Silicon

Twitter has made it clear that it won’t ban Donald Trump from its service, whether the president follows its rules against harassment or not.

 

That’s no surprise: The president’s tweets draw attention to the struggling service, even if tweets mocking reporters and rivals undercut Twitter’s stated commitment to make the service a welcoming place.

 

The company has been cracking down on accounts that violate its terms, and Trump’s critics say he has broken Twitter’s rules multiple times.

 

Calls to ban Trump from Twitter, largely by liberal activists, writers and Twitter users, sounded even before he became president. They were renewed recently when the president posted a mock video of him “body slamming” a man whose face was covered by CNN logo. Groups such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press condemned the video as a threat against journalists (a White House aide said at the time that the tweet should not be seen as a threat).

 

The case for Trump

 

Twitter does ban harassment and hateful conduct, but there is a lot of wiggle room as to what constitutes such behavior. For instance, though it may be crude to tweet that a TV host was “bleeding badly from a face-lift,” they are at best in a gray area when it comes to violating Twitter terms.

 

When asked about Trump, Twitter says it doesn’t comment on individual accounts. But CEO Jack Dorsey told NBC in May that it’s “really important to hear directly from leadership” to hold people accountable and have conversations out in the open, not behind closed doors.

 

It also makes business sense: Trump’s tweets are constantly in headlines, calling attention to Twitter and, ideally, getting more users to sign up.

 

For now, it doesn’t appear to be helping. On Thursday, Twitter said its monthly average user base in the April-June quarter grew 5 percent from the previous year to 328 million, but it was unchanged from the previous quarter. Twitter’s stock fell more than 9 percent to $17.75 in pre-market trading Thursday after the numbers came out.

 

Twitter has never turned a profit. On Thursday, the San Francisco-based company reported a second-quarter loss of $116 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with a loss of $107 million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier.

 

Revenue declined 5 percent to $574 million from $602 million, inching past Wall Street’s muted expectations.

 

Important tweets

 

Free speech advocates agree it’s better for Trump to stay.

 

Emma Llanso, director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Free Expression Project, said Trump’s tweets are “very clearly politically relevant speech” and are even being cited in court cases challenging the president’s policies. For example, a U.S. appeals court used Trump’s tweets in June to block his travel ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries.

 

Llanso said it’s understandable why there has been “so much pressure” on social media platforms to crack down on harassment. Long before Trump was elected, users and online safety advocates called on Twitter to do something about abuse on its service.

 

But when it comes to the president’s outsized presence on Twitter, she’d rather have a private company avoid deciding what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Rather, she said, “we should be looking to the instruments of our democracy as the appropriate place to hold the president accountable.”

 

Surviving the crackdown

 

Twitter appears to agree. Earlier this month, the company announced that it is now taking some action, including suspensions, on 10 times the number of abusive accounts than it did a year ago (though it did not give a number). Trump, of course, was not in trouble.

 

In June, the president defended his use of social media, tweeting that the mainstream media doesn’t want him to get his “honest and unfiltered message out.” The White House did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Thursday morning.

 

It works both ways

 

Twitter provides a platform for the president to interact with the world directly, without intermediaries such as the news media. But if it’s important for people to hear directly from Trump, free speech advocates say, it’s also important for Trump to listen – and to allow people to see his messages.

 

His blocking of individual users on the service is the subject of a lawsuit .

 

Comedian Dana Goldberg, who says she has been blocked by the president but is not part of the lawsuit, likened it to him “giving the State of the Union and blocking out the TV sets of people who voted for (Hillary) Clinton.”

 

Her offense? Goldberg, who has about 7,680 followers compared with Trump’s 34.6 million, said it was her tweet calling Trump “a sad man” after he wished Sen. John McCain well following a cancer diagnosis, despite deriding McCain’s war record before.

 

“The fact that I was blocked by the president of the United States, it’s insane,” she said.
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A construction permit should be granted for a giant telescope planned for a Hawaii mountain summit that some consider sacred, a hearings officer recommended Wednesday.

