YCLOAK

The U.K. government should increase oversight of social media like Facebook and election campaigns to protect democracy in the digital age, a parliamentary committee has recommended in a scathing report on fake news, data misuse and interference by Russia.

The interim report by the House of Commons’ media committee, to be released Sunday, said democracy is facing a crisis because the combination of data analysis and social media allows campaigns to target voters with messages of hate without their consent.

Tech giants like Facebook, which operate in a largely unregulated environment, are complicit because they haven’t done enough to protect personal information and remove harmful content, the committee said.

“The light of transparency must be allowed to shine on their operations and they must be made responsible, and liable, for the way in which harmful and misleading content is shared on their sites,” committee Chairman Damian Collins said in a statement.

The copy of the study was leaked Friday by Dominic Cummings, director of the official campaign group backing Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Social media companies are under scrutiny worldwide following allegations that political consultant Cambridge Analytica used data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts to profile voters and help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. The committee is also investigating the impact of fake news distributed via social media sites.

Collins ripped Facebook for allowing Russian agencies to use its platform to spread disinformation and influence elections.

“I believe what we have discovered so far is the tip of the iceberg,” he said, adding that more work needed to be done to expose how fake accounts target people during elections. “The ever-increasing sophistication of these campaigns, which will soon be helped by developments in augmented reality technology, make this an urgent necessity.”

The committee recommended that the British government increase the power of the Information Commissioner’s Office to regulate social media sites, update electoral laws to reflect modern campaign techniques and increase the transparency of political advertising on social media.

Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged to address the issue in a so-called White Paper to be released in the fall. She signaled her unease last year, accusing Russia of meddling in elections and planting fake news to sow discord in the West.

The committee began its work in January 2017, interviewing 61 witnesses during 20 hearings that took on an investigatory tone not normally found in such forums in the House of Commons.

The report criticized Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg for failing to appear before the panel and said his stand-ins were “unwilling or unable to give full answers to the committee’s questions.”

One of the committee’s recommendations is that the era of light-touch regulation for social media must end.

Social media companies can no longer avoid oversight by describing themselves as platforms, because they use technology to filter and shape the information users see. Nor are they publishers, since that model traditionally commissions and pays for content.

“We recommend that a new category of tech company is formulated, which tightens tech companies’ liabilities, and which is not necessarily either a ‘platform’ or a ‘publisher,” the report said. “We anticipate that the government will put forward these proposals in its White Paper later this year.”

The committee also said that the Information Commissioner’s Office needed more money so it could hire technical experts to be the “sheriff in the Wild West of the internet.” The funds would come from a levy on the tech companies, much in the same way as the banks pay for the upkeep of the Financial Conduct Authority.

“Our democracy is at risk, and now is the time to act, to protect our shared values and the integrity of our democratic institutions,” the committee said.
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A sleek futuristic train that travels through a special tunnel and covers the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes. This was the dream of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX in 2013. And every year he’s getting closer to making that dream a reality. Late July was marked by the third annual Hyperloop pod competition in Los Angeles; a competition that has once again set a new speed record. Genia Dulot has the story.
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Twitter’s share price fell more than 20 percent Friday after the social media giant reported a drop in active users. 

Twitter said it had 335 million monthly users in the second quarter of the year, which was down a million from the amount of monthly users in the first quarter of the year, and below the 339 million users Wall Street was expecting.

Twitter said that the number of monthly users could continue to fall next quarter as the company continues to ban accounts that violate its terms of service and as it makes other accounts less visible.

The company says it is putting the long-term stability of its platform above user growth. However, the move has made it more difficult for investors to value the company, as they rely on data pertaining to the platform’s potential user reach.

Shares in Twitter tumbled 20.5 percent to close at $34.12 Friday. The fall in the share price came despite Twitter’s report of higher than expected revenue. During the last quarter, Twitter posted a profit of $100 million, marking the company’s third consecutive profitable quarter.

The drop in Twitter’s share price came a day after Facebook lost 19 percent of its value. Facebook said Thursday that slower user growth in big markets and increased spending to improve privacy would hit margins for years, leading to the company’s worst trading day since it went public in 2012.

