Facebook opens its new London office on Monday and said it would add 800 more jobs in the capital next year, underlining its commitment to Britain as the country prepares for Brexit.

The social network said more than half of the people working at the site in central London will focus on engineering, making it Facebook’s biggest engineering hub outside the United States.

It will also house Facebook’s first in-house start-up incubator, called LDN_LAB, designed to help kick start fledgling British digital businesses.

EMEA vice president Nicola Mendelsohn said Facebook was more committed than ever to the U.K. and supporting the growth of the country’s innovative start-ups.

“The U.K.’s flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem and international reputation for engineering excellence makes it one of the best places in the world to build a tech company,” she said.

“And we’ve built our company here – this country has been a huge part of Facebook’s story over the past decade, and I look forward to continuing our work to achieve our mission of bringing the world closer together.”

The new jobs, which come 10 years after the company set up its first London office, will take Facebook’s total British workforce to more than 2,300 by the end of 2018, it said.

Facebook, along with other U.S. digital giants including Google and Amazon, has not been deterred from expanding in London by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

It announced the new headquarters last year, shortly after Google said it was building a new hub in the city that will be able to accommodate more than 7,000 employees in total.

Facebook’s new office in the capital’s West End, designed by architect Frank Gehry, will house engineers, developers, marketing and sales teams working on products like Workplace, its business product which was built in London, it said.
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Fracking, at least in the U.S., has changed the country’s energy outlook. It has cut the cost of fossil fuels and turned the U.S. into a net exporter of fuel. But fracking hasn’t had the same effect in Britain, and geologists say the island nation’s unique geology means fracking will never solve their energy problems. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Toyota Motor Corporation recently unveiled a high-tech personal assistant at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. It mimics the moves of the user, which Toyota says may turn this machine into a caregiver for the elderly. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Britain’s cybersecurity agency has told government departments not to use antivirus software from Moscow-based firm Kaspersky Lab amid concerns about Russian snooping.

Ciaran Martin, head of the National Cyber Security Centre, said “Russia is acting against the U.K.’s national interest in cyberspace.”

In a letter dated Friday to civil service chiefs, he said Russia seeks “to target U.K. central government and the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure.” He advised that “a Russia-based provider should never be used” for systems that deal with issues related to national security.

The agency said it’s not advising the public at large against using Kaspersky’s popular antivirus products.

Martin says British authorities are holding talks with Kaspersky about developing checks to prevent the “transfer of U.K. data to the Russian state.”

Kaspersky has denied wrongdoing and says it doesn’t assist Russian cyberespionage efforts.

In September, the U.S. government barred federal agencies from using Kaspersky products because of concerns about the company’s ties to the Kremlin and Russian spy operations.

News reports have since linked Kaspersky software to an alleged theft of cybersecurity information from the U.S. National Security Agency.

Britain has issued increasingly strong warnings about Russia’s online activity. Martin said last month that Russian hackers had targeted the U.K.’s media, telecommunications and energy sectors in the past year.

U.S. authorities are investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and some British lawmakers have called for a similar probe into the U.K.’s European Union membership referendum.

Prime Minister Theresa May said last month that Russia was “weaponizing information” and meddling in elections to undermine the international order.
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The world’s largest lithium ion battery has begun providing electricity into the power grid in South Australia.  The project is a collaboration between the state government, American firm Tesla, and Neoen, a French energy company. 

Tesla boss Elon Musk, who was not in attendance at the switch-on, had boldly promised to build the battery in South Australia within 100 days – a pledge that has been fulfilled.  The 100-megawatt battery was officially activated Friday.  Musk has said it was three times more powerful than the world’s next biggest battery, and promised to deliver it for free had it not been built on schedule.

The South Australian state government hopes the project can prevent power outages because it can rapidly deploy electricity when it is most needed and reduce prices.

Last September, South Australia suffered a state-wide power outage when storms damaged the electricity network.

State premier Jay Weatherill believes the new battery will guarantee energy supplies.

“People were making fun of South Australia for its leadership in renewable energy and blaming it for the black-out,” said Weatherill. “That, of course, has now been debunked as a myth.  We now know that our leadership in renewable energy is not only leading the nation but leading the world, and we are more than happy to supply our beautiful renewable energy stored in a battery to help out the national electricity market.”

Located near Jamestown, about 200 kilometers north of Adelaide, the Tesla-built 100 megawatt lithium ion battery is connected to a wind farm run by French energy company Neoen.

The farm has 99 wind turbines and generates electricity that can be stored in the battery to serve 30,000 people for about an hour.  In a statement, the California-based firm said the project in South Australia showed “that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible”.

Critics of the battery have said the technology’s potential has been exaggerated.

The bulk of Australia’s electricity is still generated by coal, and the nation is one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouses gases.

 
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More than a century after being unearthed in Egypt, a nearly 2000-year-old mummy is giving scientists, museum curators and medical researchers a unique look at the ancient world. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From cellphones and cars, to televisions and refrigerators, more devices are being connected to the Internet.

