Tech enthusiasts may be drawn to HoloLens, the head-mounted holographic computer from Microsoft, but company executives say businesses also should consider how it can help improve their bottom line.

The wearable device allows users to interact with holograms using their gaze and simple hand gestures. Virtual interfaces are superimposed onto the immediate environment, combining the real world with a digital one. It’s a form of mixed reality that Microsoft executives say offers more than just entertainment value — it can be put to work in business scenarios.

“We’re seeing mixed reality broadly as a new kind of dimension, literally, of how we’re going to interact with information,” said Greg Sullivan, director of communications for the Windows and devices group at Microsoft.

Companies like German elevator maker Thyssenkrupp have begun experimenting with HoloLens. In a promotional video, an elevator repairman dons a HoloLens headset to begin a work order. The computer assesses the repair situation and displays holographic guidance, along with the ability to conference in an associate located remotely.

The associate can interact within the repair technician’s virtual workspace, “She can sit in her office in Germany and scale her expertise literally around the world … see what they’re seeing, guide them and even ink on their display,” Sullivan said.

WATCH: High-tech HoloLens in Action

Cirque de Soleil

Data visualization is another potential use for HoloLens.

“You can walk around the 3-dimensional representation of that data and it gives you powerful new insights, because as humans, we live in a 3-D world and we understand things better … if we interact with them in three dimensions,” Sullivan said.

That can be useful for creative industries. At Microsoft’s recent “Build” conference for software developers, set designers from Cirque de Soleil demonstrated how holographic versions of their theater sets allowed them to plan ahead. Team members wearing HoloLens could walk around and interact with true-to-scale holograms of their set designs, even inserting virtual avatars of real-life performers.

Architecture and engineering

Other industries that utilize 3-D modeling, like architecture and engineering, potentially can benefit from holographic computing, too. Trimble, a company specializing in GPS technologies, developed an application for HoloLens that allows architects and contractors to manipulate 3-D holographic designs and models in real-life environments, such as construction sites.

“You can have multiple people sharing an experience in mixed reality, look at a digital version of the project … and then make those changes in real time and all see them, and then go ahead and move right into production much, much quicker,” said Sullivan. “The efficiencies that are gained are really profound.”

Chris Silva, research director at Gartner, agrees. “3-D models in health care, extremely complex design documents … they’re a natural fit for something like HoloLens, where stepping into the data really can help get the job done better,” Silva said.

Big investment

But like many new technologies, HoloLens’ price tag initially may deter widespread adoption. The device retails for $3,000 for a developer edition and $5,000 for a business edition that comes bundled with enterprise applications.

“The biggest risk is making an investment in this technology and not having a plan for how it gets used,” Silva said. “These are devices that are two, maybe even three, times the cost of the average laptop, and much more expensive than a mobile device. They’re new, and therefore the organizations aren’t always sure how they’re going to use them.”

Silva recommends that companies take a pilot approach to the technology by introducing it to a single group, picking one process to improve upon and analyzing the subsequent results.

Microsoft’s long-time presence on office desktops means HoloLens eventually could transform everyday workspaces.

“When we look at the average worker model, where this type of technology starts literally replacing people’s monitors on their desks, somebody like Microsoft is well positioned to capture that,” Silva said. “They can plug HoloLens into the way they’re doing business today.”

Overall, Silva is excited for future developments in the mixed reality space.

“This is definitely the next frontier of mobile devices … this could be the next thing that replaces the desktop PC, the iPad, the smartphone in your pocket.”
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Facebook announced Tuesday that it now has more than 2 billion users.

Facebook, which was a social website available only to Harvard University students when it was launched in 2004, has recently been criticized for giving extremist groups an easy way to disseminate content over the internet.

CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed the “Facebook community” after Tuesday’s announcement and defended the social media website, saying that he was proud of the role his company was playing in connecting people around the world.

Facebook’s user base is bigger than the population of any single country, and of six of the seven continents. It represents more than a quarter of the world’s 7.5 billion people.

The company uses its huge size advantage to lure advertisers, offering them targeted marketing capabilities based on its data about users. The number of advertisers topped 5 million in April, the company said.

Facebook’s growth has increasingly come from outside the United States, Canada and Europe. Three years ago, those regions accounted for 38 percent of users; in the first quarter of this year, the figure was about 30 percent.

