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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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has promised to donate $1 million to support press freedom, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced Tuesday.

“This generous gift will help us continue to grow, to offer our legal and educational support to many more news organizations, and to expand our services to independent journalists, nonprofit newsrooms and documentary filmmakers,” Reporters Committee Chairman David Boardman said. “We’ll also be better positioned to help local newsrooms, the places hit hardest by the disruption in the news industry and whose survival is every bit as crucial to American democracy as those entities headquartered in Washington and New York.”

The gift from Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post newspaper, is the largest the organization has ever received.

The Reporters Committee also announced that it will support First Look Media and help administer its Media Press Freedom Defense Fund of up to $6 million. First Look Media was established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Bezos and Omidyar have cited a need for efforts to support an independent press.

Last month, Omidyar’s philanthropy, the Omidyar Network, promised $100 million over the next three years to support journalism and fight fake news.
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Several hundred middle school and high school students from Senegal and surrounding countries spent last week in Dakar building robots. Organizers of the annual robotics competition say the goal is to encourage African governments and private donors to invest more in science and math education throughout the continent. Ricci Shryock reports for VOA from Senegal’s capital.
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Several hundred middle school and high school students from Senegal and surrounding countries spent last week in Dakar building robots, and organizers hoped to encourage African governments and private donors to invest more in science and math education throughout the continent.
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Russian cybercriminals used malware planted on Android mobile devices to steal from domestic bank customers and were planning to target European lenders before their arrest, investigators and sources with knowledge of the case told Reuters.

Their campaign raised a relatively small sum by cybercrime standards — more than 50 million roubles ($892,000) — but they had also obtained more sophisticated malicious software for a modest monthly fee to go after the clients of banks in France and possibly a range of other western nations.

Russia’s relationship to cybercrime is under intense scrutiny after U.S. intelligence officials alleged that Russian hackers had tried to help Republican Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency by hacking Democratic Party servers.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the allegation.

The gang members tricked the Russian banks’ customers into downloading malware via fake mobile banking applications, as well as via pornography and e-commerce programs, according to a report compiled by cybersecurity firm Group-IB, which investigated the attack with the Russian Interior Ministry.

The criminals — 16 suspects were arrested by Russian law enforcement authorities in November last year — infected more than a million smartphones in Russia, on average compromising 3,500 devices a day, Group-IB said.

The hackers targeted customers of state lender Sberbank, and also stole money from accounts at Alfa Bank and online payments company Qiwi, exploiting weaknesses in the companies’ SMS text message transfer services, said two people with direct knowledge of the case.

Although operating only in Russia before their arrest, they had developed plans to target large European banks including French lenders Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Societe General, Group-IB said.

A BNP Paribas spokeswoman said the bank could not confirm this information, but added that it “has a significant set of measures in place aimed at fighting cyberattacks on a daily basis.” Societe General and Credit Agricole declined comment.

The gang, which was called “Cron” after the malware it used, did not steal any funds from customers of the three French banks. However, it exploited the bank service in Russia that allows users to transfer small sums to other accounts by sending an SMS message.

Having infected the users’ phones, the gang sent SMS messages from those devices instructing the banks to transfer money to the hackers’ own accounts.

The findings illustrate the dangers of using SMS messages for mobile banking, a method favored in emerging countries with less advanced internet infrastructure, said Lukas Stefanko, a malware researcher at cybersecurity firm ESET in Slovakia.

“It’s becoming popular among developing nations or in the countryside where access to conventional banking is difficult for people,” he said. “For them it is quick, easy and they don’t need to visit a bank. … But security always has to outweigh consumer convenience.”

Cybercriminals

The Russian Interior Ministry said a number of people had been arrested, including what it described as the gang leader.

This was a 30-year-old man living in Ivanovo, an industrial city 300 km (185 miles) northeast of Moscow, from where he had commanded a team of 20 people across six different regions.

Four people remain in detention while the others are under house arrest, the ministry said in a statement.

“In the course of 20 searches across six regions, police seized computers, hundreds of bank cards and SIM cards registered under fake names,” it said.

Group-IB said the existence of the Cron malware was first detected in mid-2015, and by the time of the arrests the hackers had been using it for under a year.

The core members of the group were detained on November 22 last year in Ivanovo. Photographs of the operation released by Group-IB showed one suspect face down in the snow as police in ski masks handcuffed him.

The Cron hackers were arrested before they could mount attacks outside Russia, but plans to do that were at an advanced stage, said the investigators.

Group-IB said that in June 2016 they had rented a piece of malware designed to attack mobile banking systems, called Tiny.z for $2,000 a month. The creators of the Tiny.z malware had adapted it to attack banks in Britain, Germany, France, the United States and Turkey, among other countries.

