LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A committee of the Los Angeles City Council has approved an environmental review exemption for a tunnel that Elon Musk wants to dig to test a novel underground transportation system....
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- In the wake of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, Maryland is close to enacting a law that some experts say would set a new standard for how states deal with foreign interference in local elections and increase overall transparency in online political ads....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A committee of the Los Angeles City Council has approved an environmental review exemption for a tunnel that Elon Musk wants to dig to test a novel underground transportation system....
Six billion cockroaches are being bred each year through artificial intelligence at a Chinese farm making "healing potions".
The idea of just getting up and leaving a boring work meeting is a dream to many of us and it seems, it is one shared by one of the world's leading tech tycoons.
A total of 1.5 billion international Facebook users will not be protected under GDPR.
The odd jobs marketplace has been investigating a "cyber-security incident".
TalkTalk, Vodafone and BT drew the most complaints for their services, the regulator says.
The C-Thru lens uses augmented reality to improve firefighters’ sight in poor visibility.
Nasa's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Tess) searches for new planets.
PHOENIX (AP) -- The public education uprisings that began in West Virginia and spread to Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky share similar origin stories....
PHOENIX (AP) -- The public education uprisings that began in West Virginia and spread to Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky share similar origin stories....
PHOENIX (AP) -- The public education uprisings that began in West Virginia and spread to Arizona, Oklahoma and Kentucky share similar origin stories....
NASA's Tess spacecraft has blasted off from Earth in a search for new planets that could support life.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Amazon has persuaded more than 100 million shoppers to subscribe to its Prime service that offers free two-day shipping and other perks that help bind people to the company and its ever-expanding empire....
India's youngest billionaire, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, says Indian firms are ready to challenge the West.
New research has said the growing use of emojis is ruining young people's English skills.
Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans.
The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of the British political consultancy, a firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani last week repeated his request to Zuckerberg to appear before the assembly, saying that sending a junior executive would not suffice.
EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who recently spoke to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, said Zuckerberg should heed the lawmakers’ call.
“This case is too important to treat as business as usual,” Jourova told an assembly of lawmakers.
“I advised Sheryl Sandberg that Zuckerberg should accept the invitation from the European Parliament. (EU digital chief Andrius) Ansip refers to the invitation as a measure of rebuilding trust,” she said.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. Zuckerberg fielded 10 hours of questions over two days from nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers last week and emerged largely unscathed. He will meet Ansip in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Another European lawmaker Sophia in’t Veld echoed the call from her colleagues, saying that the Facebook CEO should do them the same courtesy.
“I think Zuckerberg would be well advised to appear at the Parliament out of respect for Europeans,” she said.
Lawmaker Viviane Reding, the architect of the EU’s landmark privacy law which will come into effect on May 25, giving Europeans more control over their online data, said the right laws would bring back trust among users.
The digital vandalism was spotted by a security researcher and has since been fixed.
Internet giants failed to predict the data privacy issues that have rocked companies such as Facebook, Bill Gates has said.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- Microsoft co-founder's mission to locate sunken warships in the South Pacific has chalked up another victory with the discovery of the USS Helena nearly 75 years after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in the waters off the Solomon Islands, reviving stories of the battle-tested ship's endurance and the nearly unbelievable survival story of 165 of the crewmen....
Iran's presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, state media reported Wednesday, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year.
Chief among those apps is Telegram, used by over 40 million Iranians for everything from benign conversations to commerce and political campaigning. Iranians using Telegram, which describes itself as an encrypted message service, helped spread the word about the protests in December and January.
Telegram channels run on behalf of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri were already shut down Wednesday.
A report on the website of Iran's state television broadcaster said the ban affected all public institutions. It was not clear if the ban applied to civil servants outside of work hours. The report did not elaborate on penalties for violating the ban.
Last month, officials said Iran would block Telegram for reasons of national security in response to the protests, which saw 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 reportedly arrested.
Authorities temporarily shut down Telegram during the protests, though many continued to access it through proxies and virtual private networks.
The move against Telegram suggests Iran may try to introduce its own government-approved, or "halal," version of the messaging app, something long demanded by hard-liners. Already, Iran heavily restricts internet access and blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.
Iran has said foreign messaging apps can get licenses from authorities to operate if they transfer their databases into the country. Privacy experts worry that could more easily expose users' private communications to government spying.
Khamenei, however, has stressed that invading people's privacy is religiously forbidden.
Iran's move also comes after a Russian court on Friday ordered Telegram to be blocked after the company refused to share its encryption data with authorities.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov responded to the ruling by writing on Twitter: "Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed."
