For the first time, China ranks in the top 20 most innovative countries in the world. That’s according to the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Poverty, gender discrimination and digital illiteracy are leaving women behind as the global workforce increasingly uses digital tools and other technologies, experts warned Tuesday.
The so-called “digital divide” has traditionally referred to the gap between those who have access to computers and the internet, and those with limited or no access.
But technology experts say women and girls with poor digital literacy skills will be the hardest hit and will struggle to find jobs as technology advances.
“Digital skills are indispensable for girls and young women to obtain safe employment in the formal labor market,” said Lindsey Nefesh-Clarke, founder of Women’s Worldwide Web, a charity that trains girls in digital literacy.
She said “offline factors” like poverty, gender discrimination and gender stereotypes were preventing girls and women from benefiting from digital technologies.
Globally, the proportion of men using the internet in 2017 was 12 percent higher than women, says the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency.
There are also 200 million fewer women than men who own a mobile phone, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a March report.
“Women are currently on the wrong side of the digital skills gap. In tech, it’s a man’s world. We have a global problem, we have an urgent problem on our hands,” said Nefesh-Clarke at a gender equality forum run by Chatham House in London on Tuesday.
According to a 2017 study by the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank, the use of digital tools has increased in 517 of 545 occupations since 2002 in the United States alone, with a striking uptick in many lower-skilled occupations.
“The entire economy is shifting, and we need new skills to be able to cope with that new economy,” said Dorothy Gordon, a technology expert and associate fellow with Chatham House.
“So when we look at the jobs that women are in today, what are the skillsets that they will need to acquire to be able to be competitive in that job market as we move forward?” she said.
Even with new jobs emerging through online or mobile platforms, such as rideshare apps Uber or Lyft, domestic services or food couriers, women are still faring worse than men, research shows.
A U.S. study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in June found the gender pay gap among Uber drivers was 7 percent.
“Many of the challenges that come through digital work are, frankly, old wine in new bottles,” said Abigail Hunt, a gender researcher at the British-based Overseas Development Institute, referring to the Uber study.
She said safety concerns, gender bias and discrimination contributed to how much women could earn in the so-called “gig economy.”
“Discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, geographical location, age — it’s the same issues we’ve always seen that are discriminating against women,” Hunt said.
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After hoax messages on WhatsApp fueled deadly mob violence in India, the Facebook-owned messaging platform published full-page advertisements in prominent English and Hindi language newspapers advising users on how to spot misinformation.
The advertisements are the first measure taken by the social media company to raise awareness about fake messages, following a warning by the Indian government that it needs to take immediate action to curb the spread of false information.
While India is not the only country to be battling the phenomenon of fake messaging on social media, it has taken a menacing turn here — in the past two months more than a dozen people have died in lynchings sparked by false posts spread on WhatsApp that the victims were child kidnappers.
Ironically, the digital media giant took recourse to traditional print media to disseminate its message. The advertisements, which began with the line “Together we can fight false information” give 10 tips on how to sift truth from rumors and will also be placed in regional language newspapers.
They call on users to check photos in messages carefully because photos and videos can be edited to mislead; check out stories that seem hard to believe; to “think twice before sharing a post that makes you angry and upset”; check out other news websites or apps to see if the story is being reported elsewhere. It also warned that fake news often goes viral and asked people not to believe a message just because it is shared many times.
Internet experts called the media blitz a good first step, but stressed the need for a much larger initiative to curb the spread of fake messages that authorities are struggling to tackle.
“There has to be a repetitive pattern. People have to be told again and again and again,” says Pratik Sinha who runs a fact checking website called Alt News and hopes that the social media giant will run a sustained campaign. “That kind of fear mongering that has gone on on WhatsApp, that is not going to go away by just putting out an advertisement one day a year. This needs a continuous form of education.”
Some pointed out that although newspapers are popular in India, many of the users of the messaging platform, specially in rural areas, were unlikely to be newspaper readers.
The fake posts that have spread on WhatsApp have ranged from sensationalist warnings of natural calamities, fake stories with political messaging to bogus medical advise. The false messages that warned parents about child abductors were sometimes accompanied by gruesome videos of child abuse.
Experts said the that the need to curb fake news has also assumed urgency ahead of India’s general elections scheduled for next year — WhatsApp has become the favored medium for political parties to target voters. With about 200 million users, India is its largest market for the messaging service.
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Senior citizens – adults 65 and older – will outnumber children in the United States for the first time by 2035, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.As their number increases, the demand for elder care is also growing.
For the past 12 years, SenCura has been providing non-medical in-home care for this segment of the population in Northern Virginia.Company founder Cliff Glier says its services “include things as bathing, dressing, companionship, meal planning and prep and transportation, pretty much everything in and around the home that seniors typically need help with.”
Hollie, one of SenCura’s professional caregivers, visits 88-year-old Olga Robertson every day for three hours.She cooks for her, takes her to appointments, plays some brain games with her and goes walking with her around the neighborhood or in the mall.
But when Hollie is not around, Robertson still has company: a robot named Rudy.“You can have a conversation with him,” Robertson says.”He’s somebody you talk to and he responds.”
He also provides entertainment, telling her jokes, playing games and dancing with her.
In addition to keeping her mentally and physically engaged, Rudy provides access to emergency services around the clock, keeps track of misplaced items and reminds her about appointments and when it’s time for her medicine.The robot stands a bit over a meter high, and has a digital screen embedded in its torso, for virtual check-ins with family and care-givers.
Robertson has actually introduced Rudy to her neighbors.“I kind of became famous in the neighborhood because of this robot.”
The caregiver who helps caregivers
Anthony Nunez is founder of INF Robotics, the startup that created Rudy.He says the idea behind the robotic caregiver was inspired by what his mother went through, when his grandmother got older and needed help.