The Cron gang developed software designed to attack lenders including the three French groups, it said, adding it had notified these and other European banks at risk.

A spokeswoman for Sberbank said she had no information about the group involved. However, she said: “Several groups of cybercriminals are working against Sberbank. The number of groups and the methods they use to attack us change constantly.”

“It isn’t clear which specific group is being referred to here because the fraudulent scheme involving Android OS [operating system] viruses is widespread in Russia and Sberbank has effectively combated it for an extensive period of time.”

Alfa Bank did not provide a comment. Qiwi did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Google, the maker of Android, has taken steps in recent years to protect users from downloading malicious code and by blocking apps which are insecure, impersonate legitimate companies or engage in deceptive behaviors.

A Google spokesman said: “We’ve tracked this malware family for several years and will continue to take action on its variants to protect our users.”

Fake mobile apps

The Russian authorities, bombarded with allegations of state-sponsored hacking, are keen to show Russia too is a frequent victim of cybercrime and that they are working hard to combat it. The interior and emergencies ministries, as well as Sberbank, said they were targeted in a global cyberattack earlier this month.

Since the allegations about the U.S. election hacking, further evidence has emerged of what some Western officials say is a symbiotic relationship between cyber criminals and Russian authorities, with hackers allowed to attack foreign targets with impunity in return for cooperating with the security services while Moscow clamps down on those operating at home.

The success of the Cron gang was facilitated by the popularity of SMS-banking services in Russia, said Dmitry Volkov, head of investigations at Group-IB.

The gang got their malware on to victims’ devices by setting up applications designed to mimic banks’ genuine apps. When users searched online, the results would suggest the fake app, which they would then download. The hackers also inserted malware into fake mobile apps for well-known pornography sites.

After infecting a customer’s phone, the hackers were able to send a text message to the bank initiating a transfer of up to $120 to one of 6,000 bank accounts set up to receive the fraudulent payments.

The malware would then intercept a confirmation code sent by the bank and block the victim from receiving a message notifying them about the transaction.

“Cron’s success was due to two main factors,” Volkov said.

“First, the large-scale use of partner programs to distribute the malware in different ways. Second, the automation of many [mobile] functions which allowed them to carry out the thefts without direct involvement.”
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Leaked Facebook documents reveal the company walks a fine line between free speech and violent or hateful content.

The Guardian newspaper says it obtained the “more than 100 internal training manuals, spreadsheets and flowcharts” outlining how the social media giant decides what content can stay and what gets taken down.

According to the documents, Facebook does allows certain posts that contain violent language. For example, it’s OK to post “let’s beat up fat kids,” but prohibited to post “someone shoot Trump.”

“People commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in generally facetious and unserious ways,” reads one of the documents.

Images showing non-sexual physical abuse or bullying of children as long as there is not a “sadistic or celebratory element.” Live streams of people harming themselves is also allowed, the documents say because Facebook doesn’t want to “censor or punish people in distress.”

A Facebook representative said the company’s top priority is keeping users safe.

“We work hard to make Facebook as safe as possible while enabling free speech,” said Monica Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management. “This requires a lot of thought into detailed and often difficult questions, and getting it right is something we take very seriously.”

Facebook has been under increased pressure to prevent violent content from appearing, as a stream of violent videos have been allowed to stay on the site for hours before being deleted.

One particularly gruesome video showed the brutal murder of Cleveland grandfather Robert Godwin in a crime posted on Facebook Live.

The company recently hired 3,000 more humans to help curb objectionable material, and The Guardian documents reveal the moderators are overwhelmed with requests to review material.

“These reviewers will also help us get better at removing things we don’t allow on Facebook, like hate speech and child exploitation, “ Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post about the hiring. “And we’ll keep working with local community groups and law enforcement who are in the best position to help someone if they need it – either because they’re about to harm themselves, or because they’re in danger from someone else.”

The company also employs algorithms to mark objectionable content.

Facebook also faces criticism when it does take down material deemed offensive.

Last fall, the company removed an iconic photo showing a naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Facebook later allowed the image to be posted.
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China’s biggest online retailer, JD.com Inc., announced plans Monday to develop drone aircraft capable of carrying a ton or more for long-distance deliveries.

The company said it will test the drones on a network it is developing to cover the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi. It said they will carry consumer goods to remote areas and farm produce to cities.

JD.com, headquartered in Beijing, says it made its first deliveries to customers using smaller drones in November. Other e-commerce brands including Amazon.com Inc. also are experimenting with drones for delivery.

“We envision a network that will be able to efficiently transport goods between cities, and even between provinces, in the future,” the chief executive of JD’s logistics business group, Wang Zhenhui, said in a statement.

