India has asked Facebook to prevent the spread of false texts on its WhatsApp messaging application, saying the content has sparked a series of lynchings and mob beatings across the country.

False messages about child abductors spread over WhatsApp have reportedly led to at least 31 deaths in 10 different states over the past year, including a deadly mob lynching Sunday of five men in the western state of Maharashtra.

In a strongly worded statement Tuesday, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the service “cannot evade accountability and responsibility” when messaging platforms are used to spread misinformation.

“The government has also conveyed in no uncertain terms that Whatsapp must take immediate action to end this menace and ensure that their platform is not used for such mala fide activities,” the ministry added.

Facebook and WhatsApp did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but WhatsApp previously told the Reuters news agency it is educating users to identify fake news and is considering changes to the messaging service.

The ministry said law enforcement authorities are working to apprehend those responsible for the killings.

WhatsApp has more than 200 million users in India, the messaging site’s largest market in the world.
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A Portuguese tech firm is uncorking an Android smartphone whose case is made from cork, a natural and renewable material native to the Iberian country.

The Ikimobile phone is one of the first to use materials other than plastic, metal and glass and represents a boost for the country’s technology sector, which has made strides in software development but less in hardware manufacturing.

A Made in Portugal version of the phone is set to launch this year as Ikimobile completes a plant to transfer most of its production from China.

“Ikimobile wants to put Portugal on the path to the future and technologies by emphasizing this Portuguese product,” chief executive Tito Cardoso told Reuters at Ikimobile’s plant in the cork-growing area of Coruche, 80 km (50 miles) west of Lisbon.

“We believe the product offers something different, something that people can feel good about using,” he said. Cork is harvested only every nine years without hurting the oak trees and is fully recyclable.

Portugal is the world’s largest cork producer and the phone also marks the latest effort to diversify its use beyond wine bottle stoppers.

Portuguese cork exports have lately regained their peaks of 15 years ago as cork stoppers clawed back market share from plastic and metal. Portugal also exports other cork products such as flooring, clothing and wind turbine blades.

A layer of cork covers the phone’s back providing thermal, acoustic and anti-shock insulation. The cork comes in colors ranging from black to light brown and has certified antibacterial properties and protects against battery radiation.

Cardoso said Ikimobile is working with north Portugal’s Minho University to make the phone even “greener” and hopes to replace a plastic body base with natural materials soon.The material, agglomerated using only natural resins, required years of research and testing for the use in phones.

The plant should churn out 1.2 million phones a year — a drop in the ocean compared to last year’s worldwide smartphone market shipments of almost 1.5 billion.

Most cell phones are produced in Asia but local manufacture helps take advantage of the availability of cork and the “Made in Portugal” brand appeals to consumers in Europe, Angola, Brazil and Canada, Cardoso said.

In 2017, it sold 400,000 phones assembled in China in 2017, including simple feature phones. It hopes to surpass that amount with local production this year. Top-of-the-line cork models, costing 160-360 euros ($187-$420), make up 40 percent of sales.
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It was 50 years ago the sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey by author Arthur C. Clarke and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, opened in theaters across America to mixed reviews. The almost three-hour long film, was too cerebral and slow- moving to be appreciated by general audiences in 1968. Today, half a century later, the movie is one of the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time. VOA’s Penelope Poulou explores Space Odyssey’s power and its relevance 50 years since its creation.
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Hey, did my congressman really say that? Is that really President Donald Trump on that video, or am I being duped?

New technology on the internet lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they’ve never said. Republicans and Democrats predict this high-tech way of putting words in someone’s mouth will become the latest weapon in disinformation wars against the United States and other Western democracies.

We’re not talking about lip-syncing videos. This technology uses facial mapping and artificial intelligence to produce videos that appear so genuine it’s hard to spot the phonies. Lawmakers and intelligence officials worry that the bogus videos — called deepfakes — could be used to threaten national security or interfere in elections.

So far, that hasn’t happened, but experts say it’s not a question of if, but when.

“I expect that here in the United States we will start to see this content in the upcoming midterms and national election two years from now,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. “The technology, of course, knows no borders, so I expect the impact to ripple around the globe.”

When an average person can create a realistic fake video of the president saying anything they want, Farid said, “we have entered a new world where it is going to be difficult to know how to believe what we see.” The reverse is a concern, too. People may dismiss as fake genuine footage, say of a real atrocity, to score political points.

Realizing the implications of the technology, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is already two years into a four-year program to develop technologies that can detect fake images and videos. Right now, it takes extensive analysis to identify phony videos. It’s unclear if new ways to authenticate images or detect fakes will keep pace with deepfake technology.