This network of connected devices is called the “Internet of Things” (IoT). Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States, is planning to use the prevalence of these IoT devices as a testing ground for becoming a city of the future.

“By putting computers in parking meters, you already have computers in your car, and you have computers in the street lights. The ability to connect them to the Internet of Things allows a better way for your car to know where parking spots are available, allows better for it to communicate when street lights should turn green to maximize traffic flow,” said Ted Ross, chief information officer for the city of Los Angeles.

WATCH: Los Angeles About to Embark on a Smart City Experiment

What is I3? 

Los Angeles is a part of a consortium called “I3” that includes the University of Southern California (USC) and tech companies. This partnership is developing and will soon test an Internet of Things system. It aims to connect sensors placed around the city with other connected devices to make L.A. a smart city.

It is an endeavor that will also rely on residents’ participation, said Raman Abrol of Tech Mahindra. It is one of the I3 tech companies and will provide a platform for an online marketplace called Community Action Platform for Engagement or CAPE.

“Communities can collaborate with businesses and cities and share data in a manner where privacy’s enforced,” Abrol said.

In the online marketplace, neighborhoods could be shopping for a cheaper source of renewable energy or water filtration system. Companies can then compete for their business.

CAPE is just one of the many elements in the I3 system that will make up the Internet of Things network in Los Angeles.

“The I3 is an Internet of Things integrator. Through I3, we’re (Los Angeles) working with the University of Southern California and vendor partners to aggregate the data and give us a better ability to make decisions, decisions to maximize traffic flow, decisions to help reduce crime, decisions to help improve business prosperity,” Ross said.

Privacy, security concerns

As connected devices become more ubiquitous and the flow of personal data increases, privacy and security concerns will be more scrutinized.

“I think that this is one piece of a huge emerging problem, of figuring out how we protect privacy and limit government power in an era of rapidly expanding information availability and rapidly expanding data processing abilities. So it’s not just that there are more and more data points that are available for the government to look at. It is also that we are rapidly expanding our ability to analyze data,” said Stanford University Law School professor, David Alan Sklansky.

Sklansky has been closely following a U.S. Supreme Court case, Carpenter v. the United States, which examines whether police need a warrant to obtain cellphone location information. Sklansky said the decision from the case will impact other applications of technology and data in the modern age.

“The more powerful the technology, the more powerful the unintended consequences,” said Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

“How do you make sure to possibly regulate this because there has to be regulation so that they have legal and ethical issues taken into consideration as well,” Yortsos added.

Choose to connect

In Los Angeles, people will largely choose whether they want to provide data to the city.

“For someone who’s going to be able to let’s say, connect through their smart phone or through their vehicle, it’s extremely important that they agree and they consent to such matters,” Ross said.

While there was an initial forecast of a big demand in the Internet of Things, over time, the demand dropped, said Jerry Power, executive director of the USC Institute for Communication Technology Management.

“So we started looking at it and trying to understand why and what the problems were,” he said. “We looked at it from a perspective of privacy from the users’ standpoint. We realized privacy was an important issue. We realized that trust was an important issue, and we realized that incentives (was) an issue in the process as well.” 

Power continued, “what incentive has to go back to the users to get them to opt-in? The level of incentive depends on how much the user of the data, who wants the data, how much they disclose about what they’re going to do with the information and how well-trusted that person is.” 

“The exchange of data.” Power added, “if you think about it, it almost becomes like a form of currency, and it’s part of a transaction.”

The smart city experiment will begin at the University of Southern California and expand to the city of Los Angeles.

Some of what works from the program will be be made available for other cities to use.
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Most of us would be shocked and afraid if a doctor told us we needed brain surgery. But imagine how much calmer you’d be if you could get inside your skull to navigate the path the surgeon will take? Technology can now make that happen. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us to the Stanford Medical Center in Silicon Valley to see how virtual reality can get patients into their own heads.
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As the U.S. Supreme Court considers a case about privacy and technology, Los Angeles, California, is becoming a city that is ever more connected. From cell phones to televisions to refrigerators, more devices are being connected to the Internet. L.A. wants to use the prevalence of these “smart” devices to help the city run more efficiently, turning it into a city of the future. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details of the project and the security and privacy implications of a more connected city.
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The world’s biggest lithium-ion battery has plugged into an Australian state grid, delivering on a promise by Tesla Inc. chief executive Elon Musk.

Musk said he would build the 100-megawatt battery within 100 days of contracts for the project being signed at the end of September or hand it over to the South Australia state government for free.

South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said Friday the battery had begun dispatching power to the state grid Thursday, providing 70 megawatts as temperatures rose above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

The official launch came a little more than 60 days after the deal was signed. But crucially, it came on the first day of the Australian summer, the season when power usage soars because of the use of air conditioning.
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Tesla has switched on the world’s biggest lithium ion battery in Australia, meeting a promise by founder Elon Musk to build it within 100 days.

The billionaire inventor offered earlier this year to ensure the battery, which is connected to a wind farm, is built within 100 days or give it to the South Australia state government for free.

