President Donald Trump concedes that some Apple Inc. products may become more expensive if his administration imposes “massive” additional tariffs on Chinese-made goods, but he says the tech company can fix the problem by moving production to the U.S.

“Start building new plants now. Exciting!” Trump said Saturday in a tweet aimed at the Cupertino, California, company.

This week, Apple said that a proposed additional round of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports would raise prices on some of its products, including the Apple Watch and the Mac mini.

The company is highly exposed to a trade war between the U.S. and China. It makes many of its products for the U.S. market in China, and it also sells gadgets including the iPhone in China, making them a potential target for Chinese retaliation against the Trump tariffs.

Trump tweeted Saturday that “Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China — but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive,” if the company made its products in the U.S. instead of China.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has not announced plans to move manufacturing from China to the U.S.

‘Tax on U.S. consumers’

In its letter this week to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Apple said that “because all tariffs ultimately show up as a tax on U.S. consumers, they will increase the cost of Apple products that our customers have come to rely on in their daily lives.”

The company said tariffs would hit “a wide range of Apple products,” including computers, watches, adapters, chargers and tools used in its U.S. manufacturing, repair and data centers. Apple said the tariffs would raise the cost of its U.S. operations and put it at a disadvantage to foreign rivals.

The White House has accused China of stealing U.S. intellectual property and forcing American companies to share their technology with Chinese companies. The tariffs would pressure China to stop that behavior, the administration has said. Apple said “it is difficult to see” how tariffs would advance the government’s goal.

The presidential tweet was the latest salvo in a dispute between the Trump administration and companies that fear tariffs will hurt their business.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of imports from China, mostly equipment and material used by manufacturers. CEO Tim Cook said in July that those measures had no effect on Apple. The company is concerned, however, about the Trump administration’s proposal to add 25 percent duties on another $200 billion in Chinese goods, including a wider assortment of consumer-related items.
…

The number of wearable technologies that use sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being – is on the rise. All of them – need an electric charge or a battery source to operate, but a handful of researchers are trying to take batteries out of the equation. At the Texas A&M University in College Station, researchers are doing just that – looking at ways to use our own body heat to power all those sensors. Elizabeth Lee takes a look at the emerging new technology.
…

There has been an increasing number of wearable technologies that have health sensors as medical tools to track a person’s well-being. Many of these devices need to be charged or are battery-powered. 

A handful of researchers want to take batteries out of the equation and instead, use waste body heat and convert that into useful electricity to power sensors. 

“The average person is something like an 80-watt light bulb,” said Jamie Grunlan, Texas A&M University’s Linda & Ralph Schmidt ’68 Professor in Mechanical Engineering.

Grunlan and his team of researchers are working on using the waste heat the body gives off and converting that into useful electricity. The idea is to create printable, paintable thermoelectric technology that looks like ink and can coat a wearable fabric, similar to dyeing colors onto cloth. Once a person wears the fabric, devices such as health sensors can be powered.

“Our coating coats every fiber within that textile, and so what’s drawing it is simply that textile needs to just be touching the heat source or be close enough to the heat source to be feeling the heat source,” Grunlan said. 

Military and sporting goods companies have applications for this type of technology because there is not a large battery pack worn on the body that could be a cause of injury if the person would fall.

“They would love to power health sensors off of body heat and then wirelessly transmit that data to wherever,” Grunlan explained. “You’d like to know if somebody had a concussion or was dehydrated or something like that while it’s happening in real time.”

As a person generates heat, the temperature outside is colder than what’s against the body. The temperature differential generates a voltage. 

The goal is to design technology that can get one volt or up to 10 percent efficiency and beyond. So, for example, a researcher would try to get eight watts from a person who is generating 80 watts.

The ingredients in this thermoelectric recipe include carbon nanotubes, polymers and a carbon material called graphene, which is a nanoparticle. 

Researchers are trying to perfect the recipe of this ink-like material. 

“The one voltage is realistic, but how much material do we need to get that one voltage because we need as little as possible?” said Carolyn Long, a Ph.D. graduate student at Texas A&M. 

“So, different polymers, different amounts of the multi-walled or double-walled nanotubes, adding the graphene, which order it needs to go in exactly to create the best pathway for the electrons for the thermoelectric material,” said Long of the various experiments she and her lab mates have conducted.

The aim is to create a product that can be mass produced. 

“It will happen. It’s not will it happen. It’s when. Is it a year, or is it five years?” Grunlan said.

That will depend on how much funding and manpower is available to make this technology a reality.
…

Twitter has permanently banned far-right media personality Alex Jones for violating its policy against “abusive behavior.”