Deepfakes are so named because they utilize deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence. They are made by feeding a computer an algorithm, or set of instructions, lots of images and audio of a certain person. The computer program learns how to mimic the person’s facial expressions, mannerisms, voice and inflections. If you have enough video and audio of someone, you can combine a fake video of the person with a fake audio and get them to say anything you want.

So far, deepfakes have mostly been used to smear celebrities or as gags, but it’s easy to foresee a nation state using them for nefarious activities against the U.S., said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of several members of the Senate intelligence committee who are expressing concern about deepfakes.

A foreign intelligence agency could use the technology to produce a fake video of an American politician using a racial epithet or taking a bribe, Rubio says. They could use a fake video of a U.S. soldier massacring civilians overseas, or one of a U.S. official supposedly admitting a secret plan to carry out a conspiracy. Imagine a fake video of a U.S. leader — or an official from North Korea or Iran — warning the United States of an impending disaster.

“It’s a weapon that could be used — timed appropriately and placed appropriately — in the same way fake news is used, except in a video form, which could create real chaos and instability on the eve of an election or a major decision of any sort,” Rubio told The Associated Press.

Deepfake technology still has a few hitches. For instance, people’s blinking in fake videos may appear unnatural. But the technology is improving.

“Within a year or two, it’s going to be really hard for a person to distinguish between a real video and a fake video,” said Andrew Grotto, an international security fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California.

“This technology, I think, will be irresistible for nation states to use in disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion, deceive populations and undermine confidence in our institutions,” Grotto said. He called for government leaders and politicians to clearly say it has no place in civilized political debate.

Crude videos have been used for malicious political purposes for years, so there’s no reason to believe the higher-tech ones, which are more realistic, won’t become tools in future disinformation campaigns.

Rubio noted that in 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow complained to the Russian Foreign Ministry about a fake sex video it said was made to damage the reputation of a U.S. diplomat. The video showed the married diplomat, who was a liaison to Russian religious and human rights groups, making telephone calls on a dark street. The video then showed the diplomat in his hotel room, scenes that apparently were shot with a hidden camera. Later, the video appeared to show a man and a woman having sex in the same room with the lights off, although it was not at all clear that the man was the diplomat.

John Beyrle, who was the U.S. ambassador in Moscow at the time, blamed the Russian government for the video, which he said was clearly fabricated.

Michael McFaul, who was American ambassador in Russia between 2012 and 2014, said Russia has engaged in disinformation videos against various political actors for years and that he too had been a target. He has said that Russian state propaganda inserted his face into photographs and “spliced my speeches to make me say things I never uttered and even accused me of pedophilia.”
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Carlos Garcia was three years into his first job in technology at Merrill Lynch when he first learned what a 401K retirement savings account was. He was floored when he learned that a colleague had already saved $30,000 in three years, and the company had matched it.

The concept of making money off money was foreign to Garcia, an MIT graduate who was born in Texas to immigrants from Mexico. His story is not uncommon among U.S. Hispanics, who lag behind other demographic groups when it comes to saving for retirement. But for Garcia, the episode became the inspiration many years later for Finhabits, a bilingual digital platform designed to make savings and investment accessible for Latinos.

Finhabits launched last year into a crowded world of robo-advisers, savings apps, online lending platforms and other financial-technology companies.

But it is one of the few aimed at demystifying stocks and bonds for Hispanics, particularly young professionals who have the means to start investing but may have inherited a fuzzy understanding of the financial system from their immigrant parents.

“Hispanics are very hard workers and we are able to generate quick income for our families. Sometimes we are good at savings but we put the money under the mattress,” said Garcia, who previously founded two other companies, including an internet analytics service for hedge funds.

Other financial-tech startups aimed at Latinos have focused on immediate financial needs: paying off debt, building credit and gaining access to loans. Few besides Finhabits are dedicated to encouraging investing and long-term financial planning.

Another is Mi Dinero Mi Futuro, a personal financial planning platform started by Ramona Ortega, a former New York corporate attorney who became preoccupied with the lack of financial literacy among Latinos while working in bankruptcy and securities litigation.

“No one talked to me about money,” said Ortega, the daughter of Napa Valley farm worker and the first in her family to go to college. “The fact is that our communities have not had a legacy of talking about money.”

Finhabits follows in the footsteps of robo-advisors Betterment, Wealthfront and Acorn, which use computer algorithms instead of a traditional wealth adviser to manage customer funds across various types of investments. Ortega’s platform is similar to more well-known personal finance apps Mint and Credit Karma; it offers personalized budgeting tools and recommendations for affiliated financial products.

