Feb. 4 is World Cancer Day, an annual opportunity to raise awareness of cancer and encourage its prevention, detection and treatment. In the area of detection, Faith Lapidus reports that researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland, are developing a blood test that screens for eight different types of cancer.
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Getting onto a bus with a driver may be a thing of the past someday. Already, a technology company in Sweden is trying out a driverless minibus in Stockholm. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us about it.
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As virtual reality becomes more popular, different types of 360-degree cameras are popping up for consumers. One that stands out from the crowd for its unique look and design are eye glasses with built-in cameras. Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently declared that artificial intelligence fueled by powerful computers was more important to humanity than fire or electricity. And yet the search giant increasingly faces a variety of messy people problems as well.

The company has vowed to employ thousands of human checkers just to catch rogue YouTube posters, Russian bots and other purveyors of unsavory content. It’s also on a buying spree to find office space for its burgeoning workforce in pricey Silicon Valley. 

For a company that built its success on using faceless algorithms to automate many human tasks, this focus on people presents something of a conundrum. Yet it’s also a necessary one as lawmakers ramp up the pressure on Google to deter foreign powers from abusing its platforms and its YouTube unit draws fire for offensive videos , particularly ones aimed at younger audiences.

In the latest quarter alone, Google parent Alphabet Inc. added 2,009 workers, for a total of 80,110. Over the last three years, it hired a net 2,245 people per quarter on average. That’s nearly 173 per week, or 25 people per day.

Some of the extra workers this year will come from its vow to have 10,000 workers across Google snooping out content policy violations that computers can’t catch on their own, representing “significant growth” in personnel.

Alphabet on Thursday reported a fourth-quarter loss of $3.02 billion, after reporting a profit in the same period a year earlier.

The Mountain View, California-based company said it had a loss of $4.35 per share, caused by provisions for U.S. tax changes enacted last year. Earnings, adjusted for pretax expenses, came to $9.70 per share.

The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $10.12 per share.

The internet search leader posted revenue of $32.32 billion in the period. After subtracting Alphabet’s advertising commissions, revenue was $25.87 billion, exceeding Street forecasts. Twelve analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $25.65 billion.

Alphabet shares were down 4 percent at $1,119.22 in after-hours trading.  
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Apple is making more money than ever, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough to keep everyone happy. Not with conspiracy theories swirling around Apple’s secret slowdown of older iPhones while a cloud of uncertainty looms over its high-priced iPhone X.

It’s a reality check for a company accustomed to an unflinchingly loyal customer base. Apple expected buyers to embrace the iPhone X as a revolutionary device worth its $1,000 price, but it appears many Apple fans aren’t impressed enough to ante up, especially with other recently released models selling for $200 to $300 less.

And not even the less expensive iPhone 8 line appears to be selling quite as well as analysts had expected, based on the numbers that came out Thursday in Apple’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report.

What’s more, consumers disillusioned with the slowdown of their devices may be even less inclined to upgrade. Apple said the slowdown was its effort to prevent unexpected crashes on phones with old batteries, and it’s now offering to replace those batteries for just $29. That $50 discount is available as part of Apple’s apology for not being more forthcoming about what it did.

“Once you get past all the enthusiasts who want the iPhone X, you get down to a lot of people who think $1,000 is a lot of money for a phone,” said analyst Bob O’Donnell of the research firm Technalysis. “We may be getting near the peak of the smartphone market, and that impacts everyone, including Apple.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone X has been selling even better than management anticipated, describing it as its top-selling model in every week since its release in early November. But Apple’s revenue forecast for the current quarter fell below analysts’ already diminished expectations, fueling fears that the early appetite for the iPhone X has quickly faded.

