-skating heroine Kim Yu-na — were “the world’s first 5G smartphone subscribers”, it said.

Both KT and LG Uplus said they also went live at the same time, with a total of three specially-selected users: KT offered it to the wife of a technician setting up its network on the disputed island of Dokdo, while LG Uplus provided it to a television personality and her racing-driver husband.

For general customers, the services will be available from Friday — the original launch date — when Samsung Electronics rolls out the Galaxy S10 5G, the world’s first available smartphone with the technology built in.

Verizon’s network will work with Lenovo’s Moto Z3 smartphone fitted with a special accessory, while rival US carrier AT&T launched a 5G-based system in parts of 12 cities in December — although it is only accessible to invited users through a free hotspot device, rather than paying customers with mobiles.

Qatari firm Ooredoo said it offers 5G services in and around Doha — but does not have devices available to use them — while Japan is also expected to roll out a limited deployment in 2019 before full services start in time for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

Bitter standoff

Experts say 5G will bring smartphones near-instantaneous connectivity — 20 times faster than 4G — allowing users to download entire movies in less than a second.

The technology is crucial for the future development of devices such as self-driving vehicles and is expected to bring about $565 billion in global economic benefits by 2034, according to the London-based Global System for Mobile Communications, an industry alliance.

The implications of the new network have pitted Washington against Beijing — whose firms dominate 5G technology — in an increasingly bitter standoff.

The US has pressed its allies and major economies to avoid 5G solutions from Chinese-owned telecom giant Huawei, citing security risks that technological backdoors could give Beijing access to 5G-connected utilities and other components.

Chinese entities, including 1,529 5G patents registered by Huawei, own a total of 3,400 patents — more than a third of the total, according to data analysis firm IPlytics.

South Korea comes next, with its companies holding 2,051 patents, while US firms have 1,368 together.

Neither KT nor SK Telecom use Huawei technology in their 5G networks, but it is a supplier to LG UPlus, the companies told AFP.

 

 
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South Korea on Friday launches the world’s first nationwide 5G mobile networks, a transformational leap that has superpowers sparring for control of an innovation that could change the day-to-day lives of billions of people.

The fast communications heralded by fifth-generation wireless technology will ultimately underpin everything from toasters to telephones, from electric cars to power grids. 

 

But while Seoul has won the race to be first to provide the user experience, that is only one part of a wider battle that has pitted the United States against China and ensnared giants including Huawei. 

 

Hyper-wired South Korea has long had a reputation for technical prowess, and Seoul has made the 5G rollout a priority as it seeks to stimulate stuttering economic growth. 

 

The system will bring smartphones near-instantaneous connectivity — 20 times faster than existing 4G — allowing users to download entire movies in less than a second. 

 

In the same way that 3G enabled widespread mobile web access and 4G made new applications work ranging from social media to Uber, 5G will herald a new level of connectivity, empowered by speed. 

 

It is crucial for the future development of devices ranging from self-driving vehicles that send data to one another in real time to industrial robots, drones and other elements of the Internet of Things.  

That makes it a vital part of the infrastructure of tomorrow, and the 5G standard is expected to bring about $565 billion in global economic benefits by 2034, according to the London-based Global System for Mobile Communications, an industry alliance. 

‘1 million devices’

But the implications of the new technology have pitted Washington against Beijing in an increasingly bitter standoff. 

The U.S. has pressed its allies and major economies to avoid 5G solutions from Chinese-owned telecom giant Huawei, citing security risks that technological back doors could give Beijing access to 5G-connected utilities and other components. 

 

But Chinese firms dominate 5G technology.  

Huawei, the global leader, has registered 1,529 5G patents, according to data analysis firm IPlytics. 

 

Combined with manufacturers ZTE and Oppo, plus the China Academy of Telecommunications Technology, Chinese entities own a total of 3,400 patents, more than a third of the total, according to the research firm.    

 

South Korea comes next, with its companies holding 2,051 patents. 

 

In contrast, U.S. firms have 1,368, IPlytics said, 29 fewer than Finland’s Nokia alone. 

 

All three of South Korea’s mobile operators — KT, SK Telecom and LG UPlus — will go live with their 5G services on Friday. 

 

“5G’s hyperspeed can connect 1 million devices within a 1-square-kilometer zone simultaneously,” KT said in a report. 

 

Neither KT nor SK Telecom uses Huawei technology in its 5G network, but Huawei is a supplier to LG UPlus, the companies told AFP. 

 

On the same day, Samsung Electronics will release the Galaxy S10 5G, the world’s first available smartphone using the technology, and rival phonemaker LG will follow with the V50s two weeks later. 

Deployment in US

Until now, no mobile networks have offered nationwide 5G access.  

U.S. network carrier Verizon said Wednesday that it had become the first carrier in the world to deploy a 5G network — in Chicago and Minneapolis, with more cities due to follow this year.  The system will work with Lenovo’s Moto Z3 smartphone. 

 

“Verizon customers will be the first in the world to have the power of 5G in their hands,” said Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s chairman and chief executive officer. “This is the latest in our string of 5G firsts.” 

 

Rival US carrier AT&T deployed what it called its 5G E network in 12 cities last year with speeds faster than 4G networks but below those being deployed in other fifth-generation systems. 

 

Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs, said in a statement Wednesday that independent testing shows “that we are the fastest wireless network nationwide.” 

 

Qatari firm Ooredoo says it offers 5G services in and around Doha but does not have devices available to use them. 

 

Japan is also expected to roll out a limited deployment in 2019 before full services start in time for next year’s Tokyo Olympics. 

Cost barrier

More than 3 million South Koreans will switch to 5G by the end of this year, predicted KT Vice President Lee Pil-jae. 

 

Cost is likely to be a barrier initially for users, analysts say, as the cheapest version of the new Galaxy handset will be priced at 1.39 million won ($1,200). 

 

“While there are many cheap 4G smartphones under $300, Samsung’s 5G phones are well over $1,000, which could be a major minus point for cost-savvy consumers,” a KT representative told AFP.  

 

None of South Korea’s three network operators would say how much they have invested in 5G, but Seoul’s Economy Minister Hong Nam-ki estimated it would be at least $2.6 billion this year alone. 

 

“If 5G is fully implemented,” he said, “it will greatly improve people’s lives.”
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Facebook Inc on Wednesday changed the privacy settings on its WhatsApp messaging platform, allowing users to decide who can add them to chat groups, as it tries to revamp its image after growing privacy concerns among users.

WhatsApp, which has about 1.5 billion users, has been trying to find ways to stop misuse of the app, following global concerns that the platform was being used to spread fake news, manipulated photos, videos without context and audio hoaxes, with no way to monitor their origin or full reach.

The messaging service said in January it would limit the number of times a user could forward a message to five in a bid to fight “misinformation and rumors.”

Concerns about Facebook’s handling of personal information have grown since the world’s largest social network admitted in March that data of millions of users was wrongly harvested by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

In a blog post, WhatsApp said a user inviting another to a group will be prompted to send a private invite through an individual chat, giving the recipient the choice of joining the group. The request will expire in three days.

The setting will be rolled out Wednesday for some users and be available worldwide in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp, seen as a key tool for communications and commerce in many countries, was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion.
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