Solar power is lighting up the night sky in Jordan and making life easier for the 20,000 Syrian refugees at a camp that once had no reliable source of electricity. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Andy Rubin, the co-creator of the Android mobile phone operating system, has launched a new company called Essential Products to sell a high-end smartphone and a home assistant device.

Palo Alto-based Essential said the new Essential Phone features an edge-to-edge screen, a titanium-and-ceramic case and dual cameras. The phone sells for $699 and will run the Android operating system. The price pits it against high-end smartphones including Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S8.

Essential also launched a household assistant called Home that looks like an angled hockey puck with a screen. The device will compete against the Amazon.com Echo and Alphabet’s Google Home speaker, which are powered by the Alexa and the Google Assistant voice services respectively.

Essential confirmed the Home device will let the user choose between Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. It was not immediately clear how Siri would be available on Essential. While Amazon and Google have released the software needed to embed their assistants on devices they do not make, Apple has not done so.

Essential declined to elaborate on how it plans to embed Siri on the device, and Apple declined to comment.

The Essential Home takes a page from Apple’s privacy play book. Like an iPhone, the Home will do much of the processing for voice and image recognition on the device itself rather than sending data to remote servers.

Essential also said the Home device will communicate with home appliances like lights and thermostats directly over the home network, rather than sending data to remote servers.

Apple’s HomeKit system takes similar approach. Rubin, Essential’s CEO, co-founded Android and sold it to Google in 2005. He ran Google’s mobile efforts until 2013 before a brief stint running the firm’s robotics division. He left Google in 2014 to focus on starting hardware companies. Investors in Essential include Chinese tech company Tencent Holdings, iPhone contract manufacturer Foxconn, Redpoint Ventures and Altimeter Capital.

Essential plans to announce a ship date for the devices in the next few weeks. The company did not say whether it planned to sell the phone directly to customers online or in physical stores.

Essential for the first time revealed its staff on its website, listing Wolfgang Muller as head of channel sales.

Muller previously ran North American retail operations for phone maker HTC, according to his LinkedIn profile, suggesting that Essential plans to sell phones through retail stores, carriers or both.
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Computer algorithms power much of modern life from our Facebook feeds to international stock exchanges. Could they help end malnutrition and hunger in Africa? The International Center for Tropical Agriculture thinks so.

The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture has spent the past four years developing the Nutrition Early Warning System, or NEWS.

The goal is to catch the subtle signs of a hunger crisis brewing in Africa as much as a year in advance.

CIAT says the system uses machine learning. As more information is fed into the system, the algorithms will get better at identifying patterns and trends. The system will get smarter.

Information Technology expert Andy Jarvis leads the project.

“The cutting edge side of this is really about bringing in streams of information from multiple sources and making sense of it. … But it is a huge volume of information and what it does, the novelty then, is making sense of that using things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and condensing it into simple messages,” he said.

Other nutrition surveillance systems exist, like FEWSnet, the Famine Early Warning System Network which was created in the mid-1980’s.

But CIAT says NEWS will be able to draw insights from a massive amount of diverse data enabling it to identify hunger risks faster than traditional methods.

“What is different about NEWS is that it pays attention to malnutrition, not just drought or famine, but the nutrition outcome that really matters, malnutrition especially in women and children. For the first time, we are saying these are the options way ahead of time. That gives policy makers an opportunity to really do what they intend to do which is make the lives of women and children better in Africa,” said Dr. Mercy Lung’aho, a CIAT nutrition expert.

While food emergencies like famine and drought grab headlines, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture says chronic malnutrition affects one in four people in Africa, taking a serious toll on economic growth and leaving them especially vulnerable in times of crisis.

Senior policy officer Olufunso Somorin is with the Africa Development Bank.

“In 2030, 13 years from now, Africa is going to have 200 million children below the age of five. Now once a child is stunted or misses a level of nourishment at that age, it affects that child psychologically, economically, socially. So a stunted child in the future is actually a stunted economy. So linking issues of nutrition at individual level to Africa’s development and transformation on a broader scale is important,” said Somorin.