Those concerns are the primary reason Apple’s stock has fallen about 7 percent since hitting an all-time high two weeks ago. The shares ticked up $1.02 to $168.80 in extended trading after the quarterly report came out.
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If Nikola Tesla, the legendary genius who invented the electric induction motor were alive today, he would no doubt be disappointed. That’s because the majority of electric motors we produce today (including the one that powers his namesake 2017 Tesla Model S), remain fundamentally the same as the one he patented in 1887. So much for progress.  

The Stakes are Big

For those of us alive today, that’s not a good thing. Here’s why: half of all the electricity in the world is consumed by electric motors. Combined, these motors consume about 9,000 trillion watt hours (terawatts) of energy each year. Improving the energy efficiency of the world’s electric motors by just one tenth would save enough electricity to run the entire country of Japan for an entire year, dramatically reducing the world’s carbon footprint and cutting harmful CO2 emissions by nearly a billion tons. Now imagine if the technology to make electric motors nearly twice as efficient were already here.

Robert Catalan, founder and CEO of Focused Magnetics says it is. Wearing an impish smile that never seems to leave his face, Catalan looks more Buddhist monk than genius. But it is the belief for what his new invention can accomplish where this mild mannered engineer’s true motivation shines. Turns out, deep down, he just wants to save the planet.

The Solution

Intrigued, I agreed to meet Catalan in a quiet urban park just outside Washington, D.C.  There he unpacks a wooden crate revealing a tire-sized contraption that looks like something out of Star Gate SG-1. He says the prototype motor represents a breakthrough technology that effectively doubles the power and efficiency of any device that uses a conventional electric motor.  Before explaining how, he offered a primer on how conventional motors work:

“Electric motors have two basic elements.  One is the part that rotates (the ‘rotor’) and the other is the part that doesn’t move (the ‘stator’). But it’s really the space between the rotor and the stator (i.e. the air-gap) where the work of an electric motor takes place.” Because conventional electric motors use magnets and electromagnets with equal polarity (i.e. 50% north pole and 50% south pole), Catalan says half of the magnetic energy is always directed away from the air-gap, leading to poor utilization of available energy.

Who is Klaus Halbach?

Catalan’s quest to utilize available energy efficiently led him to investigate the work of Berkeley physicist Klaus Halbach. In 1987, Halbach discovered that by orienting permanent magnets a certain way, he could focus nearly all of the magnetic field to one side. In doing so, Halbach had discovered a way to create ‘near-monopole’ magnetic fields, meaning that approximately 97% of one pole is enhanced, while the other pole’s magnetic field is reduced to about 3%. The phenomenon is known as the “Halbach Array” (and even has its own Wikipedia page).

A handful of companies have successfully applied Halbach’s permanent magnet arrays to enhance the power of their rotors. But their electromagnetic stators remained unchanged. Unlike permanent magnets, electromagnets cannot be oriented in a Halbach sequence because the copper wires create a physical and energized barrier that prevents magnetic forces from combining to form a near-monopole field. Catalan says he has overcome that physical hurdle and was recently awarded three U.S. patents along with several international patents currently pending for the electromagnetic version of a Halbach array and its various applications in motors and generators.

Achieving Near Monopole Magnetic Fields

Catalan says conventional motors are a bit like incandescent bulbs. Like photons from a light source, electric motors wastefully radiate magnetic energy in all directions. Catalan says his motor is configured to act like a laser, focusing nearly all the magnetic energy exclusively towards the airgap to enhance power and efficiency. By harnessing this ‘near-monopole’ energy, Catalan says an electric vehicle using a production version of his new motor would travel nearly twice as far as a conventional motor on the same set of batteries.  Conversely, his motor in its final form would provide nearly twice as much power or torque as a conventional motor using exactly the same amount of energy.

There are other advantages. Halbach arrays don’t require the additional metal (known as back-iron) that conventional motors need to function. As a result, ‘Catalan motors’ are lighter.  Additionally, because the polarity of the patented electromagnetic array can be manipulated, both sides of his stator’s surfaces can be used. This opens up a multitude of potential applications.

