School closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic mean many parents are trying to come up with ways to educate and entertain their children at home. While there are many online options, some parents worry about too much screen time. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details on a couple of applications that combine the physical and digital so students learning at home get the best of both worlds.
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Technology and spirituality normally don’t go together. But at a recent conference in San Francisco there were tips on how to use technology to achieve more inner peace. Deana Mitchell went to see if it was possible.
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Chinese social video app TikTok named the initial members of a U.S.-focused content moderation committee to advise on its policies on Wednesday, as it faces U.S. scrutiny over data-sharing and censorship concerns.The council, which it announced in October, will meet every few months to give “unvarnished views” and advice on content moderation policies and evaluate the company’s actions.TikTok, owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, has made a series of bids to boost transparency as it faces scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over its data security practices and concerns it engages in censorship at the behest of the Chinese government.The company, which has been criticized after former guidelines to suppress users’ content based on their physical appearance were leaked to media outlets, has also come under pressure to curb misinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential election and during the coronavirus pandemic.A Reuters search found TikTok videos repeating debunked false claims, including that the coronavirus might have come from a bioweapons ‘super laboratory.’The company has said U.S. user data is stored in the United States and that China does not have jurisdiction over content outside China.TikTok said its ‘Content Advisory Council,’ will grow to about a dozen members.The council’s first meeting at the end of March will focus on topics around “platform integrity, including policies against misinformation and election interference.”The group will be chaired by Dawn Nunziato, a professor at George Washington University Law School and co-director of the Global Internet Freedom Project.The other six founding members include Hany Farid, an expert on deepfakes and digital image forensics, tech ethicist David Ryan Polgar, and experts on issues from child safety to voter information.Last week, TikTok announced it had set up a “transparency center” in Los Angeles to show regulators and the public how it how it reviews content.In November, the U.S. government launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co’s $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly. Two senators have also introduced a bill to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued phones.Facebook Inc is currently in the process of creating an independent oversight board to review appealed content decisions. In 2016, Twitter Inc formed a ‘Trust and Safety Council’ of groups and experts to provide advice.
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Technology and spirituality normally don’t go together. But at a recent conference in San Francisco there were tips on how to use technology to achieve more inner peace. Deana Mitchell went to see if it was possible.
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Technology and spirituality normally don’t go together. But at a recent conference in San Francisco there were tips on how to use technology to achieve more inner peace. Deana Mitchell went to see if it was possible.
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Motion capture technology is no longer just available for filmmakers and video game makers to transform human actors into other creatures. With the smartphone and other technologies, anyone can have their movements captured and analyzed to learn about how the body is moving for better physical performance and to avoid injuries.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details. 
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A virtual library housing censored articles from around the world has been created within the hugely popular video game Minecraft by press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).   Minecraft, with its signature pixelated graphics, enables players to build entire universes from Lego-like digital blocks, either alone or with others online.   RSF said it had put work by banned, exiled or killed journalists in five countries — Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Vietnam — on an open server, making it available for players to view despite local censorship laws.   “In these countries, where websites, blogs and free press in general are strictly limited, Minecraft is still accessible by everyone,” the group said in a press release.   “These articles are now available again within Minecraft, hidden from government surveillance technology inside a computer game. The books can be read by everyone on the server, but their content cannot be changed,” it said.   In May last year, Minecraft said 176 million copies of the game have been sold since its launch a decade ago.   The project, announced on Thursday to mark the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, is called the “Uncensored Library” and takes the form of a large neoclassical-style building in the game.   RSF said the library was growing, with more texts being added both in English and their original language.   Already available in the game are articles by slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and from Egyptian online newspaper Mada Masr, which has been blocked in the North African country since 2017. 
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The U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) department suffered a cyberattack Sunday night, according to news reports.The attack, first reported by Bloomberg, took place as the United States is enacted new measures to quell the spread of the novel coronavirus.Sources say the attack was geared to slowing down HHS operations related to the coronavirus, but failed to do so in a meaningful way, according to Bloomberg.The reported attack is still being investigated and there is not yet an indication of who or what may have been behind it.
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Apple Inc said late on Friday it will close all its retail stores, except those in Greater China, for the next two weeks to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission.”We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a letter posted on the company’s website.”In all of our offices, we are moving to flexible work arrangements worldwide outside of Greater China,” he added. “That means team members should work remotely if their job allows.”Apple reopened all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday.The company’s donations to the global coronavirus response, to help treat those who are sick and to help lessen the economic and community impacts, reached $15 million on Friday, Cook wrote in the letter.More than 138,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 5,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally of government announcements.
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Friday he is stepping down from the company’s board to focus on philanthropy.Gates was Microsoft’s CEO until 2000 and since then has gradually scaled back his involvement in the company he started with Paul Allen in 1975.He transitioned out of a day-to-day role in Microsoft in 2008 and served as chairman of the board until 2014.The billionaire announced Friday that he’s leaving the Microsoft board entirely as well as his seat on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate headed by fellow billionaire Warren Buffett.Gates said he plans to dedicate more time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He will also remain a technology adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other company leaders.
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The Pentagon is reconsidering its awarding of a major cloud computing contract to Microsoft after rival tech giant Amazon protested what it called a flawed bidding process.U.S. government lawyers said in a court filing this week that the Defense Department “wishes to reconsider its award decision” and take another look at how it evaluated technical aspects of the companies’ proposals to run the $10 billion computing project.The filing doesn’t address Amazon’s broader argument that the bidding was improperly influenced by President Donald Trump’s dislike of Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. Bezos owns The Washington Post, a news outlet with which Trump has often clashed.Amazon Web Services is a market leader in providing cloud computing services and had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The project will store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to improve communications with soldiers on the battlefield and use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities.Amazon sued the Pentagon after Microsoft won the contract in October. Work on the project has been halted as the lawsuit proceeds.The judge who is presiding over the bid protest in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims said earlier this month that Amazon’s challenge likely had merit on some technical grounds involving pricing.The Pentagon is asking her for 120 days to reconsider “certain aspects” of its decision. Amazon said in a statement it is pleased the government is taking correction action if it “fully insulates the re-evaluation from political influence and corrects the many issues affecting the initial flawed award.”Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said one possible outcome is that the Pentagon could end up splitting the award between Microsoft and Amazon, or with other vendors. That would move the project forward and get it out of the courts, he said.
 