CIAT says African governments will be able to access NEWS via “nutrition dashboards” where they can get risk assessments, alerts, and recommendations.

The system is expected to become operational in four African countries, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Nigeria, by year’s end.
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Computer algorithms power much of modern life from our Facebook feeds to international stock exchanges. Could they help end malnutrition and hunger in Africa? The International Center for Tropical Agriculture thinks so.

The International Center for Tropical Agriculture has spent the past four years developing the Nutrition Early Warning System, or NEWS.

The goal is to catch the subtle signs of a hunger crisis brewing in Africa as much as a year in advance.

CIAT says the system uses machine learning. As more information is fed into the system, the algorithms will get better at identifying patterns and trends. The system will get smarter.

Information Technology expert Andy Jarvis leads the project.

“The cutting edge side of this is really about bringing in streams of information from multiple sources and making sense of it. … But it is a huge volume of information and what it does, the novelty then, is making sense of that using things like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and condensing it into simple messages,” he said.

Other nutrition surveillance systems exist, like FEWSnet, the Famine Early Warning System Network which was created in the mid-1980s.

But CIAT says NEWS will be able to draw insights from a massive amount of diverse data enabling it to identify hunger risks faster than traditional methods.

“What is different about NEWS is that it pays attention to malnutrition, not just drought or famine, but the nutrition outcome that really matters, malnutrition especially in women and children. For the first time, we are saying these are the options way ahead of time. That gives policy makers an opportunity to really do what they intend to do which is make the lives of women and children better in Africa,” said Dr. Mercy Lung’aho, a CIAT nutrition expert.

While food emergencies like famine and drought grab headlines, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture says chronic malnutrition affects one in four people in Africa, taking a serious toll on economic growth and leaving them especially vulnerable in times of crisis.

Senior policy officer Olufunso Somorin is with the Africa Development Bank.

“In 2030, 13 years from now, Africa is going to have 200 million children below the age of five. Now once a child is stunted or misses a level of nourishment at that age, it affects that child psychologically, economically, socially. So a stunted child in the future is actually a stunted economy. So linking issues of nutrition at individual level to Africa’s development and transformation on a broader scale is important,” said Somorin.

CIAT says African governments will be able to access NEWS via “nutrition dashboards” where they can get risk assessments, alerts, and recommendations.

The system is expected to become operational in four African countries, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Nigeria, by year’s end.
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It took seven years for the deep-space probe Cassini to reach Saturn. Since 2005 it has been studying the planet and its moons, sending troves of photos and information. As the spacecraft reaches the end of its useful life, scientists will soon send it into Saturn’s atmosphere until it burns up. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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A budget proposal by the Trump administration in March outlines a commitment to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) effort to send astronauts to Mars. About $3.7 billion is earmarked for development of the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule, crucial parts of NASA’s effort to send humans deeper into space. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh explores the effort of contractors working on the project, united by the commitment to “boldly go” further into the final frontier.
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It’s probably not a good idea to decide what to eat based on how many calories your wearable fitness tracker says you’ve burned, according to a new study.

Researchers at Stanford University in California, who tested several popular fitness trackers on 60 volunteers, say the fitness trackers are good for measuring heart rate and counting steps, but they’re bad at measuring energy expenditure.

The volunteers, 29 men and 31 women, engaged in a variety of physical activities, including walking or running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike. Their heart rates were measured using a medical-grade electrocardiograph. Energy expenditure was determined by measuring the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the volunteers’ breath.

Six of the seven devices tested, which included the Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn and the Samsung Gear S2, did a good job measuring heart rate, coming within 5 percent of the accuracy of the electrocardiograph.

However, when it came to measuring calories burned, they did not do a very good job, with the most accurate tracker off by 27 percent. One was off by 93 percent.

“People are basing life decisions on the data provided by these devices,” said Euan Ashley, a professor of cardiovascular medicine, of genetics and of biomedical data science at Stanford, who added that consumer devices aren’t held to the same standards as medical devices.

Ashley was surprised by the results.

“The heart rate measurements performed far better than we expected,” he said. “But the energy expenditure measures were way off the mark. The magnitude of just how bad they were surprised me.”