Long Way to Go

As the founder of a clean energy startup, Catalan knows that he has a long way to go. But as a parent and a family man, he says the stakes for future generations are high. Like many who have seen climate change documentaries from former Vice President Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” or Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Before the Flood”, Catalan says failure is not an option.

A growing number of countries around the world agree. Norway, India, Britain, France and China are moving quickly to phase out internal combustion engines. And Swedish automaker Volvo recently announced plans to phase out all conventional gasoline powered vehicles. Why? Catalan says it’s because the world deserves a better future.

Asked whether his ‘near-monopole’ electric motor technology could become the new de facto standard for electric motors, Catalan replies with his Buddha-like grin, “If mankind is to overcome the threat of climate change, it has to.” Like the 15,000 signatories from the Union of Concerned Scientists recently proclaimed, the world as we know it is running short on time.

In the race to save the planet, Catalan’s super-efficient electric motor could have the potential to buy us a little more time.
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Shares of eBay hit an all-time high on Thursday after the e-commerce platform unveiled a plan to take more control of customer payments from long-standing partner PayPal, a move analysts said would help it compete better with Amazon.

Dutch fintech company Adyen will become eBay’s primary payments processor under the plan, which seeks to have more transactions conducted directly on eBay’s sites.

Analysts said that might bring in more revenue for eBay while lowering costs, adding to optimism from a strong holiday quarter for the e-commerce company.

“Moving away from PayPal, lowering the costs of selling products on the marketplace makes eBay a more significant competitor because it lowers the relative cost versus others including Amazon,” said D.A. Davidson &

Co’s analyst Tom Forte.

EBay is adapting to the likes of online crafts retailer Etsy Inc’s model by taking control of the payment process on its marketplaces from PayPal, Forte added.

“But to be clear, there will always be a place for PayPal on eBay. “it just will be less prominent,” said Forte.

Some analysts said they were surprised by eBay’s estimate of the benefits from taking payments intermediary service in-house. The company said it would add $500 million to operating profit after the PayPal deal expires in mid-2020.

Transactions through eBay account for roughly 13 percent of total payments processed by PayPal, whose shares sank more than 8 percent in response on Thursday.

PayPal might be able to fill the hole created by eBay thanks to its strong growth rate, although that is not certain at this point, BTIG analyst Mark Palmer said.

EBay’s backing for Adyen could turn the smaller payment processor into a “much more robust competitor” to PayPal over time, Palmer added.

Other analysts, however, said PayPal, which has been eBay’s preferred provider for the past 15 years and will remain a payment page option on the platform for the foreseeable future, had the scale to ride out the blow.

“Over time, given the recent agreements with Visa and MasterCard, PayPal will be able to scale and expand margins,” Wedbush Securities analysts said in a client note.

At least 13 Wall Street analysts raised their price targets on eBay’s shares.

EBay’s stock climbed 15 percent on Thursday, recording its biggest one-day gain since 1998, the year of its market debut.

Reporting by Muvija M and Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru.
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Scientists and engineers around the world are slowly but steadily improving brain-controlled artificial limbs hoping to make them more affordable to patients. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – EPFL – say their lightweight artificial hand may someday help paraplegic patients be able to feed themselves. VOA’s George Putic explains.
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A California court has ruled that the popular dating app Tinder violated age discrimination laws by charging users 30 and older more than younger ones.

Allan Candelore of California sued the app company over the pricing of its Tinder Plus premium service. Tinder Plus costs $9.99 per month for users younger than 30, while those 30 and older are charged $19.99 per month. The features for Tinder Plus are identical for users regardless of age.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brian Currey ruled in favor of Allan Candelore, 33, of San Diego, saying Tinder’s pricing violates California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. That law “provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California.”

The company countered in court documents that it is “self-evident that people under 30 face financial challenges” and this “common knowledge provides a reasonable and non-arbitrary basis for Tinder to offer a discount to people under 30.”