More than competing with established players, the founders of Finhabits and Mi Dinero Mi Future see themselves as creating a new market among Latinos, who they believe are overlooked by traditional financial institutions and even many of the digital newcomers.

It is not an easy market to penetrate, however.

According to a 2014 Prudential Research study, just 19 percent of Latinos had individual retirement accounts and less than 10 percent had investments in individual stocks, bonds of mutual funds. Only about 60 percent of Hispanics had a savings account, compared to 80 percent of the general population. The study cited various factors, including uncertainty among immigrants about what will happen to investments if they leave the country, distrust of financial institutions and difficulty understanding products.

Another study, done in 2016 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that more than 60 percent of Latino workers lacked access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, compared to 40 percent for white workers.

“This demographic has been very tough to crack historically,” said William Trout, head of wealth management research at Celent, a consulting firm focused on financial services technology. “Will that second generation look for a platform that is speaking to a Hispanic population? Well, somebody has to test it. I think it’s worth a shot.”

With Finhabits, beginner investors can start with $5 weekly contributions into traditional IRA, Roth IRAs or taxable investment accounts for shorter-term goals. Finhabits asks users about their priorities and risk tolerance and then recommends investment portfolios. The money goes into low-fee exchange trade funds from Vanguard and BlackRock.

Through its app, blogs and text-messaging services, Finhabits explains financial concepts (portfolio diversification? It’s like ordering different types of tacos) and compound interest to persuade people that investing their money is safer and wiser than trying to “hit the fat one,” as Latinos refer to the lottery jackpot.

Crucial to the Latino community, Finhabits lets users open an account with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, a processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service for people who are required to pay taxes but do not have Social Security numbers. That makes the service accessible to immigrants who are not legal residents but still pay federal taxes.

Savvier investors can simply set up accounts directly with Vanguard or BlackRock, which require more active knowledge of investing. But most often, those big players don’t have formal marketing strategies for Hispanics.

Garcia said Finhabits has about 10,000 active clients who invest an average of $40 a week. It is signing up about 1,000 new clients each week and aiming for 50,000 by the end of the year.

One challenge for financial start-ups is earning the public’s trust. Finhabits and Mi Dinero Mi Futuro are trying to that through partnerships with institutions already targeting minority and underserved communities.

Finhabits is a provider in Washington state’s newly established Retirement Marketplace, which helps individuals and small businesses find low-cost retirement saving plans. Nearly 80 percent of the West Coast state’s 385,500 Hispanic workers are not covered by an employer-sponsored plan, said marketplace director Carolyn McKinnon.

Finhabits also has partnerships with credit unions, including Neighborhood Federal Credit Union, which serves New York City’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods of West Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood.

Rosa Franco, director of lending at the credit union, said the partnership is still in development. She anticipates a challenge in marketing the service to her clients, many of whom are consumed by pressing concerns like debt repayment and or sending money to relatives abroad.

“It’s difficult for many people to think about the future. They live paycheck to paycheck. Many people just think Social Security is their only option for retirement,” said Franco, who used the Finhabits app herself to open a Roth IRA.

Ortega, who recently received a new round of investment from venture fund Backstage Capital for Mi Dinero Mi Futuro, crisscrosses the country giving workshops at universities and Hispanic professional organizations.

At a financial boot camp in Los Angeles City Hall, Ortega won over Liliana Aide Monge, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico at age 5 and is now the co-founder of Sabio, web development and cybersecurity training company.

Growing up, Monge said her family was “not part of the formal banking structure at all. The money came in and you pay the rent and you pay for food.”

Now a mother of two boys, Monge has used Mi Dinero Mi Futuro to budget her money, buy life insurance and open a high-yield savings account.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” she said.
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Researchers at a public university in Sweden are creating a 3-D, virtual reality model of the Milky Way. They say their work could change how surgeons separated by oceans collaborate on medical examinations. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
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June 30 marks Asteroid Day, a U.N.-sanctioned campaign to promote awareness around the world of what’s up in the sky. In Milan, scientists are assembling a new telescope that uses “insect vision” to spot risky celestial objects. Faith Lapidus explains.
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Hailing “great economic success” during the first 18 months of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for more companies to be like Taiwan’s electronics component manufacturer Foxconn and invest in the United States. 

At a groundbreaking event for the foreign company’s latest and largest investment in the upper Midwestern state of Wisconsin, Trump described the planned $10 billion manufacturing facility “as the eighth wonder of the world.” 

That may be a generous exaggeration, but the plant is one of the largest foreign direct investment projects ever in the United States. 