“As I grew older, I realized we weren’t the only family facing this problem,” Nunez recalls.“There are thousands of families facing the same issue.Most cases are even worse where they have the loved one taking care of and the cost becomes an issue.So what we wanted to do was design a robot that’s easy to use, designed especially for seniors, but also affordable.”
Nunez says technology helps seniors age in place, well-taken care of.
“We’re leveraging the artificial intelligence within our platform to help seniors make better decisions, to allow them stay in their home,” he explains.“We’re also working on machine learning on a platform and some cognitive computing to identify patterns within the seniors’ daily habits that could lead to an adverse event, and identifying those ahead of time, then using our cloud computing on a platform to get that info to caregivers before something happens.”
Carla Rodriguez has been working with Nunez’s company since it was founded.She says Rudy’s simple design makes it easy to use.The company also consults their potential customers to decide which features they need most in a robotic caregiver.
“We always have seniors involved and every time we had some type of communication we would introduce it,” she says.“Seniors would give us their feedback, ‘We don’t like this, we don’t like that,’ we come in and change it.”
Cooperation vs. competition
SenCura’s Cliff Glier met Nunez and his team at an event more than a year ago.He became interested in introducing Rudy to his customers.
“We are dealing with older adults that are typically 80, 90, 100 years old,” he says.“So this kind of technology is very new to them, so there will be some closer looks at it.People, I would say, would be interested once they learn more, we have the opportunity to show them Rudy and its capabilities.”
Rudy is not competition for human caregivers, Glier says.“He’s around to help out, where the caregivers typically would come in, may help with bathing or dressing, things at this point Rudy can’t do, but beyond that, Rudy simply fills the growing gap.”
The robot supplements what in-home caregivers do for the growing population of seniors who prefer to age in place – with a little help from some friends.
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In this age of the smart machine, robots are increasingly playing roles in different fields, from construction and hospitality to the military and art. When it comes to caregiving for the elderly, which depends mainly on human interaction, it turns out robots can also help. But will they replace humans? Faiza Elmasry went searching for an answer. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Google’s YouTube says it is taking several steps to ensure the veracity of news on its service by cracking down on misinformation and supporting news organizations.
The company said Monday it will make “authoritative” news sources more prominent, especially in the wake of breaking news events when misinformation can spread quickly.
At such times, YouTube will begin showing users short text previews of news stories in video search results, as well as warnings that the stories can change. The goal is to counter the fake videos that can proliferate immediately after shootings, natural disasters and other major happenings. For example, YouTube search results prominently showed videos purporting to “prove” that mass shootings like the one that killed at least 59 in Las Vegas were fake, acted out by “crisis actors.”
In these urgent cases, traditional video won’t do, since it takes time for news outlets to produce and verify high-quality clips. So YouTube aims to short-circuit the misinformation loop with text stories that can quickly provide more accurate information. Company executives announced the effort at YouTube’s New York offices.
Those officials, however, offered only vague descriptions of which sources YouTube will consider authoritative. Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said the company isn’t just compiling a simple list of trusted news outlets, noted that the definition of authoritative is “fluid” and then added the caveat that it won’t simply boil down to sources that are popular on YouTube.
He added that 10,000 human reviewers at Google — so-called search quality raters who monitor search results around the world — are helping determine what will count as authoritative sources and news stories.
Alexios Mantzarlis, a Poynter Institute faculty member who helped Facebook team up with fact-checkers (including The Associated Press), said the text story snippet at the top of search results was “cautiously a good step forward.”
But he worried what would happen to fake news videos that were simply recommended by YouTube’s recommendation engine and would appear in feeds without being searched.
He said it would be preferable if Google used people instead of algorithms to vet fake news.
“Facebook was reluctant to go down that path two and half years ago and then they did,” he said.
YouTube also said it will commit $25 million over the next several years to improving news on YouTube and tackling “emerging challenges” such as misinformation. That sum includes funding to help news organizations around the world build “sustainable video operations,” such as by training staff and improving production facilities. The money would not fund video creation.
The company is also testing ways to counter conspiracy videos with generally trusted sources such as Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. For common conspiracy subjects — what YouTube delicately calls “well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation,” such as the moon landing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — Google will add information from such third parties for users who search on these topics.
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Twitter shares tumbled Monday on concerns the social media’s efforts to crack down on fake accounts would affect its user base, and potentially its finances.
At 1810 GMT, shares of the social media company were down 6.0 percent at $43.89 after earlier shedding almost 10 percent.
The decline follows a report late Friday in the Washington Post that described how Twitter’s greater scrutiny of user data had resulted in more than 70 million account suspensions in May and June.
The efforts are a response to criticism that social media companies have done too little to confront the spread of disinformation and fake news.
CFRA analyst Scott Kessler on Monday downgraded Twitter to “sell” from “hold,” citing the Washington Post article, which raised concerns about its official active user count and “about potential negative impacts on pricing and revenue.”
Twitter shares are “overvalued,” Kessler added.
Shares of the company rallied somewhat from session lows after chief financial officer Ned Segal said most of the accounts removed were not in the company’s official metrics since they were not on the platform for at least 30 days.
He said the company would provide user numbers when it reports earnings on July 27.
“This article reflects us getting better at improving the health of the service,” Segal said in a post that included the Post article. “Look forward to talking more on our earnings call July 27!”
The impact on Twitter’s user base was unclear. Twitter said last week it had “identified and challenged more than 9.9 million potentially spammy or automated accounts per week,” up from 6.4 million in December 2017.
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Some students in Virginia who play the guitar are also learning how to build them. It’s part of an after-school program where middle and high school students learn about science and music through the design and function of an electric guitar. The workshops, sponsored by the nonprofit Music for Life, are free for those who cannot afford to participate. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to a high school in Manassas, Virginia, where the students are learning the challenges of making an electric guitar.
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While the Trump administration is putting tariffs on Chinese imports, another battle has been brewing about whether the United States should block Chinese investments in some U.S. companies that work in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other key technology.