Both Twitter and Facebook have been under pressure from regulators in several countries to protect user data as well as stamp out hate speech and misinformation.
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Facebook said it had deleted hundreds of offensive posts since a law banning online hate speech came into force in Germany at the start of the year that foresees fines of up to 50 million euros ($58 million) for failure to comply.

The social network received 1,704 complaints under the law, known in Germany as NetzDG, and removed 262 posts between January and June, Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions said in a blog.

“Hate speech is not allowed on Facebook,” Allan said, adding that the network had removed posts that attacked people who were vulnerable for reasons including ethnicity, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.

Complaints covered a range of alleged offenses under Germany’s criminal code, including insult, defamation, incitement to hatred and incitement to crime, the report said. Of the posts that were blocked, the largest number was for insult.

Facebook is less popular in Germany than other European countries, with only around two in five internet users logging on each month, according to researchers eMarketer.

That’s in part due to collective memories of hate-filled propaganda that date back to Germany’s 20th century history of Nazi and Communist rule that don’t always sit well with Facebook’s broad view on freedom of speech.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced criticism in Germany after saying in a recent interview that Facebook should not delete statements denying that the Holocaust happened — a crime in Germany. He later clarified his remarks.

Facebook has a dedicated team of 65 staff handling complaints under the NetzDG, Allan said, adding that this could be adjusted in line with the number of complaints.

From January to June, Facebook removed a total of around 2.5 million posts that violated its own community standards designed to prevent abusive behavior on the platform.

“We have taken a very careful look at the German law,” Allan wrote in his blog, which was published in German. “That’s why we are convinced that the overwhelming majority of content considered hate speech in Germany, would be removed if it were examined to see whether it violates our community standards.”

A lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Tankred Schipanski, said the NetzDG law — which requires social platforms to remove offensive posts within 24 hours — was doing the job for which it was intended.

($1 = 0.8579 euros)
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The Latest on the aftermath of Facebook’s release of user growth and expectations for the company ahead (all times local):

4:50 p.m.

The 19 percent loss in Facebook’s stock chopped $119 billion off its market value.

It was the company’s worst trading day since going public in 2012, and among the biggest one-day losses of market value in U.S. stock market history.

The loss came a day after Facebook revealed that its user base and revenue grew more slowly than expected in the second quarter as it grappled with privacy issues.

Those revelations stunned investors, who believed the company had weathered the recent scandal over users’ privacy and pushed the stock to an all-time high Wednesday of $217.50.

12:45 p.m.

The erosion in the value of Facebook as it is perceived on Wall Street involves some staggering numbers.

In midday trading Thursday, the company’s market value (the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the value of a single stock), fell by more than $122 billion.

That means that in one day, just the decline in Facebook’s market value is roughly the entire market value of McDonald’s or Nike, give or take a few billion. And it far exceeds to total market value of major U.S. multinational corporations such as General Electric, Eli Lilly or Caterpillar.

The company still has a total market value close to $511 billion, which exceeds the annual gross domestic product of countries like Poland, Belgium and Iran.

Facebook was downgraded by a number of industry analysts who were caught off guard by slowing growth in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Company shares fell 19 percent Thursday.

10:40 a.m.

Facebook may be heading for its worst day on the markets in its history a day after the company revealed that user growth, amid swirling questions about how their information is used, has slowed.

The stock plunged 19 percent in early trading Thursday, eradicating well in excess of $100 billion in market value.

The social media company’s financial results, released late Wednesday, fell short of Wall Street expectations as the company continues to grapple with privacy issues. It also warned that revenue would decelerate as it promotes new products

Facebook had 2.23 billion monthly users as of June 30, up 11 percent from a year earlier, but well short of what industry analysts had been expecting.

The results are from the first full quarter following the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The company is also contending with European privacy rules that went into effect in May.
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Social media giant Facebook, which has weathered storms about privacy and data protection, is now looking at cooler growth following a years-long breakneck pace.

Shares in Facebook plummeted 19 percent to close at $176.26 Thursday, wiping out $100 billion. It was believed to be the worst ever single-day evaporation of market value for any company.

The plunge came one day after the firm missed revenue forecasts for the second quarter and warned that growth would be far weaker than previously estimated.