“Why is Tinder allowed to get away with charging me more for the exact same product as any other 18-28 year old?” asked Reddit user jshrlzwrld02. “Nothing magically changes at age 29 on Tinder. I don’t get new features. I don’t get anything extra. So why is this not discrimination based on age/sex/religion/orientation?”

Tinder has faced similar accusations before. In 2015, Michael Manapol sued Tinder for age and gender discrimination, but a judge dismissed that claim, saying Manapol failed to show how he was harmed by the allegations. Also in 2015, Wired magazine took issue with Tinder’s pricing tiers, calling them “ageist.”

“The only time pricing should be staggered is if each step up in cost coincides with a step-up in service or concern,” said Robert Carbone, a digital marketer with the LinkedIn networking service.

“Tinder is a privately owned company and should be able to charge any amount they see fit to whoever wants to use their service. No one is forcing consumers to use Tinder. This ruling is an infringement of capitalistic practices,” said Katja Case, a math major at Iowa State University, on LinkedIn.

Tinder is popular among college-age people.
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This year’s flu season in the U.S. is the worst in 15 years and health officials predict there are weeks of sickness ahead. One company’s “smart thermometer” is tracking how the flu is spreading across the country in real time by gathering data every time someone takes a temperature. Michelle Quinn reports.
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When a child feels sick, one of the first things a parent does is reach for a thermometer.

That common act intrigued Inder Singh, a long-time health policy expert.

What if the thermometer could be a communication device – connecting people with information about illnesses going around and gathering real time data on diseases as they spread? 

That’s the idea behind Singh’s firm Kinsa, a health data company based in San Francisco that sells “smart” thermometers.

Worst flu season in years

With the U.S. in the midst of its worst flu season in years, Kinsa has been on the forefront of tracking the spread and severity of flu-like symptoms by region.

The company says its data is a close match to flu data tracked by the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whereas the CDC collects from state and regional reports, Kinsa can spot fever spikes in regions or even by cities, said Singh.

Fast and accurate information about how disease is spreading can make a difference during a health crisis.

“If you knew when and where a disease was starting, you could target the people who needed the treatment and potentially prevent pandemics and epidemics from occurring,” said Singh, founder and chief executive of Kinsa.

How it works

Kinsa thermometers, which range in price from $14.99 to $49.99, connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone app, which pose questions about a person’s symptoms. The customer’s personal information is private, the firm said.

With its thermometers in 500,000 households, Kinsa receives 25,000 temperature readings per day.

The company can’t diagnose illnesses or distinguish between different kinds of sicknesses. But from gathering information about individuals’ fevers and other symptoms, it can report where flu-like symptoms are peaking. In recent weeks, Missouri and Kansas have been the hardest hit, Kinsa said. 

Selling aggregated data 

Beyond selling thermometers and advertising on its app, Kinsa makes money by selling data – stripped of any personally identifiable information – to companies that want to know where and how illness is spreading – cough and cold companies, disinfectant manufacturers, orange juice sellers. Sales of toothbrushes spike during flu season, Singh says.

Companies “want to know when and where illness is striking on a general geolocation basis,” he said. Firms stock shelves with products and change marketing plans if they know how an illness is progressing.

Kinsa has launched a program in schools, where it gives away thermometers, so parents can learn about illness trends locally. The company is also starting a new initiative with some U.S. firms, which buy Kinsa thermometers for their employees. When an employee shows a fever, Kinsa can inform the person about available company benefits.

At the moment, Kinsa thermometers are sold just in the U.S. But the company plans to go global.

“Imagine a living breathing map where you can see where and when disease is spreading,” Singh said. “That’s what we want.”
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The annual Washington Auto Show is not the biggest or the most important convention of the year, but it still attracts a lot of attention, from enthusiasts and potential customers to automotive industry professionals.  Self-driving cars are still some time off, so the focus this year continues to be on fuel efficiency. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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