The findings were published May 24 in the Journal of Personalized Medicine.
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A computer beat China’s top player of go, one of the last games machines have yet to master, for a second time Thursday in a competition authorities limited the Chinese public’s ability to see.

Ke Jie lost despite playing what Google’s AlphaGo indicated was the best game any opponent has played against it, said Demis Hassabis, founder of the company that developed the program.

AlphaGo defeated Ke, a 19-year-old prodigy, in their first game Tuesday during a forum organized by Google on artificial intelligence in Wuzhen, a town west of Shanghai. They play a final game Saturday.

AlphaGo previously defeated European and South Korean champions, surprising players who had expected it to be at least a decade before computers could master the game.

Internet users outside China could watch this week’s games live but Chinese censors blocked most mainland web users from seeing the Google site carrying the feed. None of China’s dozens of video sites carried the live broadcasts but a recording of Tuesday’s game was available the following night on one popular site, Youku.com.

State media reports on the games have been brief, possibly reflecting Beijing’s antipathy toward Google, which closed its China-based search engine in 2010 following a dispute over censorship and computer hacking. Google says 60 million people in China watched online when AlphaGo played South Korea’s go champion in March 2016.

The official response to the match, a major event for the worlds of go and artificial intelligence, reflects the conflict between the ruling Communist Party’s technology ambitions and its insistence on controlling what its public can see, hear and read.

The government encourages internet use for business and education but tries to block access to material considered subversive.

The possible reason for suppressing coverage while allowing Google to organize the event was unclear. Censorship orders to Chinese media are officially secret and government officials refuse to confirm whether online material is blocked.

On Thursday, AlphaGo “thought that Ke Jie played perfectly” for the first 50 moves, Hassabis said at a news conference.

“For the first roughly 100 moves, it is the closest game we have ever seen anyone play against the master version of AlphaGo,” he said.

Ke said the computer made unexpected moves after playing more methodically on Tuesday.

“From the perspective of human beings, it stretched a little bit and I was surprised at some points,” he said.

“I also thought that I was very close to winning the match in the middle,” Ke said. “I could feel my heart thumping. But maybe because I was too excited, I did some wrong or stupid moves. I guess that’s the biggest weak point of human beings.”

Go players take turns putting white or black stones on a rectangular grid with 361 intersections, trying to capture territory and each other’s pieces by surrounding them. The game is considered more difficult than chess for machines to master because the near-infinite number of possible positions requires intuition and flexibility.

This week’s games are taking place in a hall where Chinese leaders hold the annual World Internet Conference, an event attended by global internet companies.

China has the world’s biggest population of internet users, with some 730 million people online at the end of last year, according to government data.

Censors block access to social media and video-sharing websites such as Facebook and YouTube. Internet companies are required to employ teams of censors to watch social media and remove banned material.

Web surfers can get around online filters using virtual private networks, but Beijing has cracked down on use of those.
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In a San Francisco kitchen, chefs are re-creating everyday foods, such as eggs, mayonnaise, salad dressings and cookies from unconventional sources. 

“Playing with ingredients that are totally different in the food system is a lot like walking on the moon. We’re doing things no one has ever done before so it’s challenging,” said chef Chris Jones, who heads product development at the Hampton Creek technology company. 

While vegetarian foods have been around as long as there have been vegetarians, a new generation of companies, mostly from California, is using new technology to look for alternative protein sources that do not come from an animal. 

Hampton Creek 

Hampton Creek uses robotics to identify plants from around the world that can help re-create traditional foods substituting animal products with plant material. 

“We look into the different molecular characteristics and ultimately we’re able to identify relationships between what we see on a molecular level and whether it causes a cake to rise or what makes a mayo taste good or whether it binds a cookie together or makes a nice creamy butter,” said Hampton Creek founder Josh Tetrick. 

“It’s been really recent advances, both in screening methodologies as well as data science, that actually makes it possible,” said Jim Flatt, Hampton Creek’s chief of research and development.