Some of these technologies have U.S. national security implications, argues the Department of Defense in a report on growing Chinese ties to U.S. firms. Lawmakers in Washington are considering expanding a Treasury Department review process that looks at investments from foreign entities.
“I assure you that the threat China poses is real and that the dangers we worry about are already taking effect,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texan Republican, who is sponsoring the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, the bill that would strengthen the review. “Our inaction can only have negative consequences, and we need to aim to prevent any future negative consequences to our country.”
Limiting Chinese investments has to be done thoughtfully, said Jeff Moon, an international trade and government affairs consultant and a former assistant U.S. trade representative.
“The biggest problem I see is just vagueness when we talk about Chinese investment,” Moon said. “Are we talking about any Chinese national that’s dropping a penny into the American economy?”
View from Silicon Valley
In Silicon Valley, there is some relief the Trump administration appears to have backed away from a plan to block investment into AI or other technologies in the United States by a company with more than 25 percent Chinese ownership.
While the national security concerns are legitimate, tech firms and investors don’t want to see “policies that take some kind of a sledgehammer approach to investment, which by and large from China here has been beneficial,” said Sean Randolph, senior director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.
“How concerned should we be about these different sources of leakage, if that’s the term,” Randolph said. “What is an appropriate way to address that as opposed to ways that would try to address it, but that actually end up having a very negative effect on the economy here and in the U.S. economy, and the Chinese economy, too?”
Collaboration valued
Recently, Silicon Valley held its first U.S.-China summit on AI technologies with a focus on how to better collaborate between the two nations.
“The technology is shared and collaborative and better for humankind. I don’t think it’s one country against another country,” said Tao Wang of SAIC Capital.
Helen Liang, managing partner of FoundersX, a venture capital firm, said entrepreneurs and companies in AI are focused on how to tackle big issues, such as health care, transportation and work.
“Regardless of the geopolitical pressure or differences, from a technology perspective we are looking to solve society’s problems,” said Liang, whose firm helps startups it invests in with business relationships in China.
‘Disruption’ from both countries
Nicolas Miailhe, president of The Future Society, a nonprofit research group, said any limits on investment from China to the United States could also slow down U.S. innovation.
“We have been used to disruptive business models emerging from the Silicon Valley here. This is changing,” Miailhe said. “We are now in FinTech for example seeing new and disruptive business models emerging from China.”
“Disruption” is a favorite term in Silicon Valley, describing how new technologies can lead to dramatic and unpredictable results on an industry.
That potential is what excites these entrepreneurs – and worries some lawmakers back in Washington.
U.S. policymakers are raising national security concerns about Chinese money flooding into U.S. startups in fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics. But in Silicon Valley, there is a sense that ties with China are mutually beneficial. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Key California lawmakers said Thursday they’ve reached an agreement on legislation to enshrine net neutrality provisions in state law after the Federal Communications Commission dumped rules requiring an equal playing field on the internet.
California’s bill is one of the nation’s most aggressive efforts to continue net neutrality, and the deal comes after a bitter fight among Democrats over how far the state should go.
Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener, who repudiated his own legislation when major pieces were removed two weeks ago, said those provisions have been restored under his agreement with Democratic Assemblyman Miguel Santiago.
“We need to ensure the internet is an open field where everyone has access, the companies that are providing internet access are not picking winners and losers,” Wiener told reporters at a Capitol news conference.
Santiago came under fire from net neutrality advocates around the country when the Assembly committee he leads stripped key provisions from the legislation — a decision that drew rebukes from members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Santiago became the subject of online memes and a flood of calls to his office accusing the Los Angeles lawmaker of selling out to internet providers, citing his contributions from AT&T.
Santiago portrayed net neutrality as crucial to the future of the progressive movement and called on other liberal states to follow suit.
“There’s a lot of blue states in the country,” Santiago said. “We expect them to stand up and join us in this fight and pass measures that are equally as strong.”
Internet companies say it’s not practical for them to comply with state-by-state internet regulations and warn that Wiener’s bill would discourage the rollout of new technology in California.
“For decades, California has benefited from American innovation and investment, but SB 822 is a flawed and consumer unfriendly approach,” CTIA, a wireless industry lobbying group, said in a statement.
The FCC last year repealed Obama-era regulations that prevented internet companies from speeding up or slowing down the delivery of certain content. Net neutrality advocates worry that, without net neutrality rules, internet providers would be free to block political content, slow down websites from their competitors or drive consumers to their own content.
The debate in California is being closely watched by net neutrality advocates around the country, who are looking to the state to pass sweeping net neutrality provisions that could drive momentum in other states.
Wiener said the key provisions removed from his bill were restored. One would require data to be treated equally at the point where it enters an internet company’s network, not just within the company’s own infrastructure.
The other bans a practice known as “zero rating,” in which internet or cellphone providers exempt certain data from a monthly cap. Critics of the practice say zero rating encourages low monthly data caps and cuts off vast swaths of the internet for people who can’t afford higher data allotments.
He declined to release the new bill language until lawmakers return in August from a summer break.
Under the agreement, Wiener’s bill will be linked to separate legislation by Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon to prohibit state contracting with companies that don’t abide by net neutrality provisions.
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Republican Senator John McCain is perhaps the best known person who has brain cancer. His is a glioblastoma, the most deadly type. Since McCain announced the news last year, he has had surgery and chemotherapy. There’s no cure for this type of cancer, and even with treatment, most people don’t live longer than three years after being diagnosed.
Surgeons often can’t remove the entire tumor because it might affect brain functions, or it might be attached to the spinal column. These tumors often grow tentacles that make them impossible to cut out completely.
Untreated, people have just months to live. But even with treatment, the two-year survival rate is just 30 percent, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.
What’s hopeful is that some new treatments are showing promise.
A case in point is Lori Mines. This 40-year-old wife and mother was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer two years ago. She had a severe headache followed by a stroke. When doctors ordered a brain scan, they found two large brain tumors, one on either side of her brain. One of the tumors was attached to the spinal column so it couldn’t be completely removed. After surgery, Mines had radiation.