Chief Financial Officer David Wehner warned Wednesday in an earnings call with analysts that revenue growth had already “decelerated” in the second quarter and would drop “by high single-digit percentages” in coming quarters.

At one point during the call, Facebook shares were trading down as much as 24 percent, an unprecedented drop for a large firm.

On the call, Jefferies & Co. analyst Brent Thill said that “many investors are having a hard time reconciling that deceleration. … It just seems like the magnitude is beyond anything we’ve seen.”

Facebook said the slowdown would come in part from a new approach to privacy and security, but also appeared to acknowledge the limits of growth in advertising, which accounts for virtually all its revenue.

Brian Sheehan, a Syracuse University professor of communication and advertising, said the weak forecast “made investors nervous about more basic long-term issues” with the huge social network, notably its diminished appeal to younger users.

“With or without privacy issues, investors are scared that Facebook’s interactions, particularly with those under 25, are falling,” Sheehan said.

For the second quarter, profit was up 31 percent at $5.1 billion; revenues rose 42 percent to $13.2 billion, only slightly below most forecasts.

User base still growing

Facebook reported its user base was still growing but not as fast as some expected. Monthly active users rose 11 percent to 2.23 billion — below most estimates of 2.25 billion.

Richard Windsor, a technology analyst who writes the Radio Free Mobile blog, said the new outlook should not be surprising.

“This is a direct result of scale as it becomes increasingly difficult to grow at such high rates when a company hits this size,” Windsor wrote.

Windsor added that Facebook is forced to hire more people to handle tasks such as filtering inappropriate content after discovering the limits of artificial intelligence.

“Weaknesses in AI are forcing [Facebook] to keep hiring humans to do the jobs that the machines are incapable of,” he said.

Brian Wieser at Pivotal Research Group said the company appears to have hit a “wall” on growth in advertising.

In a research note, he said Facebook’s outlook “suggests that while the company is still growing at a fast clip, the days of 30 percent-plus growth are numbered.”

Until Wednesday, Facebook shares had been at record highs as investors seemed to shrug off fears about data protection and probes into the hijacking of private information by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook has invested heavily in “safety, security and privacy” after being rocked by concerns of manipulation of the platform to spread misinformation, warning of an “impact” on profitability.

Some analysts however said it was too soon to write off Facebook or its growth prospects, and that the company may have simply been warning of the worst-case scenario.

“The company has a track record of resetting revenue growth and expense expectations only to turn around and exceed those expectations the following quarter,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. “We suspect Facebook is sticking with its historical playbook and will, in fact, beat these lower numbers.”

A positive view

Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research said he remained upbeat on Facebook despite the abrupt forecast shift.

“Facebook is actively choosing to make less money, deprioritizing near-term monetization to drive engagement to even higher levels,” Greenfield said in a note to clients.

Greenfield said he could “sense the fear/panic in investors’ voices” after the Facebook analyst call, but that he had maintained his outlook.

“Mobile is eating the world and Facebook is a core holding to benefit from that shift,” he said.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said the drop creates a rare buying opportunity for Facebook shares.

“Facebook stills owns two of the largest media assets in the world [Facebook and Instagram] and the two largest messaging assets in the world [Messenger and WhatsApp],” Mahaney said in a note to clients, adding that he sees “no material change in marketer views of the attractiveness” of Facebook platforms. 
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Google launched a network of free Wi-Fi hotspots in Nigeria on Thursday, part of its effort to increase its presence in Africa’s most populous nation.

The U.S. technology firm, owned by Alphabet Inc, has partnered with Nigerian fiber cable network provider 21st Century to provide its public Wi-Fi service, Google Station, in six places in the commercial capital Lagos, including the city’s airport.

Internet penetration is relatively low in Nigeria. Some 25.7 percent of the population made use of the internet in 2016, according to World Bank data.

The poor internet infrastructure is a major challenge for businesses operating in the country, which is Africa’s largest oil producer. Broadband services are either unreliable or unaffordable to many of Nigeria’s 190 million inhabitants.

“We are rolling out the service in Lagos today but the plan is to quickly expand to other locations,” Anjali Joshi, Google’s vice president for product management, told Reuters in Lagos.