Beyond burger 

In the lab of another company, Beyond Meat, scientists re-created a hamburger patty out of proteins from yellow peas, soy and beets for the look of blood. The scientists are breaking down the building blocks of meat and going into the plant kingdom to look for those same elements. They’re then rebuilding them into a new kind of food that uses plant-based protein to create a patty that looks just like a beef patty 

“What we’re doing is we’re taking plant matter. We’re running it through heating, cooling and pressure and that’s basically stitching together the proteins so they take on the fibrous texture of animal muscle,” said Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown 

These companies say plants hold the key to solving global food problems. 

“Whether it’s Asia, Africa, India, you’re seeing a very strong trend toward increasing animal protein consumption. I don’t think as a globe we can afford that,” Brown said.   

“The planet actually cannot work with the way we are consuming meat because we don’t have enough arable land to create enough cereals for all the animals that we need if we are to feed the world through meat,” said Jeremy Coller of Coller Capital, an investor of alternative protein foods. 

“Food security is an increasingly big issue, particularly because of climate change and some other issues. I think if you expand the number of tools we can use to feed people really well, you help to mitigate against these risks,” said Tetrick, who envisions bringing healthier, new plant-based foods, that are culturally relevant to local cuisines, to regions in the world such as Africa, where hunger is no stranger. 

For now, Beyond Meat’s patties are sold in Hong Kong and the U.S.  Hampton Creek’s mayonnaise, salad dressings and cookies can be found in Mexico, Hong Kong and U.S. grocery stories.  Both companies are trying to improve and expand their range of products. 

“How do we figure out a way to make food healthier, that’s more sustainable, to actually taste good that’s actually affordable for everyone,” explained Tetrick of his mission. 

Because of this greater global goal, those who work in this industry say the subject of alternative sources of protein is not a fad, but a trend that is here to stay.
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According to the National Institutes of Health, 17 percent of people around the world will be 65 or older by 2050. Currently it is just more than 8 percent. That expected flood of elderly people is prompting authorities to think about new ways to care for them, and no surprise, the internet is involved. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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An increasing number of museums and exhibition halls around the world use virtual reality technology to transport visitors to different spaces and different time. London’s Somerset House recently opened a virtually recreated exhibition staged 178 years ago, showing some of the earliest photographs, transporting users to the birth of the information age. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Instagram and Snapchat are the worst social media platform for young people’s mental health, and YouTube is the most positive, a new study suggests.

The ranking comes in a report from the British Royal Society for Public Health, which ranked the sites’ impact on young people.

“Social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, and is now so entrenched in the lives of young people that it is no longer possible to ignore it when talking about young people’s mental health issues,” said Shirley Cramer, the chief executive of the RSPH.

“It’s interesting to see Instagram and Snapchat ranking as the worst for mental health and well being, both platforms are very image-focused and it appears they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in young people.”

For the study, researchers surveyed about 1,500 young people age 14 to 24 from Britain, asking them to score the impact social media sites had on 14 “health and well-being” issues. Those include anxiety, depression, quality of sleep, body image, loneliness and real-world friendships and connections.

According the RSPH, YouTube was the most positive, followed by Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

“Social media has dramatically shifted how we socialize, communicate, and form relationships with each other,” said Laci Green, a professional health YouTuber with 1.5 million subscribers. “Its impact cannot be understated.”

She added that since Instagram and Facebook “present highly curated versions of the people we know and the world around us, it is easy for our perspective of reality to become distorted.”

To combat the negative influence of social media, the researchers recommend adding pop ups that warn users of heavy usage, which was supported by 71 percent of the people surveyed.

Another recommendation is for social media companies that can tell from a user’s post that they’re in distress could discretely point them toward help. That was supported by 80 percent of those surveyed. Finally, nearly 70 percent said social media sites should note when a photo has been manipulated.

“As the evidence grows that there may be potential harms from heavy use of social media, and as we upgrade the status of mental health within society, it is important that we have checks and balances in place to make social media less of a wild west when it comes to young people’s mental health and well being,” said Cramer. “We want to promote and encourage the many positive aspects of networking platforms and avoid a situation that leads to social media psychosis which may blight the lives of our young people.”
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