For Apple users worried about how much time they and their children spend posting photos and videos to their devices, help is on the way.

Apple has announced new controls that will allow parents to remotely limit the amount of time their offspring spend on iPhones and iPads, as well as hold up a mirror to their own online habits. The feature will be available in the next software update.

The move comes as the tech industry faces criticism that it has successfully made its smartphones and apps addictive with little thought for how people’s lives may be negatively affected by the distraction of constantly checking their devices.

Smartphone addiction

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about his own habits at an Apple developers conference this week. After trying out Apple’s new controls, he saw his usage in a new light.

“I thought I was fairly disciplined about this, and I was wrong,” he told CNN.

Earlier this year, major Apple shareholders wrote the company asking that it do more to help parents by providing tools to limit children’s screen time, while looking at how being online constantly affects customers’ mental health.

Apple appears to have listened to some of these concerns. It is introducing “Screen Time,” an app that will give users a weekly report about how much time they spend on their devices and on specific apps, as well as new ways to curb the habit.

Parents can give their children screen time allowances — a specific amount of time they can play a video game or check in with friends on apps such as Snapchat. Once they hit the limit, children will have to ask parents to increase the time allotment.

“We’re empowering people with the facts that will allow them to decide for themselves how they want to cut back,” said Cook.

Apple’s changes will be part of a software update typically released in September.

Apple isn’t the only company creating a digital baby sitter of sorts. Last month, Google announced it, too, was giving parents more tools to monitor their and their children’s usage. 

Customer privacy

In addition, Apple revealed new ways it would limit the sharing of customer information, perhaps in response to the firestorm directed at Facebook over how the social media giant mishandled customer data. It has long been part of Apple’s message that compared with fellow Silicon Valley companies, Apple cares the most about users’ privacy.

Apple customers might not notice some of the changes. They include limiting “fingerprinting,” which gives data collectors the ability to tell one Apple computer from another. Others will allow customers to actively decide whether to allow websites that track them on the Safari browser.

“We believe your private data should remain private,” said Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi.
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India is the global host of the 2018 World Environment Day. Highlighting its theme “Beat Plastic Pollution,” environmentalists will urge everyone, from those in government, industry as well as ordinary citizens, to reject the so-called ‘single-use plastic’ items which are slowly choking the planet’s waters and the animals that live in them. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Microsoft on Monday said it will buy software development platform GitHub, in a deal worth $7.5 billion which will blend two opposite corporate cultures.

The tech giant, based in Washington state, is a heavyweight in terms of software whose source codes are not openly available or modifiable, exactly the counter of GitHub’s philosophy.

Created in 2008, GitHub allows developers to cooperatively manage software and has more than 28 million users around the world.

“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said in a statement.

“We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.”

The veteran tech firm said it “will acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock.”

Subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review, the deal is expected to be finalized by the end of the year, Microsoft said in a statement on its website.

“GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos and will operate independently to provide an open platform for all developers in all industries,” Microsoft said.

“Developers will continue to be able to use the programing languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects — and will still be able to deploy their code to any operating system, any cloud and any device.”

Microsoft has begun moving towards an open source software culture, proposing for example Linux on its Windows Azure cloud service. It also started a training program with Linux and others.

Microsoft Corporate Vice President Nat Friedman, founder of Xamarin and an open source veteran, will become GitHub CEO.

GitHub’s current chief executive, Chris Wanstrath, will move to Microsoft as a technical fellow to work on strategic software initiatives.

Writing on The GitHub Blog, Wanstrath said that he “could have never imagined” news of such a merger, when open source and business were considered as different “as oil and water” a decade ago.

But he said Microsoft and GitHub have already collaborated on projects, and “their vision for the future closely matches our own.”

He said “both believe that software development needs to become easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and more open, so more people can become developers and existing developers can spend more time focusing on the unique problems they’re trying to solve.”

In April, Microsoft reported that its earnings rose 35 percent to $7.4 billion in the fiscal third quarter, with revenue up 16 percent to $26.8 billion.

Earnings were lifted by gains in its core cloud computing operations for business.

Microsoft said the GitHub acquisition is expected to have a negative impact on 2019 earnings but positive beginning in 2020.
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Facebook is pushing back against a media report saying that it provided extensive information about its users and their friends to third parties like phone makers.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Facebook struck data-sharing deals with at least 60 device makers, including Apple and Amazon, raising more concerns about what users give up when they use Facebook.

Facebook says it disagrees with reporting by the paper regarding software it rolled out 10 years ago that helped get Facebook on to devices like iPhones. Ime Archibong, vice president of product partnerships, said in blog post that Facebook has maintained tight control over the technology, known as application programming interfaces, or APIs, and that it is not aware of any abuse by the companies that it teamed with.

The Times report says Facebook allowed the companies access to the data of friends of the user without their explicit consent, a practice that landed the company in the crosshairs of Congress during the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Some device makers, according to The Times, could get personal information from those friends even though they were under the impression that they had barred any sharing if their data.