The company said it aimed to collaborate with internet service providers to reach millions of Nigerians in 200 public spaces across five cities by the end of 2019.

It said it would generate cash from the service in Nigeria by placing Google adverts in the login portal. Google did not disclose the amount invested in the new Nigeria service.

The technology firm said it planned to share revenues with its partners to help them maintain and deploy the Wi-Fi service but did not disclose the expected advertising revenue split.

Nigeria is the fifth country to launch Google Station.

Similar services have been launched in India, Indonesia, Mexico and Thailand.

The service is aimed at countries with rapidly expanding populations. The United Nations estimates Nigeria will be the world’s third most populous nation, after China and India, by 2050.

“A lot of people who found data to be too expensive for them to use, are using it,” said Joshi. “In India, we have tens of millions of users, and close to a million in Mexico.”

Africa’s rapid population growth, falling data costs and heavy adoption of mobile phones has made it an attractive investment prospect for technology companies. But many do not disclose how profitable the continent’s markets are, or if they make the companies money at all.

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo welcomed efforts to improve internet connectivity in a speech at a Google conference in Lagos on Thursday.

“Access to information means that the gap in equality and exclusion are bridged,” said Osinbajo who earlier this month met Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

Last year, Google announced plans to train 10 million Africans in online skills within five years.
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Facebook shares dived nearly 20 percent early Thursday after it signaled it expects weaker growth, pushing the Nasdaq decisively lower.

About 25 minutes into trading, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was at 7,840.20, down 1.2 percent, falling from Wednesday’s record close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6 percent to 25,572.77, while the broad-based S&P 500 dipped 0.3 percent to 2,838.03.

The Facebook results shifted the market’s attention from Wednesday’s pledge by President Donald Trump and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on trade that had boosted markets.

Investors fled Facebook after the social network reportedly sharply higher profit and revenue, but signaled it expects slower user growth, partly due to the effect of data privacy scandals.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg also cautioned that profitability would be hit by additional spending to secure the network.

Other technology companies retreated, including Google parent Alphabet, Netflix and Amazon, which is scheduled to report results after the market closes Thursday.

Facebook was not the only company to fall after results. Ford sank 4.1 percent and Mattel shed 4.4 percent, while American Airlines climbed 3.7 percent.

In other developments, computer chip company Qualcomm advanced 4.5 percent as it dropped a $43 billion bid to acquire Dutch rival NXP on Thursday after failing to win approval from antitrust authorities in China.

US shares of NXP fell 5.6 percent.
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U.S. President Donald Trump accused Twitter Inc on Thursday of restricting the visibility of prominent Republicans on its platform, without providing evidence, and he promised to investigate.

“Twitter ‘SHADOW BANNING’ prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!” the Republican president wrote in a Twitter post.

The practice involves limiting the visibility of a user in search results, specifically in the auto-populated dropdown search box on Twitter.

Trump’s comments followed a Vice news report on Wednesday that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel  and other Republicans including Donald Trump Jr’s spokesman were being “shadow banned.”

“The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American. Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on,” McDaniel wrote on Twitter.

Twitter did not have a comment on Trump’s tweet but a spokesperson said the company does not “shadow ban.”

“We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box, and we’re shipping a change to address this,” the spokesperson said in a statement.”

Twitter said the technology used is based on user behavior not political views.

Twitter instituted a policy change on July 12 to increase the service’s credibility and reduce suspected fraud. That change cost its 100 most popular users about 2 percent of their followers, on average, according to social media data firm Keyhole.

The change cost former President Barack Obama 2 million followers by the morning after the change and singers Katy Perry and Justin Bieber each lost 3 million, The Washington Post reported, citing analytics company Twitter Counter.

The report said Trump’s account lost more than 200,000 of its 53 million followers.