Retired judge Riki May Amano, who is overseeing contested-case hearings for the Thirty Meter Telescope, had been weighing facts in the case since June, after hearing oftentimes emotional testimony that spanned 44 days.

The $1.4 billion project has divided those who believe the telescope will desecrate land atop Mauna Kea held sacred by some Native Hawaiians and those who believe it will provide Hawaii with economic and educational opportunities.

Many more hurdles

This isn’t the final say on whether the embattled project will proceed.

Now that Amano has issued her proposed decision and order, the state land board will set a deadline for telescope opponents and permit applicants to file arguments against her recommendations. The board will later hold a hearing and then make the final decision on the project’s conservation district use permit.

Gov. David Ige said his office was reviewing the conditions Amano put on her recommendation, including that employees attend mandatory cultural and natural resources training and that employment opportunities be filled locally “to the greatest extent possible.”

“Regardless of the (land board’s) ultimate decision, I support the co-existence of astronomy and culture on Mauna Kea along with better management of the mountain,” Ige said in a statement.

This second round of contested-case hearings was necessary after the state Supreme Court invalidated an earlier permit issued by the board.

The telescope’s board of directors held public meetings before selecting Mauna Kea as the preferred site in 2009. In 2011, opponents requested so-called contested-case hearings before the state land board approved a permit to build on conservation land. The hearings were held, and the permit was upheld. Opponents then sued. In December 2015, the state Supreme Court revoked the permit, ruling the land board’s approval process was flawed. That meant the application process needed to be redone, requiring a new hearing.

‘Far from done’

Telescope officials didn’t immediately comment on Amano’s recommendation. They have said they plan to build it in the Canary Islands if they can’t build in Hawaii.

Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the leaders fighting against the telescope, said she’s disappointed but not surprised.

“They’re far from done,” she said. “They still have to go before the board. We still have the right of appeal — before anyone can even begin to contemplate any action or earth-moving on Mauna Kea.”
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The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is boosting security measures by requiring any carry-on electronics larger than a cellphone to be screened separately at U.S. airports.

Security officers will ask travelers to take all larger devices out of their bags and put them in a bin by themselves, similar to the screening of most travelers’ laptops, TSA announced Wednesday.

‘An increased threat’

TSA cited an “an increased threat to aviation security” as the reason for the move. The change will not apply to PreCheck lanes.

The new rule eliminates one benefit of leaving laptops at home and traveling with a tablet. In the past, travelers weren’t required to fish out those smaller  electronics from their carry-on bags to be X-rayed.  

In May, the TSA said it was going to test additional screening measures for tablets at 10 U.S. airports. That pilot program was successful and the agency said it planned to expand the rules nationwide “during the weeks and months ahead.”

Worried about laptops

Airlines for America, a trade group representing American, Alaska, Atlas, Federal Express, Hawaiian JetBlue, Southwest, United and UPS airlines “remain committed to working collaboratively with DHS officials to strike the appropriate balance of maintaining the efficiency of the system, while ensuring the highest levels of security are in place.”

The threat of terrorists hiding explosives in laptops prompted the Department of Homeland Security in March to ban electronics larger than cellphones in carry-on bags on direct flights of nine airlines at 10 Middle East airports to the U.S.  That ban has since been lifted as each of the airlines tightened its screening.

John Kelly, the secretary of Department of Homeland Security, then announced tighter security for all 180 airlines flying directly to the U.S. from 280 airports worldwide. The measures that went into effect July 19 applied to 325,000 passengers on 2,000 daily flights.
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Against a backdrop of cyberattacks that have grown into full-fledged sabotage, Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos is bringing a new message to hackers and security experts at the Black Hat conference.

In short: It’s time for hackers once known for relatively harmless mischief to shoulder responsibility for helping detect and prevent major attacks.

The Black Hat security gathering, starting Wednesday in Las Vegas, follows a series of attacks and data breaches that have paralyzed hospitals, disrupted commerce, caused blackouts and interfered with national elections.

Stamos, a keynote speaker, is calling for more emphasis on defense — and basic digital hygiene — over the thrilling hunt for undiscovered vulnerabilities.

Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo, which last year disclosed breaches of more than a billion user accounts.
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Facebook Inc (FB.O) will provide initial funding for a nonprofit organization that aims to help protect political parties, voting systems and information providers from hackers and propaganda attacks, the world’s largest social network said on Wednesday.

The initiative, dubbed Defending Digital Democracy, is led by the former campaign chairs for Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney, and will initially be based at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, which announced the project last week.

Facebook said it hoped additional participants would turn it into a freestanding information-sharing center controlled by its members. Facebook, with 2 billion monthly users, bills itself as a vehicle for political debate and education, but was also used as a major platform to spread fake news and propaganda during the U.S. presidential race.

Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos announced the company’s backing at the opening of the Black Hat information security conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday. The event, named after the term for malicious hackers, is aimed mainly at corporate and government security professionals.

Stamos declined to say how much money the Facebook would spend.

“Right now we are the founding sponsor, but we are in discussions with other tech organizations,” Stamos said in an interview before the speech. “The goal for our money specifically is to help build a standalone ISAO (Information Sharing and Analysis Organization) that pulls in all the different groups that have some kind of vulnerability.”

The project will be managed by Eric Rosenbach, a former assistant secretary of defense who is co-director of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

“Most campaigns don’t have the tools right now to defend themselves from cyber attacks,” Clinton campaign chair Robby Mook said in an email. “Our initiative aims to fill that void and to help both Democratic and Republican campaigns defend themselves with greater information-sharing and security tools.”

“This is a forward-looking and bipartisan effort to tackle a real problem,” said 2012 Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades in an email.

Stamos also urged Black Hat attendees, many of whom are leery of government intrusion, to be more open-minded about helping law enforcement track criminals and terrorists.

Unthinking rejection of official requests could lead to legislation forcing companies to break their own encryption, Stamos warned.

Stamos said he would continue to argue against such steps.

“We’re not going to be effective unless we demonstrate that we have the same goals,” he said. “I want to present our position that strong cryptography is a critical part of building a safe, trustworthy future.”

 
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Twitter Inc heads toward its quarterly earnings report on Thursday with a stock that has risen more than 40 percent since April when much of Wall Street was ready to write off the tech company.

 

The company’s share price popped after its most recent earnings report in April, when Twitter disclosed better-than-expected user growth.

The number of people on Twitter will be in sharp focus on Thursday, when investors and analysts will see if it has kept up the 6 percent year-over-year growth in monthly active users it reported in April. Twitter said then that it had 328 million users.

“For a company that people thought six months ago was knocking on death’s door and going the way of Myspace and AOL, the double-digit rebound and the continued acceleration in users has really surprised investors,” BTIG Research analyst Richard Greenfield said.

Twitter shares closed on Tuesday at $19.97, nearly flat on the day but up 41.4 percent since its stock hit an intraday low of $14.12 on April 17.

The S&P 500 information technology index is up 10.6 percent since its April 17 closing price.

The surge of interest is a morale boost for Twitter, which has limped through past earnings announcements, struggled to keep a stable management and suffered unfavorable comparisons to its bigger and more profitable competitor Facebook Inc.

This month, Twitter had a streak of 12 days when its shares closed up.

The business is expected to report quarterly revenue of $536.6 million, according to a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S forecast average. That would be a drop of 10.9 percent from $602 million a year earlier.

What has investors upbeat, though, is the number of people on the service, which public figures including U.S. President Donald Trump use to blast out 140-character messages.

“People are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if they start to grow again,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.

Other positive signs cited by analysts include co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey purchasing additional shares and co-founder Biz Stone announcing in May his return to Twitter. Ex-banker Ned Segal starts next month as Twitter’s next chief financial officer.

Meanwhile, advertisers and investors have gotten used to Twitter existing as a niche platform, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.

 

 
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The Trump administration’s refusal to publicly accuse Russia and others in a wave of politically motivated hacking attacks is creating a policy vacuum that security experts fear will encourage more cyber warfare.

In the past three months, hackers broke into official websites in Qatar, helping to create a regional crisis; suspected North Korean-backed hackers closed down British hospitals with ransomware; and a cyber attack that researchers attribute to Russia deleted data on thousands of computers in the Ukraine.