To increase penetration rates in developing nations, Facebook has introduced stripped-down versions of its apps that use less data, and it has been developing solar-powered drones to extend internet connectivity around the planet.

This report contains information from Reuters and AP.
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EU antitrust regulators fined Google $2.7 billion Tuesday for unfairly boosting search results for its online shopping service.

The European Union said Google began efforts in 2008 to boost the service now known as Google Shopping by making its results show up higher in search results, while demoting the search results of rival companies.

The result, according to regulators, was the most highly ranked rival services appeared on average on the fourth page of the results, an area few consumers ever reach.

EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google has created many innovative products, but in this case abused its market dominance in internet searches.

Google said it will review the EU decision as it considers an appeal to the decision.

“When you shop online, you want to find the products you are looking for quickly and easily. And advertisers want to promote those same products. That is why Google shows shopping ads, connecting our users with thousands of advertisers, large and small, in ways that are useful for both,” Kent Walker, a Google senior vice president, said in a statement.

Vestager said Google denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate, and denied European consumers a genuine choice of service.

In addition to the fine, Google is required to give rival comparison shopping services equal treatment, and the company must explain how it will accomplish that.

 
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The latest farm tools on the job in Pakistan are cell phones and satellites. A new program is using satellite data to estimate how much water a field needs, and then texting this information to farmers.

The hope is to prevent overwatering. A 2013 report from the Asian Development Bank called Pakistan “one of the most water-stressed countries in the world,” with a 30-day storage capacity, well below the recommended capacity of 1,000 days. The per capita water resources are on par with those of Syria, where drought has helped to fuel a civil war.

The water crisis is being driven by several factors: climate change, an expanding population, local mismanagement and a greater demand on farmers. It threatens to destabilize relations between Pakistan and India, who share the Indus River.

Turning off the spigot

Overwatering is costly for farmers trying to make ends meet. While Pakistan continues to suffer from chronic fuel shortages, farmers must use diesel motors to pump groundwater onto their fields. The lower the water table, the more fuel it takes to pump it to the surface.

And overwatering also reduces crop yields. But many older farmers learned their trade at a time when the water ran freely, and the risks of under-watering are so great that farmers still err on the side of too much irrigation. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR)  found that rice farmers were using more than three times as much water as they needed to.

The PCRWR reached out to the Sustainability, Satellites, Water, and Environment research group (SASWE) at the University of Washington, hoping to use science to inform irrigation choices.

Pakistan’s program started last spring with a 700-farmer pilot. As of January, 10,000 farmers were receiving messages like this one: “Dear farmer friend, we would like to inform you that the irrigation need for your banana crop was 2 inches during the past week.”

The messages come from a fully-automated system that does everything from downloading publicly available satellite data and distributing the text messages to using models to compute how much each farmer needs to irrigate.

A nationwide effort

PCRWR plans to scale up the program for use across the nation, and expects millions of farmers to participate. But first they are reviewing the system. They want to know how easy it is for farmers to use, and how many actually follow the irrigation advisories. And they want to know how accurate it is and how effective it is at saving farmers money.

They are collecting feedback from farmers over the phone.

“I haven’t seen any report yet,” Faisal Hossain of SASWE told VOA, but “we got a story last month from one of the farmers who was telling us how he was able to get, I think, for every acre 700 kilograms more of wheat than his neighbor.” The farmer credited the irrigation advisories.

There are challenges to expansion. They may need to do more work to persuade farmers to trust the technology. As more farmers use it on smaller farms in areas with more varied terrain, the satellite data resolution may not be precise enough for accurate measurements. And small farmers may not be comfortable relying on cell phone technology.

But for the most part, cell phones already are fairly ubiquitous in Pakistan. Last year, the Punjab government reported that it would be giving out 5 million smartphones to farmers.
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Social media giants Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft say they are forming a working group to remove terrorist content from their platforms.

The global technology companies announced Monday they are creating the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism which will help them share technical solutions to remove terrorist and extremist postings.

The companies are facing growing pressure from governments around the world to quickly remove hateful content. They have previously begun working together to create fingerprints for videos or pictures with extremist information that can be shared across social media platforms.