Twitter shares, already lower in premarket trading after Facebook Inc’s disappointing earnings late Wednesday damped enthusiasm for technology and social media stocks, dipped a bit further and volume rose slightly after Trump’s tweet at 7:46 a.m. The stock was last down 3.2 percent.
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Video games are so popular that one US company is betting that it can lure players to leave the comforts of gaming at home and travel to local arenas to play for bragging rights and maybe even some cash. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Access to clean and drinkable water is challenging for residents in Lahore because the tap water in many parts of the Pakistani city is polluted. A team of engineering students is working hard to create an affordable filtration system so every home can have safe water. VOA’s Saman Khan visited their lab and filed this report. Miguel Amaya narrates.
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Amid escalating trade friction with the United States, China appears to be courting Europe to fill the gaps in providing opportunities for technology transfers. Analysts, however, are urging Europe to be wary in its dealings with China. They say it will be political and economically unwise for Europe to take advantage of the Sino-U.S. dispute and allow China to continue unfair trade practices that include forced tech transfers and intellectual property theft.

The U.S. has accused China of using “state-led efforts to force, strong-arm and even steal U.S. technology and intellectual property.”

Rob Atkinson, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), says Europe should stop cutting deals with China that he says will offset the Trump administration’s efforts to punish Beijing.

In early July, the U.S. launched a first round of tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods. China’s tariffs on $34 billion of U.S. imports, including soybeans, also took effect at the same time. U.S. President Donald Trump last week vowed to impose tariffs on all $505 billion worth of Chinese imports. China has vowed to retaliate if the U.S. slaps more tariffs on Chinese goods in the coming months.

The U.S. and China are the world’s two biggest economies.

Made in China 2025

China’s tech ambition, unveiled in its “Made in China 2025” program, is believed to be at the core of its trade war with the U.S.

To avoid upsetting Washington, China has downplayed the initiative, which was first introduced in 2015 with the goal of comprehensively upgrading China’s high-tech industries at home. A recent official report, however, concluded that China is still far from being a global tech leader.

According to the South China Morning Post, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently learned that 30 of the country’s largest conglomerates rely heavily on imported components used in industries that produce rockets, large aircraft and even automobiles.

Exaggerated tech prowess

“The Chinese leadership wants to have it both ways. They want to tell their domestic population that they are [tech] leaders and they want to tell the rest of the world that they are not because they are afraid that, if they are seen as really big technology leaders or close to leaders, other countries will more actively push back against its unfair trade practices,” ITIF’s Atkinson said.  

Chris Dong, director of China research at market intelligence firm IDC, called the tech gaps between the two economies “significant” in not only components, but also innovation competency, fundamental engineering and business-sector transformations. Dong says China focuses its IT spending on hardware and infrastructure buildouts while the U.S. spends mostly on software and service in transforming digital technology.  

“The prosperity of China’s Internet economy, fueled by vast consumer technology adoptions, abundant capitals, and government’s policy and financial support, should not mislead domestic perception away from the true fact that China has an overall growing but weak technology strength,” Dong said in an email to VOA.

Forced tech transfer to continue

The U.S. boycott, however, is unlikely to stop China from advancing technological developments, according to an industry insider.

“China for sure will continue its technology development regardless, if [the U.S.] has turned hostile. We still hope to seek cooperation, whether it is cooperation between China and the U.S. or Europe. Collaboration will lead to a win-win situation,” the insider said on condition of anonymity.

“China still keeps a certain level of R&D capacity. [The trade dispute] will only slow down its pace of catching up. The U.S. is unfriendly now. But Europe still looks friendly. China may turn to Europe for [coveted] tech transfer as long as Europe isn’t as hostile as the U.S.,” said Kuo-yuan Liang, president of Taiwan-based Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute.

The economist said he expects China to continue its forced technology transfer practices from foreign investors to Chinese operations, using its market access as an incentive to achieve its technological goal.

Recent statistics released by the Baker McKenzie and Rhodium Groups also supported the trend.

China’s pivot to Europe

The firms’ research found that the value of China’s merger and acquisition activities in Europe reached $22 billion in the first half of this year – nine times of that in North America during the same period.

Adam Dunnett, secretary-general of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, believed the sharp ratio has more to do with a decrease in capital flows to the U.S. than an increase into the EU.  

He added that investment intended to acquire technology isn’t problematic, but that what is at issue is the degree of state involvement and the true motivation behind certain investments.

“If these decisions are demonstrably driven by market forces, then Europe welcomes them; however, due to the lack of transparency of many Chinese investments, even perfectly legitimate capital flows are increasingly being scrutinized,” Dunnett wrote in an email to VOA.