“I didn’t even want to know anything about it. I just basically wanted to focus on trying to get better,” she said.
Even noncancerous brain tumors can be deadly if they interfere with portions of the brain responsible for vital bodily functions. Treatment often includes surgery, chemotherapy or radiation or a combination of these treatments.
Glioblastomas are the most common type of cancerous brain tumors, and the five-year relative survival rate is less than 6 percent.
Mines says she’s realistic, although she hopes she can live longer. She says she will just keep fighting for herself, for her husband, and for her young daughter.
“I have persisted because there’s no other option,” she said.
Scientists at Duke Health found they can increase the survival rate for some patients by injecting a modified polio virus directly into the tumor. Other researchers are trying to get the body’s immune system to attack the tumors.
Dr. Arnab Chakravarti heads the Department of Radiation Oncology at The Ohio State University where he specializes in brain cancers. Chakravarti says medical researchers are examining novel clinical trials, targeted therapies and immunotherapies.
“There’s a lot of hope for this patient population,” he said.
Chakravarti led a study on the genetic makeup of gliomas, brain tumors that can be cancerous or benign. The researchers found they could more than double the life expectancy among patients who had a distinctive biomarker, a cell or a molecule that is present with a particular type of tumor. It helps doctors decide what treatment can work best to shrink the tumor.
“It’s very important to personalize care for the individual patient and that’s why biomarkers, prognostic and predictive biomarkers are so important,” Chakravarti said. The study was published in JAMA Oncology.
Experts say testing genetic markers will become the standard for patients with malignant brain tumors. They are also looking at targeted drug therapies as part of individualized treatment. The hope is that getting a diagnosis of brain cancer will no longer be an imminent death sentence.
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The Russian Internet company Yandex said Thursday that its public search engine has been turning up dozens of Google documents that appear meant for private use, suggesting there may have been a data breach.
Yandex spokesman Ilya Grabovsky said that some Internet users contacted the company Wednesday to say that its public search engine was yielding what looked like personal Google files.
Russian social media users started posting scores of such documents, including an internal memo from a Russian bank, press summaries and company business plans.
Grabovsky said Yandex has alerted Google to the concerns.
It was unclear whether the files were meant to be publicly viewable by their authors and how many there were. Google did not comment.
Grabovsky said that a Yandex search only yields files that don’t require logins or passwords. He added that the files were also turning up in other search engines.
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Sophia, one of the world’s most advanced and perhaps most famous artificial intelligence (AI) humanoid robot, was a big hit at this year’s Information & Communication Technology International Expo in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Visitors, including various dignitaries, were excited to meet the life-like AI robot as she communicated with expo guests and expressed a wide range of facial expressions. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports, Sophia has become an international sensation.
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When a CIA-backed venture capital fund took an interest in Rana el Kaliouby’s face-scanning technology for detecting emotions, the computer scientist and her colleagues did some soul-searching — and then turned down the money.
“We’re not interested in applications where you’re spying on people,” said el Kaliouby, the CEO and co-founder of the Boston startup Affectiva. The company has trained its artificial intelligence systems to recognize if individuals are happy or sad, tired or angry, using a photographic repository of more than 6 million faces.
Recent advances in AI-powered computer vision have accelerated the race for self-driving cars and powered the increasingly sophisticated photo-tagging features found on Facebook and Google. But as these prying AI “eyes” find new applications in store checkout lines, police body cameras and war zones, the tech companies developing them are struggling to balance business opportunities with difficult moral decisions that could turn off customers or their own workers.
El Kaliouby said it’s not hard to imagine using real-time face recognition to pick up on dishonesty — or, in the hands of an authoritarian regime, to monitor reaction to political speech in order to root out dissent. But the small firm, which spun off from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research lab, has set limits on what it will do.
The company has shunned “any security, airport, even lie-detection stuff,” el Kaliouby said. Instead, Affectiva has partnered with automakers trying to help tired-looking drivers stay awake, and with consumer brands that want to know whether people respond to a product with joy or disgust.
New qualms
Such queasiness reflects new qualms about the capabilities and possible abuses of all-seeing, always-watching AI camera systems — even as authorities are growing more eager to use them.
In the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s deadly shooting at a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, police said they turned to face recognition to identify the uncooperative suspect. They did so by tapping a state database that includes mug shots of past arrestees and, more controversially, everyone who registered for a Maryland driver’s license.
Initial information given to law enforcement authorities said that police had turned to facial recognition because the suspect had damaged his fingerprints in an apparent attempt to avoid identification. That report turned out to be incorrect and police said they used facial recognition because of delays in getting fingerprint identification.
In June, Orlando International Airport announced plans to require face-identification scans of passengers on all arriving and departing international flights by the end of this year. Several other U.S. airports have already been using such scans for some departing international flights.
Chinese firms and municipalities are already using intelligent cameras to shame jaywalkers in real time and to surveil ethnic minorities, subjecting some to detention and political indoctrination. Closer to home, the overhead cameras and sensors in Amazon’s new cashier-less store in Seattle aim to make shoplifting obsolete by tracking every item shoppers pick up and put back down.
Concerns over the technology can shake even the largest tech firms. Google, for instance, recently said it will exit a defense contract after employees protested the military application of the company’s AI technology. The work involved computer analysis of drone video footage from Iraq and other conflict zones.
Google guidelines
Similar concerns about government contracts have stirred up internal discord at Amazon and Microsoft. Google has since published AI guidelines emphasizing uses that are “socially beneficial” and that avoid “unfair bias.”
Amazon, however, has so far deflected growing pressure from employees and privacy advocates to halt Rekognition, a powerful face-recognition tool it sells to police departments and other government agencies.