The tech firms say the new forum will also help them to commission research to fight terrorist speech as well as to work with counter-terrorism experts.

The forum will “formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between our companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the U.N.,” the companies said in a statement.  “The scope of our work will evolve over time as we will need to be responsive to the ever-evolving terrorist and extremist tactics.”

Last week, European heads of state called on tech companies to develop new technology to automatically detect and remove extremist content. Germany has proposed a new law that would fine social media firms up to $56 million if they do not quickly remove extremist postings.
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A SpaceX rocket carried 10 communications satellites into orbit from California on Sunday, two days after the company successfully launched a satellite from Florida.

The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off through low-lying fog at 1:25 p.m. PDT from Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles. It carried a second batch of new satellites for Iridium Communications, which is replacing its orbiting fleet with a next-generation constellation of satellites.

About 7 minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first-stage booster returned to earth and landed on a floating platform on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, while the rocket’s second stage continued to carry the satellites toward orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 on Friday launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and boosted a communications satellite for Bulgaria into orbit. Its first stage was recovered after landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.  

Billionaire Elon Musk, who founded Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, believes reusing rocket components will bring down the cost of space launches.  

Iridium plans to put in place 75 new satellites for its mobile voice and data communications system by mid-2018, requiring six more launches, all by SpaceX.

The $3 billion effort by the McLean, Virginia, company involves complex procedures to replace 66 operational satellites in use for many years. Some of the new satellites will be so-called on-orbit spares, or older satellites that remain in orbit on standby for use if the newer ones malfunction.

Swapping out and deorbiting some old satellites has already begun, Iridium CEO Matt Desch said in a pre-launch call with reporters.

Several old satellites have been moved into lower orbits to use up their remaining fuel and configure the solar panels for maximum drag so they will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up.

The first re-entry was believed to have occurred on June 11, Desch said.

“It’s hard to celebrate something like that, but these satellites have put in almost 20 years of service, and making sure we’ve cleaned up after ourselves as we deploy our new constellation is a priority,” he said.

The new satellites also carry payloads for joint-venture Aerion’s space-based, real-time tracking and surveillance of aircraft around the globe, which has implications for efficiency, economy and safety — especially in remote airspace over the oceans.

“This will truly be a revolutionary aspect of air-traffic control,” said Aireon CEO Don Thomas.

The technology, which requires aircraft to be equipped with certain equipment, is undergoing testing involving eight of the initial batch of Iridium NEXT satellites.

The Iridium NEXT program also will bring an end to so-called “Iridium flares,” which space enthusiasts have observed for years. The new satellites will not create visible flashes of reflected sunlight as they passed overhead.
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Governments around the world are using surveillance software that taps into individual smartphones, taking screenshots, reading email and tracking users’ movements, according to security experts and civil liberties groups.

The rise of so-called spyware comes as electronic communications have become more encrypted, frustrating law enforcement and governments’ surveillance efforts.

Over the past several years, private companies have begun selling advanced software that first appears as a text message with a link. When a person clicks on the link, the phone becomes infected. A third party can then read emails, take data and listen to audio, as well as track users’ movements.

The companies that sell this spyware exclusively to government agencies insist that the software must be used only in a legal manner, to fight crime and terrorism. However, security researchers and civil liberties groups contend that some governments use the programs to track human rights activists, journalists and others.

​A recent story in The New York Times focused on activists and journalists in Mexico who have received text messages and emails with links that, if clicked on, would infect their devices with spyware. In some cases, the messages appeared to come from legitimate sources, such as the U.S. Embassy.

The Mexican government says it does not target activists, journalists and others with spyware unless it has “prior judicial authorization.”

‘Lawful intercept’

In recent years, there’s been a rise in software sales in what is known as the “lawful intercept” market, said Mike Murray, vice president of security intelligence at Lookout, a mobile security company based in San Francisco, California.

Countries that can’t make their own surveillance software can now buy sophisticated surveillance tools, Murray said.

“What’s new is the enthusiasm [from] nation-states. … It’s a capability they always wished they had. Now they have it,” he added.

Lookout, which makes security software and services, receives monthly information from more than 100 million phones in 150 countries. It has seen spyware “in every kind of contentious place around the world,” Murray said.