Jones, who is known as a conspiracy theorist, has about 900,000 followers on Twitter. His Infowars website has hundreds of thousands of followers, as well.

Twitter accused Jones of violating its policy after he was seen on television berating and insulting a CNN reporter waiting to enter congressional hearings on social media policies.

Jones called the reporter a smiling “possum caught doing some really nasty stuff” and also made fun of his clothes.

Twitter had previously suspended Jones’ account, but now he is banned from posting on the social media site.

Jones has yet to comment.

Jones is one of the country’s most controversial media figures, known for saying the President George W. Bush White House was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He also called the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre a fake. Some of the parents of the murdered children are suing Jones.

The congressional hearings were focused on whether such social media sites as Google and Facebook are prepared against fake foreign accounts that may be aimed at influencing U.S. elections.

The hearings came just after President Donald Trump accused Google’s search engine of being biased against him.
…

Tennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world’s best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra help, in the form of artificial intelligence. Tina Trinh reports.
…

Tennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world’s best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra help, in the form of artificial intelligence. Tina Trinh reports.
…

Facebook and Twitter executives defended their efforts to prevent Russian meddling in U.S. midterm elections before congressional panels Wednesday. The social media companies’ efforts to provide assurances to lawmakers come amid warnings from internet researchers that Moscow still has active social media accounts aimed at influencing U.S. political discourse. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
…

Facebook and Twitter executives defended their efforts to prevent Russian meddling in U.S. midterm elections before congressional panels Wednesday. The social media companies’ efforts to provide assurances to lawmakers come amid warnings from internet researchers that Moscow still has active social media accounts aimed at influencing U.S. political discourse. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
…

Josh Russell works as a systems analyst and programmer at Indiana University, has two daughters, and exposes Russian internet trolls in his spare time.

Russell first became interested in the phenomenon of Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, when he noticed a large amount of misinformation distributed about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He noticed how many accounts spreading misinformation, ostensibly run by American activists, were, in fact, operating from abroad, and were linked up to now notorious Russian “troll farms.”

Today Russell collaborates with many American journalists in the fight against fake information on the internet.

Question: We recently learned that Russian hackers attacked some conservative U.S. organizations, the Hudson Institute, for example, and the International Republican Institute. What, in your opinion, is driving this?

Joshua Russell: Any organization that investigates Russian interference in U.S. politics is a potential target for these kinds of attacks.

Q: According to Microsoft, the attacks themselves failed.

JR: Yes. But the result is not what’s most important here. Hacker attacks and misinformation are being used to sow confusion and discord in our society.

Q: You noticed this all the way back in 2016, when the majority of Americans did not grasp this. How did you realize what was happening?

JR: I began to monitor the activity of fake activists online. For example, I found a group pretending to be a black activist group—but something was weird about it. If you track the activities of the individual members of such groups, you realize they are being coordinated. When you dig deeper, you understand that they are operated from abroad. Trolls often make mistakes—maybe their English will be suspect, or, for example, an Instagram tied to a particular account is filled with suspicious info. The whole tangle is unraveled when you tug at loose strings.

Q: How can an ordinary internet user spot a fake account?

JR: If you see dubious information being posted, look at where it may have originated. What’s the source, and who else is distributing this information? Follow the trail of clues these guys inevitably leave behind.

Q: It was reported that you’ve actually been threatened over your online activities before. Is this accurate?

JR: Yes. It got to the point that someone sent me pictures of mutilated corpses.

Q: Do you think it was Russian trolls or someone else?

JR: See, we have a lot of people right here in the States who do not want to believe that Kremlin interference is real. That’s where a lot of this aggression stems from.

Q: How do you respond to attempts at intimidation?

JR: I’m more of a liberal than a conservative, but I live in Indiana. This means that I have weapons at home. I have not been threatened for a while, but when it did happen, before I blocked someone, I’d send them a photo of my gun. It tends to have a sobering effect.

Q: So this is a case of you talking to these people in their own language?

JR: Yes, this is what you have to do. I used to be a bit of an internet troll myself, so I understand how trolling works, and the intended psychological effect. If you understand how it works, you know how to respond in an effective and yet tasteful way (laughs).

This interview originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
…

Josh Russell works as a systems analyst and programmer at Indiana University, has two daughters, and exposes Russian internet trolls in his spare time.

Russell first became interested in the phenomenon of Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, when he noticed a large amount of misinformation distributed about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. He noticed how many accounts spreading misinformation, ostensibly run by American activists, were, in fact, operating from abroad, and were linked up to now notorious Russian “troll farms.”