He added that European businesses shared similar concerns with the U.S. about China’s “market-distorting actions” including forced tech transfer and infringements of intellectual property rights.

“China has …taken some action to improve the situation, but the overall actual impact has been very limited. Tensions will remain, and potentially worsen, until results are felt by international firms on the ground,” he concluded.

 
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U.S. stock indexes dipped on Monday, led by losses in shares of Amazon and technology companies, as investors awaited quarterly reports from a host of marquee names to gauge the impact of an escalating trade conflict between the United States and China.

Amazon.com slipped 1.4 percent and was the biggest drag on the benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on the online giant.

The S&P information technology sector fell 0.55 percent. Apple was down 0.83 percent, while Google-parent Alphabet dipped 0.4 ahead of results after markets close.

A drop in shares of chipmakers such as Intel, Nvidia, Micron also pressured the index, the biggest decliners among the 11 main S&P sectors.

Investors are also worried that the U.S.-Sino trade war could spill over to the currency markets. Trump has criticized the dollar’s strength, while accusing China of manipulating the yuan, which Beijing has denied.

“We have a whole plate of issues for investors to deal with, including currency manipulation, which is going to tie into the trade war,” said Andre Bakhos, managing director at New Vines Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

“Investors are waiting for more earnings news to create a convincing direction for the market.”

About 180 S&P companies, including Ford Motor, 3M Co and Boeing, as well as a host of high-flying technology names such as Facebook, Twitter and Intel will report later in the week.

Second-quarter earnings season has been healthy so far, with analysts’ profit growth forecast now at 22 percent, up from 20.7 percent on July 1, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Hasbro rose 11.1 percent, the most on the benchmark S&P 500, after the toymaker’s quarterly revenue and profit topped analysts’ estimates.

At 9:57 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 27.15 points, or 0.11 percent, at 25,030.97, the S&P 500 was down 4.76 points, or 0.17 percent, at 2,797.07 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 40.45 points, or 0.52 percent, at 7,779.75.

Investors are also tracking the bond market, where yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note hit a one-month high of 2.90 percent.

The financial sector rose 0.81 percent, the most among the three S&P sectors trading higher.

Among stocks, shares of Illinois Tool Works dropped 6.9 percent after the industrial company cut its full-year profit forecast and margins forecast, blaming the strong dollar.

Tesla’s shares fell 5.2 percent after a report that the electric car maker has turned to some suppliers for a refund of previously made payments in a bid to turn a profit.

Hospital operator LifePoint Health surged 33.8 percent on agreeing to be bought by Apollo Global Management LLC in a deal valued at about $5.6 billion.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.56-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.63-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 10 new 52-week highs and three new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 40 new highs and 25 new lows.
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Two-thirds of the world’s population currently lives with water shortages at least part of the year, according to one estimate. And climate change and growing populations are expected to stretch water supplies even further. Experts are looking for new ways to capture this precious resource. In some places, they are harvesting water from fog. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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The United States has some incredible natural geological features: towering mesas, tall spires of limestone rock, erupting geysers and gravity-defying stone sculptures. Faith Lapidus reports on efforts to ensure that if and when gravity starts to win, land managers are not taken by surprise.
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Facebook says it has suspended working with Boston-based analytics firm Crimson Hexagon until it can determine how the firm collects and shares Facebook and Instagram user data.

Facebook announced the suspension Friday.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the suspension and said that one of Crimson Hexagon’s clients is a Russian nonprofit with ties to the Kremlin.

Facebook said that Crimson Hexagon is cooperating with the investigation and there is no evidence that Crimson Hexagon obtained Facebook or Instagram information inappropriately.

“We don’t allow developers to build surveillance tools using information from Facebook or Instagram,” Facebook said in a statement Friday. “We take these allegations seriously and have suspended these apps while we investigate.”

Chris Bingham, Crimson Hexagon’s, chief technology officer, said in a blog Friday his company “only collects publicly available social media data that anyone can access.”

He added, “Government entities that leverage the Crimson Hexagon platform do so for the same reasons as many of our other nongovernment customers: a broad-based and aggregate understanding of the public’s perception, preferences and sentiment about matters of concern to them.”