Yet neither the United States nor the 29-member NATO military alliance have publicly blamed national governments for those attacks. President Donald Trump has also refused to accept conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections using cyber warfare methods to help the New York businessman win.

“The White House is currently embroiled in a cyber crisis of existential proportion, and for the moment probably just wants ‘cyber’ to go away, at least as it relates to politics,” said Kenneth Geers, a security researcher who until recently lived in Ukraine and works at NATO’s think tank on cyber defense. “This will have unfortunate side effects for international cyber security.”

Without calling out known perpetrators, more hacking attacks are inevitable, former officials said.

“I see no dynamics of deterrence,” said ex-White House cyber security officer Jason Healey, now at Columbia University.

The government retreat is underscored by the departure at the end of July of Chris Painter, the official responsible for coordinating U.S. diplomacy on cyber security. No replacement has been named and the future of the position in the State Department is in flux.

Some of Trump’s cyber officials have publicly highlighted a strategy to focus less on building global norms and more on bilateral agreements. Trump and the Kremlin have said Russia and the United States are in discussions on creating a cyber security group.

But at the big Black Hat and Def Con security conferences this week in Las Vegas the U.S. government will have an unusually light footprint. Past government speakers have included a head of the National Security Agency and senior Homeland Security officials.

A session featuring U.S. law enforcement officials discussing the purported theft by Russia of hundreds of millions of Yahoo account credentials was pulled at the last minute. A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the presentation was canceled because the Yahoo expert slated to talk, Deputy Assistant Director Eric Sporre, had been reassigned to run the Tampa FBI office.

The policy vacuum left by the United States is also affecting private security firms, which say they have grown more cautious in publicly attributing cyber attacks to nation-states lest they draw fire from the Trump administration.

Trump suggested in an April interview that the security firm CrowdStrike, which worked on investigating the election hack of the Democratic National Committee, might not be trustworthy because he was told it was controlled by a Ukrainian. It is not.

Cyber policy veterans are particularly alarmed about the lack of U.S. and NATO response to the destructive attack, dubbed NotPetya, in June that struck computers worldwide but was especially harmful for Ukraine, which is in armed conflict with Russia in the east of the country.

Cyber security experts, such as Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a government veteran who advised former President Barack Obama, believe Russia carried out the attack. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lewis and others predicted that Trump will not publicly accuse Russia, and NATO has only said it appears to be the work of a government agency somewhere.

“If you are not ringing alarm bells in an eloquent way, then I think you’re dropping the ball,” said retired CIA officer Daniel Hoffman, who worked on Russian issues. “When we fail to do enough, that just emboldens them.”

 

 

 
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Forty-eight years ago this July, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. That image transfixed a little Costa Rican girl as she watched on a neighbor’s TV.  VOA Vero Balderas explains how that moon walk launched Sandra Cauffman’s journey to a leadership role at the U.S. space agency.
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Origami – the ancient Japanese art of paper folding – can create cranes whose wings flap and frogs that jump. Engineers are taking the same idea and apply it to robotics. VOA’s Deborah Block reports.
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Silicon Valley baron Elon Musk insulted rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, escalating a tech wizard war of words over whether robots will become smart enough to kill their human creators.

“His understanding of the subject is limited,” Musk said in a tweet about the Facebook founder whose algorithms and other technology revolutionized social media and won 2 billion monthly active users.

Previously, Zuckerberg was asked about Musk’s views on the dangers of robots. In his response, Zuckerberg chided “naysayers” whose “doomsday scenarios” were “irresponsible.”

Zuckerberg and Musk, who is chief executive of electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, have been waging a debate at a distance over the past few days on the dangers of artificial intelligence. The two sharply disagree on whether tougher government regulation is needed for the technology.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the tweet, which Musk sent at 3:07 a.m. California time (1007 GMT) from his verified account, @elonmusk.

The term artificial intelligence, or AI, is used to describe machines with computer code that learns as it goes. The technology is becoming widely used in sectors such as healthcare, entertainment and banking.