“We are demanding from foreign countries, friend and foe, fair and reciprocal trade,” Trump said, as he defended his confrontational trade policies and hailed further direct investment in the United States by manufacturers from other countries. 

Trump hailed Foxconn’s decision to increase its investment in Wisconsin, while criticizing a plan by an iconic American company in the same state to move some production overseas in response to retaliatory tariffs planned by European companies in response to the president’s punitive import taxes. 

“Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA,” Trump said. “Don’t get cute with us.” 

The president added: “Your customers won’t be happy if you don’t.”

Trump defended tariffs he has imposed on foreign steel and aluminum, proclaiming that “business is through the roof” in the United States as a result. 

The primary focus of Trump’s remarks on Thursday was Foxconn’s decision to build flat-screen, liquid crystal display panels in Racine County, Wisconsin. 

The maker of components for and assembler of Apple iPhones was offered what is described as the largest financial incentive ever for a foreign company by a U.S. state. 

Wisconsin is giving Foxconn $3 billion in tax credits and other incentives. In exchange, the state expects to see the facility create thousands of jobs. 

Trump spoke in front of a giant video display that said “USA Open for Business” after touring an existing Foxconn facility at the Wisconsin Valley Science and Technology Park. 

Foxconn’s founder and chairman Terry Gou told the audience that during each of his several previous meetings with the president, Trump always emphasized “jobs, jobs, jobs.” 

Added Gou, “He truly cares about improving the lives of the American people.” 

The new plant, which will take two years to build and employ 10,000 construction workers, will include a 1.8 million square meter campus situated on 1,200 hectares. Foxconn has promised that the LCD facility will eventually employ up to 13,000 people. 

Not everyone in the state is overjoyed about what is being billed as a transformational project for Wisconsin’s economy, better known for dairy products than high technology. 

The state’s legislative bureau predicts it will be a quarter of a century before Wisconsin receives enough tax revenue to match its initial investment. And others are raising concern about its environmental impact. 

“Building the Foxconn factory complex on prime farmland in rural Wisconsin constitutes a textbook example of unsustainable development,” said David Petering, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Petering told VOA News the facility will be a “major source of a variety of harmful air pollutants that will put nearby residents at risk and contribute to climate change. In addition, it will need to break the Great Lakes Compact law to get millions of gallons of water from Lake Michigan.” 
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Melting glaciers and rising seas in Greenland; raging fires in Northern California; a relentless drought in Somalia and the disappearing Amazon forests. Famine, Feast, Fire and Ice are the four installments in a virtual reality (VR) documentary on climate change by filmmakers Eric Strauss and Danfung Dennis.  

The series, showcased at AFI Docs, the American Film Institute’s Documentary festival in Washington, D.C., offers a 360-degree view of destructive phenomena brought by climate change on our planet. It immerses viewers into the extremes of Earth’s changing climate.  

Eric Strauss told VOA he hopes that when someone watches the series as it drives home this idea that there is no hiding from global warming. “This is coming for all of us, regardless of where we live or what our income is; it’s going to affect everyone.”

Ken Jacobson, AFI’s Virtual Reality Programmer, says viewers – who watch the film wearing virtual reality headsets – react in many different ways to this all immersive experience.

“Some people have a very visceral reaction where they jump, where they kind of yelp because they are very surprised by what they see, while other people, I think, are very reflective and can even be sad, depending on the content,” he said.

One of these viewers is James Willard, a film and TV production student at George Mason University.  He describes his experience of watching the installment Feast, about the deforestation of the Amazon rainforests to make space for industrial-sized cattle ranches to satisfy the global appetite for beef.

“You are completely immersed in this whole situation,” he says, “You are facing these animals eye-to-eye and watching as they are marching towards their death.”

The film needs no dialogue.  A few sentences set up the topic. “It is actually stripping away a lot of the information, putting you in environments that you then experience for yourself,” says Eric Strauss, “You are much more of a protagonist in some way in this type of stories than you would be in a traditional form of cinema.”

Another viewer, Patricia, has just watched Famine, the episode that looks at the extreme drought in Somalia. “It makes it even more powerful because you feel like you are there. I think, it’s a great medium to spread the word on critical subjects,” she says.  

That’s what Strauss wants to hear. “That is the goal; to effect change, to effect positive change.”

VR films are becoming more accessible as the technology evolves, and are often viewed on smart phone applications.  But VR Programmer Ken Jacobson says watching them through a virtual reality headset is the best way to experience them.

But can VR films ever replace traditional 2D or even 3D films?