Archibong said that the companies it partnered with had signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook information from being used for any purpose other than to recreate Facebook-like experiences. And friends’ information was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends, he said.

The APIs now in question, according to Archibong, are very different from those used by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica in light of allegations that it had improperly harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook accounts and used the material in Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign. Cambridge Analytica has since been dissolved.

Facebook announced in April that it was winding down access to the device-integrated APIs because fewer people rely on them today. To date, Facebook has ended 22 such partnerships with technology companies.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress in April to answer questions about data the company provided to third parties about their users. Late last month, he testified before European Union lawmakers, where he apologized for the way the social network has been used to produce fake news, interfere in elections and sweep up people’s personal data.

Shares slipped less than 1 percent at the opening bell Monday.

 
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Three astronauts from the International Space Station have safely returned to Earth after completing a five-month mission. 

American Scott Tingle, Russian Anton Shkaplerov and Japan’s Norishige Kanai touched down at 12:39 UTC Sunday in Kazakhstan.

Shkaplerov, who was the first to be helped out of the Russian Soyuz space capsule, said, “We are a bit tired but happy with what we have accomplished and happy to be back on Earth. We are glad the weather is sunny.”

The trio will undergo medical tests in the Kazakh city of Karaganda before flying on to Moscow or Houston. 

Shkaplerov will return to Moscow with a football he brought back from the space station. He and another cosmonaut were filmed practicing with the ball aboard the ISS. The Russian news agency Tass reported that the ball will be used in the opening game of the World Cup later this month. 

Three astronauts, Americans Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold and Russian Oleg Artemyev, remain on the ISS. They will be joined by three others who will take off Wednesday from the Baikonur complex in Kazakhstan.
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An accident, a stroke, or a disease can leave someone paralyzed and unable to walk. That happens to more than 15 million people around the world each year.

But new technological advances and physical therapy could help some of them walk again.  

Among the most promising is the use of robotic exoskeletons, like one made by Ekso Bionics. It looks a bit like a backpack that straps on the user’s back and around the midsection. Robotic ‘legs’ complete with foot panels extend from either side of the pack and wrap around the patient’s legs. A video game-style controller attaches to the pack with a long cord.

“I’m going to be a robot!”

Lindsey Stoefen has been doing physical therapy with the exoskeleton for an hour a day, as she works to recover from the rare disorder that put her in a wheelchair in October.

The 17-year-old athlete climbed into a specially designed exoskeleton for the first time in late April, after becoming an in-patient at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Chicago.

She recalls being nervous. “I was like ‘Dang, I’m going to be a robot!’ I was scared at first.  I was like, ‘Am I going to like it?  Will I be okay?’  And once I got into it, I loved it.”

Lauren Bularzik, Lindsey’s physical therapist, says the exo robots help to accelerate the rehabilitation process. “For someone who takes a lot of energy to only walk a few feet, exo can get them up, can get them moving, it can supplement their movements, get that reciprocal pattern, encourage the correct motor planning.”

Beside speeding up recovery times, these robotic skeletons are especially helpful for those with paralysis, from spinal cord injuries and strokes. Using the machine can help some patients rewire their brains to use secondary muscles, so they can eventually walk again – without the device.

The downside

Scientists at the University of Notre Dame are leading the way with their work on wearable robots that allow patients to regain some or all of their mobility.  But Patrick Wensing, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, says exoskeletons have one big drawback.

“While existing exoskeletons are very powerful, they don’t understand what the user wants to do. So in order to transition between activities in daily life, you often have to press a button interface to tell the exoskeleton ‘I would like to stand up now.’”

Wensing and his team are collaborating with Ekso Bionics, a leading developer of wearable robots, to create a machine that can understand what its user wants to do without implanted sensors and complicated control panels.

The new three-year project funded by The National Science Foundation’s robotic initiative, hopes to achieve a more fluid, intuitive system.

Taylor Gambon has spent the last year analyzing data from exoskeleton users and comparing them to models of everyday walking. “What we’re seeing is that slow walking in general, whether in the exoskeleton or just the human, is much different from walking at a speed that you would choose naturally.”

Later this year, the team will travel to Ekso Bionics’ California headquarters, where they will work directly with exoskeletons to design programs that interact with users of various disabilities, so that more people like Lindsey Stoefen can get back on their feet again.
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Every year more than 15 million people worldwide suffer injuries and illnesses that leave them unable to walk according to the World Health Organization. But new technological advances and physical therapy could help some of them walk again. Among the most promising – is the use of robotic exoskeletons. As Erika Celeste reports, scientists at the University of Notre Dame are leading the way with their work on wearable robots that allow patients to regain some or all of their mobility.
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The government Papua New Guinea is considering blocking Facebook while it investigates how to best to regulate the social networking site. Critics say the move would be authoritarian.