Saying no to some work, of course, usually means someone else will do it. The drone-footage project involving Google, dubbed Project Maven, aimed to speed the job of looking for “patterns of life, things that are suspicious, indications of potential attacks,” said Robert Work, a former top Pentagon official who launched the project in 2017.
While it hurts to lose Google because they are “very, very good at it,” Work said, other companies will continue those efforts.
Commercial and government interest in computer vision has exploded since breakthroughs earlier in this decade using a brain-like “neural network” to recognize objects in images. Training computers to identify cats in YouTube videos was an early challenge in 2012. Now, Google has a smartphone app that can tell you which breed.
A major research meeting — the annual Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, held in Salt Lake City in June — has transformed from a sleepy academic gathering of “nerdy people” to a gold rush business expo attracting big companies and government agencies, said Michael Brown, a computer scientist at Toronto’s York University and a conference organizer.
Brown said researchers have been offered high-paying jobs on the spot. But few of the thousands of technical papers submitted to the meeting address broader public concerns about privacy, bias or other ethical dilemmas. “We’re probably not having as much discussion as we should,” he said.
Not for police, government
Startups are forging their own paths. Brian Brackeen, the CEO of Miami-based facial recognition software company Kairos, has set a blanket policy against selling the technology to law enforcement or for government surveillance, arguing in a recent essay that it “opens the door for gross misconduct by the morally corrupt.”
Boston-based startup Neurala, by contrast, is building software for Motorola that will help police-worn body cameras find a person in a crowd based on what they’re wearing and what they look like. CEO Max Versace said that “AI is a mirror of the society,” so the company chooses only principled partners.
“We are not part of that totalitarian, Orwellian scheme,” he said.
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India has asked Facebook to prevent the spread of false texts on its WhatsApp messaging application, saying the content has sparked a series of lynchings and mob beatings across the country.
False messages about child abductors spread over WhatsApp have reportedly led to at least 31 deaths in 10 different states over the past year, including a deadly mob lynching Sunday of five men in the western state of Maharashtra.
In a strongly worded statement Tuesday, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the service “cannot evade accountability and responsibility” when messaging platforms are used to spread misinformation.
“The government has also conveyed in no uncertain terms that Whatsapp must take immediate action to end this menace and ensure that their platform is not used for such mala fide activities,” the ministry added.
Facebook and WhatsApp did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but WhatsApp previously told the Reuters news agency it is educating users to identify fake news and is considering changes to the messaging service.
The ministry said law enforcement authorities are working to apprehend those responsible for the killings.
WhatsApp has more than 200 million users in India, the messaging site’s largest market in the world.
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A Portuguese tech firm is uncorking an Android smartphone whose case is made from cork, a natural and renewable material native to the Iberian country.
The Ikimobile phone is one of the first to use materials other than plastic, metal and glass and represents a boost for the country’s technology sector, which has made strides in software development but less in hardware manufacturing.
A Made in Portugal version of the phone is set to launch this year as Ikimobile completes a plant to transfer most of its production from China.
“Ikimobile wants to put Portugal on the path to the future and technologies by emphasizing this Portuguese product,” chief executive Tito Cardoso told Reuters at Ikimobile’s plant in the cork-growing area of Coruche, 80 km (50 miles) west of Lisbon.
“We believe the product offers something different, something that people can feel good about using,” he said. Cork is harvested only every nine years without hurting the oak trees and is fully recyclable.
Portugal is the world’s largest cork producer and the phone also marks the latest effort to diversify its use beyond wine bottle stoppers.
Portuguese cork exports have lately regained their peaks of 15 years ago as cork stoppers clawed back market share from plastic and metal. Portugal also exports other cork products such as flooring, clothing and wind turbine blades.
A layer of cork covers the phone’s back providing thermal, acoustic and anti-shock insulation. The cork comes in colors ranging from black to light brown and has certified antibacterial properties and protects against battery radiation.
Cardoso said Ikimobile is working with north Portugal’s Minho University to make the phone even “greener” and hopes to replace a plastic body base with natural materials soon.The material, agglomerated using only natural resins, required years of research and testing for the use in phones.
The plant should churn out 1.2 million phones a year — a drop in the ocean compared to last year’s worldwide smartphone market shipments of almost 1.5 billion.
Most cell phones are produced in Asia but local manufacture helps take advantage of the availability of cork and the “Made in Portugal” brand appeals to consumers in Europe, Angola, Brazil and Canada, Cardoso said.
In 2017, it sold 400,000 phones assembled in China in 2017, including simple feature phones. It hopes to surpass that amount with local production this year. Top-of-the-line cork models, costing 160-360 euros ($187-$420), make up 40 percent of sales.
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It was 50 years ago the sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey by author Arthur C. Clarke and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, opened in theaters across America to mixed reviews. The almost three-hour long film, was too cerebral and slow- moving to be appreciated by general audiences in 1968. Today, half a century later, the movie is one of the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time. VOA’s Penelope Poulou explores Space Odyssey’s power and its relevance 50 years since its creation.
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Hey, did my congressman really say that? Is that really President Donald Trump on that video, or am I being duped?
New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies.
We’re not talking about lip-syncing videos. This technology uses facial mapping and artificial intelligence to produce videos that appear so genuine it’s hard to spot the phonies. Lawmakers and intelligence officials worry that the bogus videos — called deepfakes — could be used to threaten national security or interfere in elections.
So far, that hasn’t happened, but experts say it’s not a question of if, but when.
“I expect that here in the United States we will start to see this content in the upcoming midterms and national election two years from now,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. “The technology, of course, knows no borders, so I expect the impact to ripple around the globe.”
When an average person can create a realistic fake video of the president saying anything they want, Farid said, “we have entered a new world where it is going to be difficult to know how to believe what we see.” The reverse is a concern, too. People may dismiss as fake genuine footage, say of a real atrocity, to score political points.
Realizing the implications of the technology, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is already two years into a four-year program to develop technologies that can detect fake images and videos. Right now, it takes extensive analysis to identify phony videos. It’s unclear if new ways to authenticate images or detect fakes will keep pace with deepfake technology.