Nation-state use

The use of nation-state spyware used to be limited to a handful of governments, said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group. But now that the price of the spyware has come down, countries can spend a few hundred thousand dollars to get the same capability.

Galperin spent three weeks in Mexico last year training activists. One tip she gives: Users who are not certain that a link in email or a text message is safe should forward it to a separate account, such as Google’s Gmail or Google Docs, to prevent infection.

“We should be very concerned,” Galperin said. “Surveillance malware is incredibly powerful. You have full control of the machine. You can see everything the user can see, and do everything the user can do.”
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From cashless payments to smartphone apps offering everything from taxis to take-out food – Africa’s digital revolution is gathering pace as average citizens take an active role in public discourse.

“You’re seeing a lot of the people changing the way they live their lives,” says Maria Sarungi, founder of the #ChangeTanzania platform. “And also creating for themselves wealth, jobs, opportunities. But also to engage politically on a very different level.”

Sarungi’s #ChangeTanzania platform began as a social media hashtag but ballooned into an online social movement with an app and website listing dozens of petitions and initiatives ranging from demands for security cameras at bus stops to a community beach clean.

“Before [it] used to be people sitting on the streets just talking a lot about politics,” says Sarungi. “But today they have become influencers. With the social media platforms, your voice can be amplified.”

In Uganda, the website Yogera, or ‘speak out,’ offers a platform for citizens to scrutinize government, complain about poor service or blow the whistle on corruption.

Kenya’s Mzalendo website styles itself as the ‘Eye on the Kenyan Parliament,’ profiling politicians, scrutinizing expenses and highlighting citizens’ rights.

But the new platforms for political engagement also risk a backlash.

“We are seeing governments trying to control as much as they can the virtual space,” says Sarungi.

The founder of whistleblowing website Jamii Forums last year fell afoul of Tanzania’s Cybercrimes Act and was charged with failing to disclose users’ data.

“We are not against the government, nor judges, nor the police forces,” says Maxence Melo, co-founder of Jamii Forums. “What we are against is the Cyber Crimes Act, which seems to oppress the people.”

Melo’s trial is due to take place next month.

Meanwhile, authorities in Cameroon cut off internet access for millions of people earlier this year following anti-government protests in English-speaking regions on the country. The French campaign group Internet without Borders warns that African governments are increasingly using internet blackouts to stifle political opposition.
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Ubiquitous drones and a faster Internet are coming sooner than you might think, and governments are staring into the unknown as they face the prospect of regulating the coming technological revolution in a way that fosters innovation, while at the same time protecting the often conflicting interests of consumers, entrepreneurs and the general public.

It’s Technology Week at the White House, and top industry executives huddled together Thursday with President Donald Trump to show off their wares and talk about what government’s role should be in regulating, and at the same time encouraging the pace of change. The discussion was all about “next generation” lightning-fast 5G wireless services and the exponential growth of drone-related technologies.

“This meeting comes at an important time because we’re on the precipice of moving to 5G and bringing about the Internet of Things,” said Mike Sievert, Chief Operating Officer of T-Mobile, a leading cellphone service provider. “The position that the government takes is going to determine whether or not America continues to lead in technology.”

Sievert was joined by a Who’s Who of top executives from venture capitalists and firms such as Sprint, AT&T, General Electric, Honeywell, Verizon, and Microsoft. Also attending were entrepreneurs from drone industry leaders like AirMap, which produces a platform for drone mapping that is in use at most U.S. airports; and Precision Hawk, which analyzes data gathered by advanced drone technology and sensors for the energy and agriculture industries.

Trump told the group he is committed to keeping the government out of the way to allow the tech companies to grow and prosper.

“[There have been] too many years of excessive government regulation,” Trump told the drone executives. “We’ve had regulation that’s been so bad, so out of line, that it’s really hurt our country. On a daily basis, we’re getting rid of regulation.”

Enabling innovation

Trump’s message did not appear to go down well with the entrepreneurs, however. Precision Hawk CEO Michael Chasen explained to the president the need for government to take a lead role in establishing rules and standards for the drone industry.

“This is the one industry where we need a little bit more regulation,” Chasen told Trump. “Because the default [present state of affairs] is limiting what drone technology can do and we need the FAA and other regulatory bodies who have the power to regulate [to open] up those opportunities so we can stay competitive with other countries.”