Authorities in Papua New Guinea, or PNG, say Facebook has become a magnet for illegal and unsavory activity. The government is considering a temporary ban on the site while it works out the best way to regulate the social media platform.

Only about 10 percent of the nearly 7 million people in PNG use Facebook, but some officials have become increasingly agitated by content being posted online.They have asked experts to help in their search for the best way to impose controls on the social media site.

PNG Communications Minister, Sam Basil, says illegal use of Facebook must be curbed.

“Defamatory publications or the fake news, identity theft and, of course, unidentified Facebook users. Most of those users are the ones that are really breaching all the laws in terms of posting pornography materials and, of course, posting fake news,” he said.

But critics believe the government’s attempts to muzzle Facebook are an attack on free speech. They believe that ministers are motivated by a desire to silence those who expose official corruption and wrongdoing online.

Lawrence Stephens, the chairman of Transparency International PNG, says a temporary ban of Facebook would be a draconian move.

“To talk about stopping this for a month whilst someone, somewhere does an analysis of what we should be able to see sounds pretty authoritarian and pretty worrying,” said Stephens.

The move to temporarily ban Facebook comes as PNG prepares to host the 2018 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, leaders’ summit later this year.

PNG is a South Pacific nation and is Australia’s closest neighbor.
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Birds and airplanes share the sky, so inevitably collisions occur. But airport authorities try to limit those encounters because bird strikes cause costly damage to jet engines and can lead to crashes. Some airports employ trained dogs, others use loud noises to frighten birds away. A company in the Netherlands says its robotic predator Robird is much more efficient. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Facebook has faced backlash from customers, regulators and lawmakers over its handling of user data and its response to reports that foreign actors have used its service to upend elections. Now it’s Facebook shareholders’ turn to sound off at the company’s annual meeting in California. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Google says it will not extend a contract into next year to help the U.S. military analyze drone videos following complaints from company employees.

U.S. media reports said Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., told Google employees about the decision Friday. The development was first reported by tech publication Gizmodo.

Google employees say the tech giant will continue to work on the Maven Project until the contract ends next March. The military project uses artificial intelligence to increase defense capabilities, including using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze aerial drone imagery.

Thousands of Google employees signed a petition urging the company to cancel the contract, arguing that helping the military would violate Google’s motto of “Don’t be evil.”

Reuters reports that several hundred Google employees had planned to hold a public rally in San Francisco in July to protest the military contract.

Google had earlier defended the company’s involvement in the project saying it was limited to helping the military with nonoffensive tasks and said the project would help save lives.

Google says it will soon release new company guidelines related to the ethical uses of AI.
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Outside Facebook’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday, a lone protester paced on the sidewalk, carrying a U.S. flag and a sign that read “Zuckerberg destroys shareholder value.”

Above, a small plane pulled a banner that read “You Broke Democracy.”

Inside, Facebook shareholders offered both praise and criticism of the company’s leadership.

The social media giant has been in a constant spotlight over how foreign actors used its service to try to influence elections worldwide. It suffered a double blow when it was revealed that 87 million users’ information had gone to a political consulting firm without the users’ knowledge. 

The company continues to face inquiries from federal and state regulators about privacy and user data issues. And Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, recently testified in front of the European Parliament after appearing in front of Congress on the issues.

Shareholders sound off 

Facebook shareholders provided another sort of oversight. Many expressed their displeasure by selling shares in March after it was disclosed that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, obtained user data without their knowledge. Facebook shares have more than recovered since then, rising 2 percent Thursday to $191.78, which was up 26 percent from the company’s three-month low of $152 in March. 

“We didn’t do enough to see how people could abuse these tools,” Zuckerberg told the shareholders.

“The main thing we need to do right now is take a broader view of our responsibility to the community we serve,” he said.

Investors applauded Zuckerberg several times during the meeting. And they followed the company’s advice and appeared to vote down shareholder proposals, including one that would change the voting power of company shares. Currently, Zuckerberg, 34, and insiders hold a class of stock that gives them more than 60 percent of the voting power. 

Shareholders also appeared to vote against other proposals such as requiring the company to report on its gender pay gap and a content report that would show how the company enforces its terms of service worldwide. (Official results of the tally will be posted in the next several days.)

Despite the defeats, shareholder proposals are worthwhile, said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, an activist investment firm behind two proposals.

They “send a signal to management, send a signal to the board,” she said.

Diversity of ideas 

Amid the applause, there was also sharp criticism. 

“We contend that Facebook’s poor stewardship of user data is tantamount to a human rights violation,” said Christine Jantz, chief investment officer at Northstar Asset Management.

Another investor asked what Facebook was doing to understand political bias among its employees and how that affects decisions about content on the site.

Zuckerberg said the company was “committed to being a platform for all ideas.” 

The company ended the meeting, but not before a shareholder pleaded, “Engage with us on these issues. We are on the same team.” 

Company leaders said they would.

Deana Mitchell contributed to this report.
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