Today Russell collaborates with many American journalists in the fight against fake information on the internet.

Question: We recently learned that Russian hackers attacked some conservative U.S. organizations, the Hudson Institute, for example, and the International Republican Institute. What, in your opinion, is driving this?

Joshua Russell: Any organization that investigates Russian interference in U.S. politics is a potential target for these kinds of attacks.

Q: According to Microsoft, the attacks themselves failed.

JR: Yes. But the result is not what’s most important here. Hacker attacks and misinformation are being used to sow confusion and discord in our society.

Q: You noticed this all the way back in 2016, when the majority of Americans did not grasp this. How did you realize what was happening?

JR: I began to monitor the activity of fake activists online. For example, I found a group pretending to be a black activist group—but something was weird about it. If you track the activities of the individual members of such groups, you realize they are being coordinated. When you dig deeper, you understand that they are operated from abroad. Trolls often make mistakes—maybe their English will be suspect, or, for example, an Instagram tied to a particular account is filled with suspicious info. The whole tangle is unraveled when you tug at loose strings.

Q: How can an ordinary internet user spot a fake account?

JR: If you see dubious information being posted, look at where it may have originated. What’s the source, and who else is distributing this information? Follow the trail of clues these guys inevitably leave behind.

Q: It was reported that you’ve actually been threatened over your online activities before. Is this accurate?

JR: Yes. It got to the point that someone sent me pictures of mutilated corpses.

Q: Do you think it was Russian trolls or someone else?

JR: See, we have a lot of people right here in the States who do not want to believe that Kremlin interference is real. That’s where a lot of this aggression stems from.

Q: How do you respond to attempts at intimidation?

JR: I’m more of a liberal than a conservative, but I live in Indiana. This means that I have weapons at home. I have not been threatened for a while, but when it did happen, before I blocked someone, I’d send them a photo of my gun. It tends to have a sobering effect.

Q: So this is a case of you talking to these people in their own language?

JR: Yes, this is what you have to do. I used to be a bit of an internet troll myself, so I understand how trolling works, and the intended psychological effect. If you understand how it works, you know how to respond in an effective and yet tasteful way (laughs).

This interview originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
…

Facebook and Twitter executives are insisting at two congressional hearings Wednesday they are aggressively trying to identify foreign actors who want to inflict damage on the U.S. before the November midterm elections.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told the Senate Intelligence Committee her company is “now blocking millions of attempts to register false accounts each and every day” and is “making progress on fake news.”

She said the company’s recent efforts are “starting to pay off” but added “We cannot stop interference by ourselves.”

Sandberg said Facebook is “working with outside experts, industry partners and governments, including law enforcement, to share information about threats and prevent abuse” to avert further interference in American elections.

Social media companies are under pressure over foreign meddling in U.S. elections, the spread of disinformation, privacy and censorship. Congress has criticized social media companies during the past year as it became clear they were on the front lines during Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections and beyond.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted twelve Russians earlier this year on charges stemming from plans to disrupt the 2016 election by creating bogus accounts that circulated divisive issues on social media. The indicted Russians are members of the GRU, a Russian federation intelligence agency.

Twitter Chief executive Officer Jack Dorsey said his company was “unprepared and ill-equipped” for the foreign influence campaigns but said it has intensified its efforts to eliminate phony accounts to prevent “hostile foreign influence.”

“We’re identifying and challenging eight to 10 million suspicious accounts every week and we’re thwarting over a half-million accounts from logging into Twitter every single day.”

Dorsey also said Twitter has continued to find accounts that may be linked to the Russians, noting that 3,843 accounts have been suspended and that the company has seen recent activity.

Dorsey, who will also appear later before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, responded to irate Republicans who contend social media companies have been biased against conservatives. Dorsey’s said Twitter does not consider political ideology when making decisions.

“Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules,” he said.

Dorsey said Twitter uses “behavioral signals” that can help identify spam and abuse.

Dorsey’s prepared testimony also says Twitter has continued to find accounts that may be linked to the Russians, saying 3,843 accounts have been suspended.He also says the company has seen recent activity.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner said at the hearing the social media giants “were caught flat-footed by the brazen attacks on our election” and expressed doubt the companies confront the problem.

“I’m skeptical that, ultimately, you’ll be able to truly address this challenge on your own,” Warner said. “Congress is going to have to take action here.”

While Congress has forced social media companies during the past year to focus more on the Russian interference issue, it took several months last year for Facebook and Twitter to acknowledge they had been manipulated.