Fear that machines could become so intelligent that they might rise up and overthrow humanity is a common theme in science fiction.

Musk told a gathering of U.S. governors this month that the potential dangers are not so imaginary, and that they should move to regulate AI.

“I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react, because it seems so ethereal,” Musk said, according to a video of the event.

“AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization,” he added.

On Sunday, Zuckerberg was streaming video live on Facebook while grilling brisket at home and answering viewers’ questions when someone asked him to weigh in on Musk’s comments.

“I’m really optimistic,” Zuckerberg countered, “and I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios, I don’t understand it. It’s really negative, and in some ways I actually think it’s pretty irresponsible.”

Zuckerberg said AI could result in better diagnoses of diseases and the elimination of car wrecks, and he said he did not see how “in good conscience” people could want to slow down the development of AI through regulation.
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A Wisconsin company is offering to microchip its employees, enabling them to open doors, log onto their computers and purchase break room snacks with a simple swipe of the hand.

Three Square Market, also known as 32M, says it expects about 50 employees to take advantage of the technology. The chips are the size of a grain of rice and will be implanted underneath the skin between the thumb and forefinger.

 

32M provides technology for the self-serve break room market. CEO Todd Westby says in a statement that he expects the chip technology to eventually be used in air travel, public transit and retail.

 

The River Falls-based company is partnering with BioHax International, of Sweden, which according to Three Square Market already has chipped many of its employees.

 

 

 

 
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In spite of an earlier denial, the Chinese government has tightened its grip on the Internet, stepping up efforts against netizens’ access to unsupervised connections, including those via virtual private networks (VPNs) halfway through its 14-month-long crackdown nationwide.

VPNs are third-party services that help bypass the so-called Great Firewall, installed by state censors to filter traffic between Chinese and overseas servers and block banned websites such as Google, Twitter and scores of international news media, including VOA.

“Some local services have been brought offline, some VPN apps no longer work, and the authorities are targeting other specific VPN providers,” Charlie Smith, a co-founder of Greatfire.org, said in an emailed reply to VOA.

The anti-censorship group’s earlier report showed that China blocked 135 of the world’s top 1,000 websites.

 

VPN crackdown

 

Following the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s announcement in January to clean up unsanctioned VPNs, the authorities were reported to have required the country’s three largest telecommunication firms — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom — to shut down what they call illegal networks by February 1.

Guangzhou Huoyun Information Technology Ltd., which operates in around 20 cities across China, was also said to have received a directive from the authorities to start blocking services beginning last Tuesday.

 

Yet the ministry on July 12 denied it has issued any such notice, accusing foreign media of having reported falsely.

 

“The object of the new regulation is those unauthorized enterprises and individuals who haven’t got the license to use VPNs… As for those foreign trade enterprises and multinational companies [which] need to get access to cross-border network, they can rent VPNs from those authorized carriers,” the ministry reiterated, according to local media.

 

Negative impact

 

The tightening move, however, has triggered worries and harsh criticism from online users and expatriates in China, as well as the country’s top-tier academics and researchers, some of whom say their work and competitiveness will be negatively impacted if they are cut off from the outside world.

While some find government-approved carriers acceptable, other users say they can’t possibly seek such carriers to get around the government’s great firewall.

 

Michael Qiao, formerly a journalism professor from Beijing Foreign Studies University, said he hasn’t been able to access free-of-charge VPNs over the past month and one of his two paid VPN services has also ceased to work.

Qiao speculated that the recent tightening may have something to do with the enactment of China’s Cybersecurity Law in June, increased traffic to fugitive tycoon Guo Wengui’s Twitter postings or the upcoming 19th party congress.

The Xi administration has long promoted the concept of “cyberspace sovereignty” — control of China’s own digital space.

Overall, Qiao finds the government’s long-term trend to stifle Internet freedom a violation of basic civil rights.

“It’s within [everyone’s] fundamental human rights to have access to information and communications. Some researchers or intellectuals may argue that their access to information shouldn’t be as restricted as ordinary people. That’ll be an act of discrimination. It’s not right,” he said.