Deepfakes are so named because they utilize deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence. They are made by feeding a computer an algorithm, or set of instructions, lots of images and audio of a certain person. The computer program learns how to mimic the person’s facial expressions, mannerisms, voice and inflections. If you have enough video and audio of someone, you can combine a fake video of the person with a fake audio and get them to say anything you want.
So far, deepfakes have mostly been used to smear celebrities or as gags, but it’s easy to foresee a nation state using them for nefarious activities against the U.S., said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of several members of the Senate intelligence committee who are expressing concern about deepfakes.
A foreign intelligence agency could use the technology to produce a fake video of an American politician using a racial epithet or taking a bribe, Rubio says. They could use a fake video of a U.S. soldier massacring civilians overseas, or one of a U.S. official supposedly admitting a secret plan to carry out a conspiracy. Imagine a fake video of a U.S. leader — or an official from North Korea or Iran — warning the United States of an impending disaster.
“It’s a weapon that could be used — timed appropriately and placed appropriately — in the same way fake news is used, except in a video form, which could create real chaos and instability on the eve of an election or a major decision of any sort,” Rubio told The Associated Press.
Deepfake technology still has a few hitches. For instance, people’s blinking in fake videos may appear unnatural. But the technology is improving.
“Within a year or two, it’s going to be really hard for a person to distinguish between a real video and a fake video,” said Andrew Grotto, an international security fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California.
“This technology, I think, will be irresistible for nation states to use in disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion, deceive populations and undermine confidence in our institutions,” Grotto said. He called for government leaders and politicians to clearly say it has no place in civilized political debate.
Crude videos have been used for malicious political purposes for years, so there’s no reason to believe the higher-tech ones, which are more realistic, won’t become tools in future disinformation campaigns.
Rubio noted that in 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow complained to the Russian Foreign Ministry about a fake sex video it said was made to damage the reputation of a U.S. diplomat. The video showed the married diplomat, who was a liaison to Russian religious and human rights groups, making telephone calls on a dark street. The video then showed the diplomat in his hotel room, scenes that apparently were shot with a hidden camera. Later, the video appeared to show a man and a woman having sex in the same room with the lights off, although it was not at all clear that the man was the diplomat.
John Beyrle, who was the U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the time, blamed the Russian government for the video, which he said was clearly fabricated.
Michael McFaul, who was American ambassador in Russia between 2012 and 2014, said Russia has engaged in disinformation videos against various political actors for years and that he too had been a target. He has said that Russian state propaganda inserted his face into photographs and “spliced my speeches to make me say things I never uttered and even accused me of pedophilia.”
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Carlos Garcia was three years into his first job in technology at Merrill Lynch when he first learned what a 401K retirement savings account was. He was floored when he learned that a colleague had already saved $30,000 in three years, and the company had matched it.
The concept of making money off money was foreign to Garcia, an MIT graduate who was born in Texas to immigrants from Mexico. His story is not uncommon among U.S. Hispanics, who lag behind other demographic groups when it comes to saving for retirement. But for Garcia, the episode became the inspiration many years later for Finhabits, a bilingual digital platform designed to make savings and investment accessible for Latinos.
Finhabits launched last year into a crowded world of robo-advisers, savings apps, online lending platforms and other financial-technology companies.
But it is one of the few aimed at demystifying stocks and bonds for Hispanics, particularly young professionals who have the means to start investing but may have inherited a fuzzy understanding of the financial system from their immigrant parents.
“Hispanics are very hard workers and we are able to generate quick income for our families. Sometimes we are good at savings but we put the money under the mattress,” said Garcia, who previously founded two other companies, including an internet analytics service for hedge funds.
Other financial-tech startups aimed at Latinos have focused on immediate financial needs: paying off debt, building credit and gaining access to loans. Few besides Finhabits are dedicated to encouraging investing and long-term financial planning.
Another is Mi Dinero Mi Futuro, a personal financial planning platform started by Ramona Ortega, a former New York corporate attorney who became preoccupied with the lack of financial literacy among Latinos while working in bankruptcy and securities litigation.
“No one talked to me about money,” said Ortega, the daughter of Napa Valley farm worker and the first in her family to go to college. “The fact is that our communities have not had a legacy of talking about money.”
Finhabits follows in the footsteps of robo-advisors Betterment, Wealthfront and Acorn, which use computer algorithms instead of a traditional wealth adviser to manage customer funds across various types of investments. Ortega’s platform is similar to more well-known personal finance apps Mint and Credit Karma; it offers personalized budgeting tools and recommendations for affiliated financial products.
More than competing with established players, the founders of Finhabits and Mi Dinero Mi Future see themselves as creating a new market among Latinos, who they believe are overlooked by traditional financial institutions and even many of the digital newcomers.
It is not an easy market to penetrate, however.
According to a 2014 Prudential Research study, just 19 percent of Latinos had individual retirement accounts and less than 10 percent had investments in individual stocks, bonds of mutual funds. Only about 60 percent of Hispanics had a savings account, compared to 80 percent of the general population. The study cited various factors, including uncertainty among immigrants about what will happen to investments if they leave the country, distrust of financial institutions and difficulty understanding products.
Another study, done in 2016 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that more than 60 percent of Latino workers lacked access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, compared to 40 percent for white workers.
“This demographic has been very tough to crack historically,” said William Trout, head of wealth management research at Celent, a consulting firm focused on financial services technology. “Will that second generation look for a platform that is speaking to a Hispanic population? Well, somebody has to test it. I think it’s worth a shot.”
With Finhabits, beginner investors can start with $5 weekly contributions into traditional IRA, Roth IRAs or taxable investment accounts for shorter-term goals. Finhabits asks users about their priorities and risk tolerance and then recommends investment portfolios. The money goes into low-fee exchange trade funds from Vanguard and BlackRock.