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica inappropriately obtained user data from millions of Facebook users.
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For years denim jeans have been finished in foreign factories where workers use manual and automated techniques such as scraping with sandpaper or other abrasives to make the jeans appear worn and more comfortable to wear. But things are changing in the fashion world. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports, fashion companies are going digital to speed up the design and manufacturing process.
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WhatsApp has announced changes for its 200 million users in India following the spread of viral messages via the app that resulted in deadly mob attacks.

India’s government has threatened to take WhatsApp to court, saying “…the medium used for such propagation cannot evade responsibility and accountability.”  The information technology ministry said, “If they remain mute spectators they are liable to be treated as abettors and thereafter face consequent legal action.”  

The Facebook-owned messaging app said it will limit Indian users’ ability to forward messages, allowing only five contacts at a time to receive them.

The firm said it will also remove the quick forward button placed next to media messages.

Both moves are designed to make stop the mass forwards that have resulted in the mob attacks.

India is WhatsApp’s largest market.
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President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday after Brussels hit US tech giant Google with a record fine, and warned he would no longer allow Europe to take “advantage” of the United States.

“I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google,” Trump tweeted in reaction to the 4.34 billion euro penalty imposed on Google for abusing the dominance of its mobile operating system.

“They truly have taken advantage of the US, but not for long!” he said.

In announcing the fine on Wednesday, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager accused Google of using the Android system’s near-stranglehold on smartphones and tablets to promote the use of its own Google search engine while shutting out rivals.

The decision, which followed a three-year EU investigation, comes as fears of a transatlantic trade war mount because of President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.

The new sanction nearly doubles the previous record EU antitrust fine of 2.4 billion euros, which also targeted Google, in that case for the Silicon Valley titan’s shopping comparison service in 2017.

Denmark’s Vestager ordered Google to “put an effective end to this conduct within 90 days or face penalty payments” of up to five percent of its average daily turnover.

The Google decision came one week before European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker was due to travel to the United States for crucial talks with the American president on the tariffs dispute and other issues.

Google chief Sundar Pichai immediately said the firm would appeal.

“Today’s decision rejects the business model that supports Android, which has created more choice for everyone, not less. We intend to appeal,” he said in a blog post.

Google provides Android free to smartphone manufacturers and generates most of its revenue from selling advertisements that appear along with search results.

The EU says Android is used on around 80 percent of mobile devices, both in Europe and worldwide.

The Android case originated when a lobbying group called FairSearch — with members then including huge tech companies like Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle — complained that Google was unfairly tilting the field of competition.

Google’s parent company Alphabet ranked as the fifth largest information technology company in the world in 2017, with global revenue of $111 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

That figure represented a doubling in global revenue in only four years.
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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket company shot a capsule higher into space Wednesday than it’s ever done before.

The New Shepard rocket blasted off from West Texas on the company’s latest test flight. Once the booster separated, the capsule’s escape motor fired, lifting the spacecraft to an altitude of 389,846 feet. That’s 74 miles or 119 kilometers.

It’s part of a safety system intended to save lives once space tourists and others climb aboard for suborbital hops.

Wednesday’s passenger was Mannequin Skywalker, an instrumented dummy in a blue flight suit that’s flown before, plus science experiments.

The booster and capsule, both repeat fliers, landed successfully. It was the ninth test flight and lasted 11 minutes.

“Crew Capsule looks great even after it was pushed hard by the escape test. Astronauts would have had an exhilarating ride and safe landing,” Bezos said in a tweet. “Great engineering and the lucky boots worked again.”

Blue Origin has yet to announce when it will start selling tickets or how much flights will cost. Launch commentator Ariane Cornell promised it would be soon. “It’s coming,” she said.

Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, aims to send people and payloads into orbit from Cape Canaveral. Those missions will rely on the bigger, more powerful New Glenn rocket still under development.

He’s named his rockets after NASA’s original Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has apologized for calling a British diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue a pedophile, saying he spoke in anger but was wrong to do so.

There was no immediate public reaction from diver Vern Unsworth to Musk’s latest tweets.