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Pakistani authorities arrested a media mogul on corruption charges Thursday, in a decades-old case his representatives said was motivated by a desire to retaliate following the broadcast of several investigative programs.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman—editor-in-chief of the Jang Group, which includes some of Pakistan’s biggest newspapers and the Geo television network—over a land transaction dating back to 1986, accusing him of scoring illegal concessions in the purchase of plots in Lahore.

In a statement, Geo denied the allegations against Rehman, saying all taxes and legal requirements pertaining to the property purchase had been fulfilled.

Geo said the NAB only arrested Rehman because of investigative pieces his channels had conducted into the bureau.

Over the past 18 months the NAB has “sent our reporters, producers and editors—directly and indirectly—over a dozen threatening notices,” the statement read, adding that the bureau had said it would shut down “our channels… due to our reporting and our programs about NAB.”

“In its defense, NAB has in writing said it is a constitutionally protected institution that can’t be criticized,” the statement continued.

Pakistani media have been subjected to growing censorship and pressure following the election of Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2018.

The NAB was founded in 2000 by then military ruler Pervez Musharraf to go after corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businesspeople.

However, it came under fire after Khan was elected, with leading opposition parties accusing it of being used for political ends.

In recent years the space for dissent has shrunk further in Pakistan, with the government announcing a crackdown on social networks, and traditional media houses decrying pressure from authorities that they say has resulted in widespread self-censorship.

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