 

Cat and mouse game

 

He added that Beijing can’t possibly win the cat and mouse game, as the precedent of the country’s ban on private satellite dishes has shown.

 

But Greatfire.org’s Smith isn’t as optimistic.

 

“This is a cat and mouse game until the cat gets tired and decides to eat the mouse, and at the moment I can hear Xi Jinping’s large round belly starting to grumble,” he said.

 

Qiao said the all-out ban aims to consolidate Xi’s grip on power while the country risks a brain drain, which will hurt its intellectual creativity and future technological and international trade development.

 

Already, Freedom House, a U.S.-based democracy and human rights non-profit group, has branded China as “the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom.”

 

Online complaints

 

While lodging complaints over the government’s abuse of internet freedom, many online users took to social media to seek help.

 

On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform, a user asked for pointers to VPNs that still work since he has problem connecting many of his usual VPNs.

“If I tell you here, those VPNs will soon cease to work,” one replied while another said jokingly “Are you trying to get our VPNs banned?”

 

Other users compared China’s ban to that in Russia, whose parliament passed a bill on Friday to outlaw VPNs and other proxy services, citing concerns about the spread of extremist materials.

 

“[China] joins hand with the Big Brother,” a Weibo user commented while another mocked “[Other than Russia], come to think of North Korea, suddenly I no longer feel so sad.”
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Animated chatter spills out from a corner of tech giant Google’s Nairobi offices as five Kenyan schoolgirls discuss their upcoming trip to California where they hope to win $15,000 for I-cut, an app to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The five teenagers, aged 15 to 17, are the only Africans selected to take part in this year’s international Technovation competition, where girls develop mobile apps to end problems in their communities.

“FGM is a big problem affecting girls worldwide and it is a problem we want to solve,” Stacy Owino told the Reuters, while snacking on chocolate on a break from boarding school before flying to the United States on Aug. 6.

“This whole experience will change our lives. Whether we win or not, our perspective of the world and the possibilities it has will change for the better.”

The five girls from Kenya’s western city of Kisumu call themselves the “Restorers” because they want to “restore hope to hopeless girls,” said Synthia Otieno, one of the team.

One in four Kenyan women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, even though it is illegal in the East African nation.

Although the girls’ Luo community does not practice FGM, they have friends who have been cut.

“We were very close, but after she was cut she never came back to school,” said Purity Achieng, describing a classmate who underwent FGM. “She was among the smartest girls I knew.”

I-cut connects girls at risk of FGM with rescue centers and gives legal and medical help to those who have been cut.

Its simple interface has five buttons — help, rescue, report, information on FGM, donate and feedback — offering users different services.

Kenya is one of the most technologically advanced countries in Africa, known for its pioneering mobile money transfer apps.

Technovation, which is sponsored by Google, Verizon and the United Nations, aims to teach girls the skills they need to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders.

“We just have to use this opportunity as a stepping stone to the next level,” said schoolgirl Ivy Akinyi who plans to become a computer programmer.
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The popularity of drones keeps growing, both for personal and commercial use. Instead of humans controlling them, researchers are working on ways to teach the unmanned vehicles how to navigate and avoid obstacles. In Switzerland, researchers are training drones to recognize their surroundings and build 3D maps. VOA’s Deborah Block explains how.
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A new eye in the sky will soon help scientists monitor environmental changes with frequent, high-resolution pictures of dozens of selected areas of the earth. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Afghanistan’s all-girl robotics team returned Saturday to Kabul after its successful trip to Washington for the FIRST Global Robotics Challenge, and several officials representing the presidential palace welcomed the girls home, calling them role models.

In the ceremony, Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive of the national unity government, said, “Despite the differences between the Afghan and other teams, Afghan girls were able to achieve a silver medal.”

Abdullah promised to facilitate their participation in future competitions.

Watch: Officials Welcome Home Afghan Girls Robotic Team in Kabul

Teenagers from around the world demonstrated their skills in designing, building and programming robotic devices at the competition. The annual international robotics event aims to build bridges between high school students with different backgrounds, languages, religions and customs, and to ignite in them a passion for the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

It took an intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials to allow the girls of the Afghan robotics team to receive visas after two rejections, letting them travel to the United States to participate in the robotics event.