Many social media companies have made policy changes that caught and banned numerous malicious accounts during the past year.But free services that find out as much about users as possible remain unchanged, prompting critics to say social media companies will continue to contend with bad actors manipulating their systems unless they change.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in a Washington Post Op-ed Tuesday his company found out too late in 2016 there were “foreign actors running coordinated campaigns to interfere with America’s democratic process.”

He said the company has since made improvements such as “finding and removing fake accounts” and misinformation.

But Zuckerberg warned Facebook and other social media companies face “sophisticated, well-funded adversaries who are getting smarter over time, too. It’s an arms race, and it will take the combined forces of the U.S. private and public sectors to protect America’s democracy from outside interference.”

Over the past 12 months, three-fourths of all Facebook users either adjusted their privacy settings, taken weeks-long or longer breaks from the platform or deleted their Facebook app from their cell phones, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

The survey was conducted from May 19 through June 11, after revelations that the former consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered data on tens of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge.

Many social media companies have made policy changes that caught and banned numerous malicious accounts during the past year. But free services that find out as much about users as possible remain unchanged, prompting critics to say social media companies will continue to contend with bad actors manipulating their systems unless they change.
…

Facebook and Twitter executives are insisting at two congressional hearings Wednesday they are aggressively trying to identify foreign actors who want to inflict damage on the U.S. before the November midterm elections.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told the Senate Intelligence Committee her company is “now blocking millions of attempts to register false accounts each and every day” and is “making progress on fake news.”

She said the company’s recent efforts are “starting to pay off” but added “We cannot stop interference by ourselves.”

Sandberg said Facebook is “working with outside experts, industry partners and governments, including law enforcement, to share information about threats and prevent abuse” to avert further interference in American elections.

Social media companies are under pressure over foreign meddling in U.S. elections, the spread of disinformation, privacy and censorship. Congress has criticized social media companies during the past year as it became clear they were on the front lines during Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections and beyond.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted twelve Russians earlier this year on charges stemming from plans to disrupt the 2016 election by creating bogus accounts that circulated divisive issues on social media. The indicted Russians are members of the GRU, a Russian federation intelligence agency.

Twitter Chief executive Officer Jack Dorsey said his company was “unprepared and ill-equipped” for the foreign influence campaigns but said it has intensified its efforts to eliminate phony accounts to prevent “hostile foreign influence.”

“We’re identifying and challenging eight to 10 million suspicious accounts every week and we’re thwarting over a half-million accounts from logging into Twitter every single day.”

Dorsey also said Twitter has continued to find accounts that may be linked to the Russians, noting that 3,843 accounts have been suspended and that the company has seen recent activity.

Dorsey, who will also appear later before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, responded to irate Republicans who contend social media companies have been biased against conservatives. Dorsey’s said Twitter does not consider political ideology when making decisions.

“Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules,” he said.

Dorsey said Twitter uses “behavioral signals” that can help identify spam and abuse.

Dorsey’s prepared testimony also says Twitter has continued to find accounts that may be linked to the Russians, saying 3,843 accounts have been suspended.He also says the company has seen recent activity.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner said at the hearing the social media giants “were caught flat-footed by the brazen attacks on our election” and expressed doubt the companies confront the problem.

“I’m skeptical that, ultimately, you’ll be able to truly address this challenge on your own,” Warner said. “Congress is going to have to take action here.”

While Congress has forced social media companies during the past year to focus more on the Russian interference issue, it took several months last year for Facebook and Twitter to acknowledge they had been manipulated.

Many social media companies have made policy changes that caught and banned numerous malicious accounts during the past year.But free services that find out as much about users as possible remain unchanged, prompting critics to say social media companies will continue to contend with bad actors manipulating their systems unless they change.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in a Washington Post Op-ed Tuesday his company found out too late in 2016 there were “foreign actors running coordinated campaigns to interfere with America’s democratic process.”

He said the company has since made improvements such as “finding and removing fake accounts” and misinformation.

But Zuckerberg warned Facebook and other social media companies face “sophisticated, well-funded adversaries who are getting smarter over time, too. It’s an arms race, and it will take the combined forces of the U.S. private and public sectors to protect America’s democracy from outside interference.”

Over the past 12 months, three-fourths of all Facebook users either adjusted their privacy settings, taken weeks-long or longer breaks from the platform or deleted their Facebook app from their cell phones, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

The survey was conducted from May 19 through June 11, after revelations that the former consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered data on tens of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge.

Many social media companies have made policy changes that caught and banned numerous malicious accounts during the past year. But free services that find out as much about users as possible remain unchanged, prompting critics to say social media companies will continue to contend with bad actors manipulating their systems unless they change.
…