Trump said his government wants to provide an environment where innovators can dream big.

“We’re on the verge of new technological revolutions that could improve virtually every aspect of our lives, create vast new wealth for American workers and families and open bold new frontiers in science, medicine and communications,” said the president.

Drone industry experts say sales growth has been phenomenal.

“In the past eight months, nearly 850,000 drones were registered by the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration],” said Brett Velicovich, president of a Washington area drone firm and author of the new book Drone Warrior. “That compares to only 350,000 airplanes sold over the past 100 years.”

Drone concerns

Velicovich said his greatest worry is that governments such as the United States don’t seem to fully appreciate the potential security threat posed by the new generation of cheap, powerful drones in the hands of terrorists.

“Groups like ISIS see how cheap this technology is and how capable it is and how far they can fly away from the remote and the type of payloads you can put on it and so the security implications come from these people and organizations that would try and do us harm,” he told VOA. “They see how readily available the technology is, how cheap it is, and how far it’s come just in the last few months.”

The United States has long been a leader in the use of military drones, and a multi-billion-dollar drone sale is reported to be up for discussion early next week when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays a visit to the White House.

Reuters reports that India is pushing to buy a naval variant of the Predator drone, which manufacturer General Atomics says can be used for wide-area, long-endurance maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It can stay in the air for up to 27 hours and can fly at a maximum altitude of 15,000 meters.
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A rapidly-growing robotics industry in India is helping usher in automation technology in companies. But at a time when the country is struggling to create jobs for millions of young people, the World Bank has warned that automation could put 70 percent of India’s jobs at risk. Anjana Pasricha has this report from New Delhi.
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Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had won a $104 million U.S. Air Force contract to develop, produce and field a threat simulator to train combat aircrews to recognize and deal with rapidly evolving threats, such as surface-to-air missiles.

Tim Cahill, vice president of air and missile defense systems for Lockheed, said a number of other countries had already expressed interest in the  Advanced Radar Threat System Variant 2, and talks could begin soon on possible sales.

Cahill did not estimate the volume of possible future sales, but potential buyers included all countries that plan to operate the stealthy F-35 fighter jet in coming years.

“It’s a cool little program,” he said. “This is just the first tranche, but it has the potential to be a really big program for us.”

“As the capabilities on the ground from potential threat nations get stronger and better and more capable … it’s very important that the pilots need to train against a system that is actually a high-fidelity simulation of what they would fly against in combat,” he said.

The contract calls for development and delivery of a production-ready system and options to produce up to 20 more. Cahill said the truck-mounted system would emit signals that simulated those of current and evolving advanced surface-to-air threats.
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The Red Cross launched a smartphone app Tuesday to help refugees and migrants arriving in Italy access information and services, including medical, psychological and legal support.

The digital platform called “Virtual Volunteer” was unveiled on World Refugee Day as new data showed the number of refugees globally reached a record 22.5 million in 2016.

“People moving are often caught in a fog of poor information,” said Jagan Chapagain, head of programs and operations at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). “They don’t always know what services are available to them.

“This is a tool that will help give them a clearer view so that they can make informed decisions,” he said in a statement.

Italy is on the front line in the European migrant crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of people arrive in the continent by land and sea after fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Nearly 70,000 have arrived in Italy so far this year, mostly migrants from West Africa and Bangladesh, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Goods, services, tips

Virtual Volunteer uses geolocation to show users on a map where to access shelters, food banks, canteens, showers, clothes distribution points, maternal health centers, free legal assistance, dentists and language schools.

Refugees and migrants can also find advice on how to protect themselves from traffickers and can access information to help them locate family members if they have become separated.

The app — developed by the IFRC and tech giant IBM — has already been rolled out in Greece and Sweden, where it has been used by 30,000 people. “Information saves lives. Ensuring that people can access unbiased, factual information has a big impact,” Italian Red Cross President Francesco Rocca said in a statement.

Virtual Volunteer, also accessible as a website, offers information in multiple languages depending on what is most needed in each country. Languages in Italy include French, Arabic and Tigrinya, reflecting the high number of Eritrean arrivals, while those in Greece include Arabic, Farsi and Dari.

The IFRC plans to roll out the service in other countries affected by migration, including the Philippines and countries in West Africa.
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