Washington experience

One of their biggest surprises once in Washington? The tight security.

“The security that we see here is not in Herat, Afghanistan,” team member Kawsar Roshan told VOA in Washington during the last day of the competition.

“This is a peaceful city. People are not fighting each other, and it is a friendly environment,” said team member Fatima Qaderian.

Member Lida Azizi said she learned “unity and teamwork” at the robotics competition.

The team made it to Washington only a day before the event began. U.S. Embassy in Kabul had refused their initial visa applications, but were granted entry to the country after the intervention by high-level U.S. officials.

On Tuesday, Trump’s eldest daughter and a senior adviser, Ivanka Trump, visited he team and its sponsors. She had previously tweeted that she was looking forward to welcoming them.

Ayub Khawreen of VOA’s Afghan service contributed to this report.
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A network of satellites that can take high-resolution photos and colored videos of earth is planned. The images could be used in many ways. Videos could track moving vehicles and observe mining sites, while photos would make it possible for the construction of 3D models of the ground. The idea is to provide businesses and other groups with data to help them monitor certain activities or predict future events. VOA’s Deborah Block reports.
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Russia’s parliament passed a bill to outlaw the use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, and other Internet proxy services, citing concerns about the spread of extremist materials.

The State Duma on Friday unanimously passed a bill that would oblige Internet providers to block websites that offer VPN services. Many Russians use VPNs to access blocked content by routing connections through servers outside the country.

The lawmakers behind the bill argued that the move could help to enforce Russia’s ban on disseminating extremist content online.

The bill has to be approved at the upper chamber of parliament and signed by the president before it comes into effect.

Russian authorities have been cracking down on Internet freedoms in recent years. Among other things they want Internet companies to store privacy data on Russian servers.
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In some parts of the world, the race is on to find the next generation of clean fuel. In the Netherlands, a group of students called Team Fast has developed a unique secret catalyst that can produce hydrogen fuel that is cheaper and cleaner than gasoline. VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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Sears will begin selling its appliances on Amazon.com, including smart appliances that can be synced with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa.

The announcement Thursday sent shares of Sears soaring almost 11 percent. The tie-up with the internet behemoth could give shares of the storied retailer one of its biggest one-day percentage gains ever.

 

Sears, which also owns Kmart, said that its Kenmore Smart appliances will be fully integrated with Amazon’s Alexa, allowing users to control things like air conditioners through voice commands.

 

“The launch of Kenmore products on Amazon.com will significantly expand the distribution and availability of the Kenmore brand in the U.S.,” Sears Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert said in a company release.

Sears bleeding money?

Sears has struggled with weak sales for years, and announced more store closings earlier this month, partly due to the emergence of Amazon.com and other internet operators. It said in March that there was “substantial doubt” it could continue as a business after years of bleeding money.

 

Neil Saunders, managing director of research firm GlobalData Retail, said it’s a win for Sears, putting its products where customers are shopping.

Sales at existing Sears stores, a key measure of a retailer’s health, have been in rapid retreat for years.

 

“Other channels and routes to market are needed,” Saunders said.

Lifeline for Sears

Many saw the agreement with Amazon.com as a lifeline for Sears, with the volume of trading company shares enormous on Thursday.  

 

And the law of action-reaction is almost always visible when Amazon.com is in the mix.

 

Shares of other major retailers that sell appliances, Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe’s, fell between 4 percent and 6 percent.

Sears will handle after-sale services

 

The agreement with Seattle-based Amazon goes beyond the point of sale for Sears. Also part of the deal is delivery, installation and the service work that comes with product warranties, which will be provided by Sears Home Services.

 

While Saunders doesn’t think the deal represents a big shift for the retail sector, he said that it does illustrate how retailers must adapt and offer goods through multiple channels if they want to thrive. He believes others are already scrambling to do so.

 

Shares of Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, jumped 92 cents to close at $9.60.
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