JD.com operates its own nationwide network of thousands of delivery stations manned by 65,000 employees. The company says it has 235 million regular customers.

Drones are part of the industry’s response to the challenge of expanding to rural areas where distances and delivery costs rise.

Drone delivery in China and other countries faces hurdles including airspace restrictions and the need to avoid collisions with birds and other obstacles. In the United States, regulators allow commercial drone flights only on an experimental basis.

A 1-ton payload is heavier than what most drones available now can carry, though some can carry hundreds of kilograms and major drone makers are working on devices able to carry more.

China is home to the world’s biggest manufacturer of civilian drones, DJI, in the southern city of Shenzhen.

JD.com said its planned drone delivery network in Shaanxi would cover a 300-kilometer (200-mile) radius and have drone air bases throughout the province.

The company said it will set up a research-and-development campus with the Xi’an National Civil Aerospace Industrial Base to develop and manufacture drones.

JD.com earlier reported first-quarter revenue rose 41.2 percent over a year ago to 76.2 billion yuan ($11.1 billion). It reported profit of 843.1 million yuan ($122.4 million) compared with a loss of 864.9 million yuan a year earlier.
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Robot teammates and “snake” arms that can find a crack .005 millimeter long were just two of the U.S. military’s latest technological innovations on display at the Pentagon this week.

The Defense Laboratory Enterprise showcased more than 80 exhibits on its biennial Lab Day on Thursday. The enterprise is a network of 63 defense laboratories, warfare centers and engineering centers that operate across the United States, and the event provided the Defense Department community with an up-close look at projects in various stages of development and readiness.

Here are some of VOA’s favorites:

Soldier Visual Integrated Technology

Imagine a soldier comes across a suspicious object that she has never seen before. As she stops to explore, she immediately sees an enemy fighter and has to spring into action without time to fully raise her weapon’s sight up to her eye. And she’s unable to see another enemy lurking around the corner.

With Soldier Visual Integrated Technology, the soldier can better see her surroundings and needs less time to react to dangers accurately.

Ronald Geer, a staff sergeant assigned to the Army’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, says SVIT wirelessly links three pieces of technology on the soldier: a reticle eyepiece, a thermal device on the gun and a communications system attached to the chest.

“What this is going to do is increase my speed and lethality on the battlefield, especially in a close combat situation,” Geer said. “I don’t have to worry so much about raising my weapon to an exact point where I’m able to view through this [his thermal device], because as I raise the weapon, what this is looking at, I’m able to immediately see pulled into the reticle device.”

The connectivity also allows soldiers to use their guns to see what’s around a corner without having to move their bodies into harm’s way.

SVIT updates in real time as well, providing a way to virtually “mark” obstacles or enemy weaponry so that other soldiers can see what the SVIT user views.

Remote Access Nondestructive Evaluation

Jokingly called a “snake on a plane” by some at the Air Force Research Laboratory, R.A.N.D.E. (pronounced Randy) is a robotic arm that can wriggle through an opening as small as 7 centimeters to inspect the interior of aircraft wings or other structures without dismantling them.

Senior Materials Engineer Charles Buynak told VOA that any sensing device can be attached to R.A.N.D.E. to look for minute structural defects.

“We’re looking for things on the order of 1/50,000th of an inch [.00508mm] — before a crack becomes a major thing … and becomes a serious problem to the aircraft,” Buynak said.

The system is driven by a controller from an Xbox 360 home video game console. Buynak said that makes R.A.N.D.E. easy for young operators to use. Another reason is that the Air Force wanted to take advantage of technologies already available.

“Why go spend money developing something that’s easily available that we can adapt to our application here?” he said.

Robots as teammates

The U.S. Army is developing ways to use robots not as tools but as teammates. The Army Research Laboratory displayed several robots this week that can be used as hosts for developing software algorithms for artificial intelligence and machine learning purposes.

Stuart Young, chief of the Asset Control and Behavior Branch, told VOA the goal is to protect soldiers by using technology to “manipulate unknown objects in an unknown world.”

His team is trying to develop AI algorithms that can generalize and understand what’s going on in a robot’s environment. “And then once we have that information,” Young said, “we can manipulate it to accomplish the mission that the robot needs to accomplish.”

Such robot missions could range from breaching an enemy’s defensive position to removing improvised explosive devices, or just moving large objects out of the way while soldiers are in a safer location.
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One day instead of visiting a doctor in person for health information or searching online, you could be asking for advice from a medical expert’s avatar. A new app is being developed that can be used on a smartphone to ask a virtual doctor about various medical conditions and their treatments. VOA’s Deborah Block has more on this innovative technology.
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