Through its app, blogs and text-messaging services, Finhabits explains financial concepts (portfolio diversification? It’s like ordering different types of tacos) and compound interest to persuade people that investing their money is safer and wiser than trying to “hit the fat one,” as Latinos refer to the lottery jackpot.
Crucial to the Latino community, Finhabits lets users open an account with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, a processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service for people who are required to pay taxes but do not have Social Security numbers. That makes the service accessible to immigrants who are not legal residents but still pay federal taxes.
Savvier investors can simply set up accounts directly with Vanguard or BlackRock, which require more active knowledge of investing. But most often, those big players don’t have formal marketing strategies for Hispanics.
Garcia said Finhabits has about 10,000 active clients who invest an average of $40 a week. It is signing up about 1,000 new clients each week and aiming for 50,000 by the end of the year.
One challenge for financial start-ups is earning the public’s trust. Finhabits and Mi Dinero Mi Futuro are trying to that through partnerships with institutions already targeting minority and underserved communities.
Finhabits is a provider in Washington state’s newly established Retirement Marketplace, which helps individuals and small businesses find low-cost retirement saving plans. Nearly 80 percent of the West Coast state’s 385,500 Hispanic workers are not covered by an employer-sponsored plan, said marketplace director Carolyn McKinnon.
Finhabits also has partnerships with credit unions, including Neighborhood Federal Credit Union, which serves New York City’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods of West Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood.
Rosa Franco, director of lending at the credit union, said the partnership is still in development. She anticipates a challenge in marketing the service to her clients, many of whom are consumed by pressing concerns like debt repayment and or sending money to relatives abroad.
“It’s difficult for many people to think about the future. They live paycheck to paycheck. Many people just think Social Security is their only option for retirement,” said Franco, who used the Finhabits app herself to open a Roth IRA.
Ortega, who recently received a new round of investment from venture fund Backstage Capital for Mi Dinero Mi Futuro, crisscrosses the country giving workshops at universities and Hispanic professional organizations.
At a financial boot camp in Los Angeles City Hall, Ortega won over Liliana Aide Monge, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico at age 5 and is now the co-founder of Sabio, web development and cybersecurity training company.
Growing up, Monge said her family was “not part of the formal banking structure at all. The money came in and you pay the rent and you pay for food.”
Now a mother of two boys, Monge has used Mi Dinero Mi Futuro to budget her money, buy life insurance and open a high-yield savings account.
“It was an eye-opening experience,” she said.
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Hailing “great economic success” during the first 18 months of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for more companies to be like Taiwan’s electronics component manufacturer Foxconn and invest in the United States.
At a groundbreaking event for the foreign company’s latest and largest investment in the upper Midwestern state of Wisconsin, Trump described the planned $10 billion manufacturing facility “as the eighth wonder of the world.”
That may be a generous exaggeration, but the plant is one of the largest foreign direct investment projects ever in the United States.
“We are demanding from foreign countries, friend and foe, fair and reciprocal trade,” Trump said, as he defended his confrontational trade policies and hailed further direct investment in the United States by manufacturers from other countries.
Trump hailed Foxconn’s decision to increase its investment in Wisconsin, while criticizing a plan by an iconic American company in the same state to move some production overseas in response to retaliatory tariffs planned by European companies in response to the president’s punitive import taxes.
“Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA,” Trump said. “Don’t get cute with us.”
The president added: “Your customers won’t be happy if you don’t.”
Trump defended tariffs he has imposed on foreign steel and aluminum, proclaiming that “business is through the roof” in the United States as a result.
The primary focus of Trump’s remarks on Thursday was Foxconn’s decision to build flat-screen, liquid crystal display panels in Racine County, Wisconsin.
The maker of components for and assembler of Apple iPhones was offered what is described as the largest financial incentive ever for a foreign company by a U.S. state.
Wisconsin is giving Foxconn $3 billion in tax credits and other incentives. In exchange, the state expects to see the facility create thousands of jobs.
Trump spoke in front of a giant video display that said “USA Open for Business” after touring an existing Foxconn facility at the Wisconsin Valley Science and Technology Park.
Foxconn’s founder and chairman Terry Gou told the audience that during each of his several previous meetings with the president, Trump always emphasized “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
Added Gou, “He truly cares about improving the lives of the American people.”
The new plant, which will take two years to build and employ 10,000 construction workers, will include a 1.8 million square meter campus situated on 1,200 hectares. Foxconn has promised that the LCD facility will eventually employ up to 13,000 people.
Not everyone in the state is overjoyed about what is being billed as a transformational project for Wisconsin’s economy, better known for dairy products than high technology.
The state’s legislative bureau predicts it will be a quarter of a century before Wisconsin receives enough tax revenue to match its initial investment. And others are raising concern about its environmental impact.
“Building the Foxconn factory complex on prime farmland in rural Wisconsin constitutes a textbook example of unsustainable development,” said David Petering, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Petering told VOA News the facility will be a “major source of a variety of harmful air pollutants that will put nearby residents at risk and contribute to climate change. In addition, it will need to break the Great Lakes Compact law to get millions of gallons of water from Lake Michigan.”
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Melting glaciers and rising seas in Greenland; raging fires in Northern California; a relentless drought in Somalia and the disappearing Amazon forests. Famine, Feast, Fire and Ice are the four installments in a virtual reality (VR) documentary on climate change by filmmakers Eric Strauss and Danfung Dennis.
The series, showcased at AFI Docs, the American Film Institute’s Documentary festival in Washington, D.C., offers a 360-degree view of destructive phenomena brought by climate change on our planet. It immerses viewers into the extremes of Earth’s changing climate.
Eric Strauss told VOA he hopes that when someone watches the series as it drives home this idea that there is no hiding from global warming. “This is coming for all of us, regardless of where we live or what our income is; it’s going to affect everyone.”