The chief of the Russian communications watchdog acknowledged Wednesday that millions of unrelated IP addresses have been frozen in a so-far futile attempt to block a popular messaging app.
Telegram, the messaging app that was ordered to be blocked last week, was still available to users in Russia despite authorities' frantic attempts to hit it by blocking other services.
The row erupted after Telegram, which was developed by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, refused to hand its encryption keys to the intelligence agencies. The Russian government insists it needs them to pre-empt extremist attacks but Telegram dismissed the request as a breach of privacy.
Alexander Zharov, chief of the Federal Communications Agency, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily published Wednesday that Russia is blocking 18 networks that are used by Amazon and Google and which host sites that they believe Telegram is using to circumvent the ban.
Countless Russian businesses - from online language schools to car dealerships - reported that their web services were down because of the communication watchdog's moves to bloc networks.
Internet experts estimate that Russian authorities have blocked about 16 million IP addresses since Monday, affecting millions of Russian users and businesses.
In the interview, Zharov admitted that the authorities have been helplessly trying to block Telegram and had to shut down entire networks, some of which have over half a million IP addresses that are used by unrelated, "law-abiding companies," he said.
Russia's leading daily Vedomosti in Wednesday's editorial likened the communications watchdog's battle against Telegram, affecting millions of users of other web-services, to warfare.
"The large-scale indiscriminate blocking of foreign IP addresses in Russia in order to close the access to the messaging app Telegram is unprecedented and bears resemblance to carpet bombings," the editorial said.
Zharov also indicated that Facebook could be the next target for the government if it refuses to comply with Russian law.
Authorities previously insisted that Facebook store its Russian users' data in Russia but has not gone through with its threats to block Facebook if it refuses to comply.
Zharov said authorities will check before the end of the year if the company is complying with its demands and warned that if it does not, "then, obviously, the issue of blocking will arise."
Elsewhere in Moscow, a court on Wednesday sentenced a member of the punk collective Pussy Riot, who spent nearly two years in prison for a protest in Russia's main cathedral, to 100 hours of community work for a protest against the Telegram blocking. Maria Alekhina and a dozen activists were throwing paper planes outside the communications watchdog's office on Monday.
The first AI fairytale has been written by an algorithm, a company says - but are human authors at risk?
NEW YORK (AP) -- Amazon started Prime Day. Alibaba capitalized on Singles Day. Now another e-commerce company is hoping for success with an invented shopping holiday....
STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A man suspected of masterminding the theft of about 600 computers used to mine bitcoins and other virtual currencies has likely fled to Sweden after breaking out of a prison in Iceland, officials said Wednesday....
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's presidency has banned all government bodies from using foreign-based messaging apps to communicate with citizens, state media reported Wednesday, after economic protests organized through such apps shook the country earlier this year....
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian state TV says government bodies have been barred from using foreign messaging apps....
The man fled from Iceland to Sweden on a passenger plane reportedly also carrying the prime minister.
The rapidly changing value of crypto-currency has been turned into a mobile game.
Emoji is the fastest growing language in history - and it is ruining young people's English skills, research by YouTube has revealed.
Roblox and Fortnite enable players to talk to interact with each other via online chat.
Since 2000, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to the world's first robotic surgical system, almost 4,000 of these sophisticated machines have been deployed in operating suites around the world. Recognizing that the proficiency of the surgeons who use them can be subjective, a group of surgeons at the University of Southern California, in cooperation with the manufacturer Intuitive Research, is developing a system for more objective evaluation. VOA's George Putic reports.
In the midst of a privacy crisis, Facebook asks permission to expand use of facial recognition tech.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Los Angeles should consider legal action against Waze over complaints that the traffic navigation app is recklessly guiding motorists off thoroughfares and into residential neighborhoods in search of shorter or quicker routes, a city council member said Tuesday....
High resolution 3D scans of more than 25 historical sites from around the world are being released.
US retailer Wish.com is admonished by UK ad watchdog for the third time since November.
The Internet Watch Foundation found more than 78,000 website addresses with child abuse images in 2017.
MPs say it is "alarming" plans to improve cyber-security after the Wannacry attack have not been agreed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- San Francisco is ordering three companies that began renting motorized foot-pedal scooters in the city last month to stop operating until they can ensure riders are obeying state laws and that the devices are not a hazard to the public....
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- TaskRabbit says it's investigating a cybersecurity incident that has caused it to shut down its online on-demand services platform....
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- A prisoner in Iceland suspected of masterminding the theft of about 600 computers used to mine bitcoin has managed to escape custody and flee the remote North Atlantic nation on a passenger plane....
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