“I think it is going to add another aspect on how we are going to watch movies,” says student James Willard.  “Virtual reality can be very dangerous because you are completely immersing yourself within the story to the point where you don’t see anything else.  At least in the movie theater you are fully aware that this is a screen in front of you, but if you look to your sides you don’t have another screen there completely immersing you within that story.  And with virtual reality that’s exactly what it does.  For some people, it will be okay to take off the goggles and go on with their lives, but for others it may be too much.  I don’t think it will completely take over.”

Eric Strauss agrees that VR will not overtake traditional cinema, but he says virtual reality can allow viewers to relate deeply with socially conscious stories.

“The technology creates a situation where you truly feel transported to that location because you are not just witnessing something or watching it on a screen.  You are occupying the space.  And that creates an emotional connection where you can’t really turn away.  I mean, there is no getting away from what you’ve allowed yourself to be teleported to and hopefully that will create a visceral, emotional response in viewers and what they are seeing will prompt them to want to get involved.”

 
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Your Amazon packages, which usually show up in a UPS truck, an unmarked vehicle or in the hands of a mail carrier, may soon be delivered from an Amazon van.

The online retailer has been looking for a while to find a way to have more control over how its packages are delivered. With its new program rolling out Thursday, contractors around the country can launch businesses that deliver Amazon packages. The move gives Amazon more ways to ship its packages to shoppers without having to rely on UPS, FedEx and other package delivery services.

With these vans on the road, Amazon said more shoppers would be able to track their packages on a map, contact the driver or change where a package is left — all of which it can’t do if the package is in the back of a UPS or FedEx truck.

Amazon has beefed up its delivery network in other ways: It has a fleet of cargo planes it calls “Prime Air,” announced last year that it was building an air cargo hub in Kentucky and pays people as much as $25 an hour to deliver packages with their cars through Amazon Flex.

Recently, the company has come under fire from President Donald Trump who tweeted that Amazon should pay the U.S. Postal Service more for shipping its packages. Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said the new program is not a response to Trump, but a way to make sure that the company can deliver its growing number of orders. “This is really about meeting growth for our future,” Clark said.

Through the program , Amazon said it can cost as little as $10,000 for someone to start the delivery business. Contractors that participate in the program will be able to lease blue vans with the Amazon logo stamped on it, buy Amazon uniforms for drivers and get support from Amazon to grow their business.

Contractors don’t have to lease the vans, but if they do, those vehicles can only be used to deliver Amazon packages, the company said. The contractor will be responsible for hiring delivery people, and Amazon would be the customer, paying the business to pick up packages from its 75 U.S. delivery centers and dropping them off at shoppers’ doorsteps. An Amazon representative declined to give details on how much it will pay for the deliveries.

Olaoluwa Abimbola, who was part of Amazon’s test of the program, said that the amount of packages Amazon needs delivered keeps his business busy. He’s hired 40 workers in five months.

“We don’t have to go make sales speeches,” Abimbola said. “There’s constant work, every day. All we have to do is show up.”
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Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd on Wednesday settled a seven-year patent dispute over Apple’s allegations that Samsung violated its patents by “slavishly” copying the design of the iPhone.

Terms of the settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, were not available.

In May, a U.S. jury awarded Apple $539 million, after Samsung had previously paid Apple $399 million to compensate for patent infringement. Samsung would need to make an additional payment to Apple of nearly $140 million if the verdict was upheld.

How much, if anything, Samsung must now pay Apple under Wednesday’s settlement could not immediately be learned. An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the terms of the settlement but said Apple “cares deeply about design” and that “this case has always been about more than money.” A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment.

Apple and Samsung are rivals for the title of world’s largest smartphone maker, and the dollar sums involved in the decision are unlikely to have an impact on either’s bottom line. But the case has had a lasting impact on U.S. patent law.

After a loss at trial, Samsung appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In December 2016, the court sided unanimously with Samsung’s argument that a patent violator does not have to hand over the entire profit it made from stolen designs if those designs covered only certain portions of a product but not the entire object.

But when the case went back to lower court for trial this year, the jury sided with Apple’s argument that, in this specific case, Samsung’s profits were attributable to the design elements that violated Apple’s patents.

Michael Risch, a professor of patent law at Villanova University, said that because of the recent verdict the settlement likely called for Samsung to make an additional payment to Apple.

But he said there was no clear winner in the dispute, which involved hefty legal fees for both companies. While Apple scored a major public relations victory with an initial $1 billion verdict in 2012, Samsung also obtained rulings in its favor and avoided an injunction that would have blocked it from selling phones in the U.S. market, Risch said.
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With parents often playing catch-up with the fast pace of technology, it’s often difficult to really know what their children are doing on their electronic devices. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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