Ken Jacobson, AFI’s Virtual Reality Programmer, says viewers – who watch the film wearing virtual reality headsets – react in many different ways to this all immersive experience.
“Some people have a very visceral reaction where they jump, where they kind of yelp because they are very surprised by what they see, while other people, I think, are very reflective and can even be sad, depending on the content,” he said.
One of these viewers is James Willard, a film and TV production student at George Mason University. He describes his experience of watching the installment Feast, about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforests to make space for industrial-sized cattle ranches to satisfy the global appetite for beef.
“You are completely immersed in this whole situation,” he says, “You are facing these animals eye-to-eye and watching as they are marching towards their death.”
The film needs no dialogue. A few sentences set up the topic. “It is actually stripping away a lot of the information, putting you in environments that you then experience for yourself,” says Eric Strauss, “You are much more of a protagonist in some way in this type of stories than you would be in a traditional form of cinema.”
Another viewer, Patricia, has just watched Famine, the episode that looks at the extreme drought in Somalia. “It makes it even more powerful because you feel like you are there. I think, it’s a great medium to spread the word on critical subjects,” she says.
That’s what Strauss wants to hear. “That is the goal; to effect change, to effect positive change.”
VR films are becoming more accessible as the technology evolves, and are often viewed on smart phone applications. But VR Programmer Ken Jacobson says watching them through a virtual reality headset is the best way to experience them.
But can VR films ever replace traditional 2D or even 3D films?
“I think it is going to add another aspect on how we are going to watch movies,” says student James Willard. “Virtual reality can be very dangerous because you are completely immersing yourself within the story to the point where you don’t see anything else. At least in the movie theater you are fully aware that this is a screen in front of you, but if you look to your sides you don’t have another screen there completely immersing you within that story. And with virtual reality that’s exactly what it does. For some people, it will be okay to take off the goggles and go on with their lives, but for others it may be too much. I don’t think it will completely take over.”
Eric Strauss agrees that VR will not overtake traditional cinema, but he says virtual reality can allow viewers to relate deeply with socially conscious stories.
“The technology creates a situation where you truly feel transported to that location because you are not just witnessing something or watching it on a screen. You are occupying the space. And that creates an emotional connection where you can’t really turn away. I mean, there is no getting away from what you’ve allowed yourself to be teleported to and hopefully that will create a visceral, emotional response in viewers and what they are seeing will prompt them to want to get involved.”
Your Amazon packages, which usually show up in a UPS truck, an unmarked vehicle or in the hands of a mail carrier, may soon be delivered from an Amazon van.
The online retailer has been looking for a while to find a way to have more control over how its packages are delivered. With its new program rolling out Thursday, contractors around the country can launch businesses that deliver Amazon packages. The move gives Amazon more ways to ship its packages to shoppers without having to rely on UPS, FedEx and other package delivery services.
With these vans on the road, Amazon said more shoppers would be able to track their packages on a map, contact the driver or change where a package is left — all of which it can’t do if the package is in the back of a UPS or FedEx truck.
Amazon has beefed up its delivery network in other ways: It has a fleet of cargo planes it calls “Prime Air,” announced last year that it was building an air cargo hub in Kentucky and pays people as much as $25 an hour to deliver packages with their cars through Amazon Flex.
Recently, the company has come under fire from President Donald Trump who tweeted that Amazon should pay the U.S. Postal Service more for shipping its packages. Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said the new program is not a response to Trump, but a way to make sure that the company can deliver its growing number of orders. “This is really about meeting growth for our future,” Clark said.
Through the program , Amazon said it can cost as little as $10,000 for someone to start the delivery business. Contractors that participate in the program will be able to lease blue vans with the Amazon logo stamped on it, buy Amazon uniforms for drivers and get support from Amazon to grow their business.
Contractors don’t have to lease the vans, but if they do, those vehicles can only be used to deliver Amazon packages, the company said. The contractor will be responsible for hiring delivery people, and Amazon would be the customer, paying the business to pick up packages from its 75 U.S. delivery centers and dropping them off at shoppers’ doorsteps. An Amazon representative declined to give details on how much it will pay for the deliveries.
Olaoluwa Abimbola, who was part of Amazon’s test of the program, said that the amount of packages Amazon needs delivered keeps his business busy. He’s hired 40 workers in five months.
“We don’t have to go make sales speeches,” Abimbola said. “There’s constant work, every day. All we have to do is show up.”
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Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday settled a seven-year patent dispute over Apple’s allegations that Samsung violated its patents by “slavishly” copying the design of the iPhone.
Terms of the settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, were not available.
In May, a U.S. jury awarded Apple $539 million, after Samsung had previously paid Apple $399 million to compensate for patent infringement. Samsung would need to make an additional payment to Apple of nearly $140 million if the verdict was upheld.
How much, if anything, Samsung must now pay Apple under Wednesday’s settlement could not immediately be learned. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the terms of the settlement but said Apple “cares deeply about design” and that “this case has always been about more than money.” A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment.
Apple and Samsung are rivals for the title of world’s largest smartphone maker, and the dollar sums involved in the decision are unlikely to have an impact on either’s bottom line. But the case has had a lasting impact on U.S. patent law.
After a loss at trial, Samsung appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 2016, the court sided unanimously with Samsung’s argument that a patent violator does not have to hand over the entire profit it made from stolen designs if those designs covered only certain portions of a product but not the entire object.
But when the case went back to lower court for trial this year, the jury sided with Apple’s argument that, in this specific case, Samsung’s profits were attributable to the design elements that violated Apple’s patents.
Michael Risch, a professor of patent law at Villanova University, said that because of the recent verdict the settlement likely called for Samsung to make an additional payment to Apple.
But he said there was no clear winner in the dispute, which involved hefty legal fees for both companies. While Apple scored a major public relations victory with an initial $1 billion verdict in 2012, Samsung also obtained rulings in its favor and avoided an injunction that would have blocked it from selling phones in the U.S. market, Risch said.
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