Musk’s initial tweet calling Unsworth a “pedo” was a response to a TV interview Unsworth gave. In it, he said Musk and SpaceX engineers orchestrated a “PR stunt” by sending a small submarine to help divers rescue the 12 Thai soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave. Unsworth said the submarine, which wasn’t used, wouldn’t have worked anyway.

“My words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths …” Musk tweeted.

“Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and to the companies I represent as leader. The fault is mine and mine alone.”

Musk’s Sunday tweet, later deleted, had sent investors away from Tesla stock, which fell nearly 3 percent Monday but recovered 4.1 percent Tuesday. Unsworth told CNN earlier this week that he was considering legal action. He did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

In his latest tweets, Musk said the mini-sub was “built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader.”

Musk has 22.3 million followers and his active social media presence has sometimes worked well for Tesla. The company has said in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it doesn’t need to advertise because it gets so much free media attention.

But straying away from defending his companies into personal insult brought Musk some unfavorable attention at a time when Tesla, worth more than $52 billion, is deep in debt and struggling for profitability. 

In northern Thailand on Wednesday, the 12 Thai soccer players and their coach answered questions from journalists, their first meeting with the media since their rescues last week. Doctors said all are healthy.
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Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it’s been called “the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex — a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian’s newest resident.
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Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it’s been called “the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex — a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian’s newest resident.
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Facebook announced several new hires of top academics in the field of artificial intelligence Tuesday, among them a roboticist known for her work at Disney making animated figures move in more human-like ways.

The hires raise a big question — why is Facebook interested in robots, anyway?

It’s not as though the social media giant is suddenly interested in developing mechanical friends, although it does use robotic arms in some of its data centers. The answer is even more central to the problem of how AI systems work today.

Today, most successful AI systems have to be exposed to millions of data points labeled by humans — like, say, photos of cats — before they can learn to recognize patterns that people take for granted. Similarly, game-playing bots like Google’s computerized Go master AlphaGo Zero require tens of thousands of trials to learn the best moves from their failures.

Creating systems that require less data and have more common sense is a key goal for making AI smarter in the future.

“Clearly we’re missing something in terms of how humans can learn so fast,” Yann LeCun, Facebook’s chief AI scientist, said in a call with reporters last week. “So far the best ideas have come out of robotics.”

Among the people Facebook is hiring are Jessica Hodgins , the former Disney researcher; and Abhinav Gupta, her colleague at Carnegie Mellon University who is known for using robot arms to learn how to grasp things.

Pieter Abbeel, a roboticist at University of California, Berkeley and co-founder of the robot-training company Covariant.ai, says the robotics field has benefits and constraints that push progress in AI. For one, the real world is naturally complex, so robotic AI systems have to deal with unexpected, rare events. And real-world constraints like a lack of time and the cost of keeping machinery moving push researchers to solve difficult problems.

“Robotics forces you into many reality checks,” Abbeel said. “How good are these algorithms, really?”

There are other more abstract applications of learnings from robotics, says Berkeley AI professor Ken Goldberg. Just like teaching a robot to escape from a computerized maze, other robots change their behavior depending on whether actions they took got them closer to a goal. Such systems could even be adapted to serve ads, he said — which just happens to be the mainstay of Facebook’s business.

“It’s not a static decision, it’s a dynamic one,” Goldberg said.

In an interview, Hodgins expressed an interest in a wide range of robotics research, everything from building a “compelling humanoid robot” to creating a mechanical servant to “load and unload my dishwasher.”

While she acknowledged the need to imbue robots with more common sense and have them learn with fewer examples, she also said her work in animation could lead to a new form of sharing — one in which AI-powered tools could help one show off a work of pottery in 3-D, for example.

“One thing I hope we’ll be able to do is explore AI support for creativity,” she said.

For Facebook, planting a flag in the hot field also allows it to be competitive for AI talent emerging from universities, Facebook’s LeCun said.

Bart Selman, a Cornell computer science professor AI expert, said it’s a good idea for Facebook to broaden its reach in AI and take on projects that might not be directly related to the company’s business — something that’s a little more “exciting” — the way Google did with self-driving cars, for example.

This attracts not just attention, but students, too. The broader the research agenda, the better the labs become, he said.
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