“South Australia is now leading the world in dispatchable renewable energy, delivered to homes and businesses 24/7,” South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said as the battery began dispatching power into the state power grid Friday.

Tesla built the system to help ease energy shortages in South Australia and the launch Friday coincided with the beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The 129-megawatt-hour battery, located in the rural town of Jamestown north of Adelaide, can provide electricity for more than 30,000 homes and can also boost supply during peak demand periods.

The battery stores energy generated by the neighboring Hornsdale Wind Farm, owned by French renewable company Neoen, which partnered with Tesla to build the battery.

The battery farm is expected to help tackle power shortages in the summer when Australia experiences its highest energy usage. South Australia has faced a series of blackouts in recent years from extreme hot weather and storms, raising questions about its energy security.

Tesla said it was hopeful the project could be a model for future ventures in renewable energy.

Australia still relies on coal for nearly two-thirds of its electricity and the debate to expand into renewable energy has become politically charged.

Supporters of the new lithium battery say it will help stabilize the energy grid in South Australia, which uses a high percentage of wind and solar energy, while opponents see it as more of a Hollywood gimmick than a real solution.

The cost of the battery has not been made public.
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Google, which prides itself on developing simple, intuitive software that seems to know what you want almost before you do, is finding itself in a very different world when it comes to its own phones and other gadgets.

Its new Pixel 2 phones, released in October, got high marks for their camera and design — at least until some users complained about “burned in” afterimages on their screens, a bluish tint, periodic clicking sounds and occasionally unresponsive touch commands.

Then the company’s new Home Mini smart speaker was caught always listening. Finally, its wireless “Pixel Buds” headset received savage reviews for a cheap look and feel, mediocre sound quality, and being difficult to set up and confusing to use.

In short, Google is re-learning an old adage in the technology business: Hardware is hard.

Growing pains

Google quickly extended the warranty on the Pixel 2 and tweaked software on the devices and its Home Mini in an attempt to fix the troublesome issues. (It hasn’t had much to say about the Pixel Buds.) Still, the problems served as a high-profile reminder of the company’s inexperience in making consumer electronics — a field where Apple has a 40-year head start.

But the company insists that its problems are being blown out of proportion.

“I believe, quite frankly, that Google has a spotlight on it,” Rick Osterloh, the executive in charge of the company’s hardware division, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Things that would normally be pretty minor issues are a bit amplified in today’s environment.”

Of course, Google has actively courted this spotlight. In 2016, Osterloh took the stage at a product event to tout the Pixel phone as “the best of hardware and software, designed and built by Google.” The company is also currently running a major ad campaign to draw attention to its gizmos for the holiday shopping season.

“Being a software company is an entirely different animal from being a hardware company,” said technology analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research. “The cultures are very different and there are more moving parts in hardware, so you have to learn along the way.”

Google has to realize a “fail fast” philosophy that worked well for free software products doesn’t work as well for smartphones that cost hundreds of dollars, said analyst Ross Rubin of Reticle Research.

Software “can be more forgiving of that development philosophy,” he said. “You can’t do that with atoms. You risk some backlash.”

Hardware full of Google

Google’s push into devices, which includes its own Wi-Fi routers and an older line of web-based notebook computers, has become a key strategy for the internet giant. It sees these gadgets as a way to ensure services such as search, maps, Gmail, and its voice-activated assistant remain prominent as personal computing expands on mobile devices and new smart gizmos in homes.

All those Google services are baked into Android, which powers more than 2 billion devices worldwide — but device makers such as Samsung that use the free software also can make adjustments to highlight their own products instead. And Apple only uses Google’s search engine as a built-in service on iPhones, and that’s only because Google pays billions of dollars annually for the access.

The Pixel phones and Home speakers also serve as a showcase and data-collection tool for the Google Assistant, its voice-activated digital concierge. The virtual assistant is key to Google’s artificial-intelligence efforts, aimed at making computers that constantly learn new things and eventually seem more human than machine.

Slow start

The Pixels, however, got off to a slow start. Google sold only 2.8 million of the first-generation model, accounting for about 0.1 percent of the market, according to the research firm International Data Corp.

Such a low sales volume makes it more difficult to acquire the highest-quality components for hardware, particularly when suppliers make it a priority to meet the demands of market leaders Apple and Samsung.

Apple is expected to sell between 230 million and 250 million iPhones during the fiscal year ending in September.

Like the Pixel 2s, the new iPhone X features an OLED screen to display more vibrant colors. And like the Pixel 2 XL, the iPhone X’s screen may also display a bluish tint and suffer “image retention” that makes it look like something has burned into the screen, by Apple’s own admission.

As part of its effort to catch up to Apple and Samsung, Google recently acquired more expertise in a $1.1 billion deal with device maker HTC that included the brought in 2,000 more smartphone engineers and certain hardware technologies.

But Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor believes many consumers will balk at paying a premium price for the Pixel 2 (prices start at $650), given its troubles. “It appears that the best way to get the most value from Google services is still to use them on another device,” Windsor said.
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