The Mariana Trench, at 11,000 meters, is the deepest part of Earth. But even at these depths, 11 kilometers below the ocean surface, one explorer found both new species and leftover plastic that we throw away. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Wildfires are often discovered by aircraft pilots, drivers or spotters in observation towers. Increasingly, remote sensors — on the ground, in the air and on board satellites — are alerting authorities when fires break out, and experts say technology will increasingly be a part of the future of firefighting. A blaze that raged last August in a canyon near Los Angeles threatened vital communications links. Remote cameras gave firefighters crucial information to save the installations, said Troy Whitman of Southern California Edison, an electric utility company.  Whitman serves as a liaison with firefighting agencies, and he shares information from a new camera network that Edison installed throughout much of its service area. Those 13 million hectares are challenging, he said, “mountains, deserts, very remote areas where fires may not be detected for minutes, sometimes even days in the forest if it’s a lightning strike.” Electronic lookouts More than 100 cameras provide a view of 60 percent of the company’s service area in Southern and Central California. More cameras are on their way, all monitored in an operations center in suburban Los Angeles, where remote spotters watch computer monitors and meteorologists track weather data from remote sensing stations. Fires up and …

Wildfires are often discovered by aircraft pilots, drivers or spotters in observation towers but also increasingly by remote sensors, which alert authorities to fire outbreaks. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles that a new ground-based camera system and satellites in space are helping firefighters to monitor wildfires. …

Her owners say Grumpy Cat, whose sourpuss demeanor became an internet sensation, has died at age 7. Posting on social media Friday, Grumpy Cat’s owners wrote that she experienced complications from a urinary tract infection and “passed away peacefully” Tuesday “in the arms of her mommy.” Her owners said “Grumpy Cat has helped millions of people smile all around the world — even when times were tough.” The cat’s real name was Tarder Sauce, and she rose to fame after her photos were posted online in 2012. She had more than 2 million followers on Instagram and more than 1 million on Twitter. Her website says her grumpy look was likely because she had a form of dwarfism. Owner Tabatha Bundesen founded Grumpy Cat Limited, and the cat made numerous appearances, including commercials. …

As anticipation builds for the next-generation mobile communications or 5G, security has become a heated topic. The U.S. government has launched an unprecedented campaign urging countries to ban one of the key makers of equipment for the new network, China-based telecom titan Huawei. But Huawei is vowing to refuse to assist any country in spying and even claims it would rather go out of business. VOA’s Bill Ide recently visited the company’s headquarters in China’s southern city of Shenzhen. …

The Afrobytes and Viva Tech conferences in Paris this week have provided an opportunity to look at the progress that high-tech startups have made in Africa, where fundraising is booming. According to Partech Africa, a venture capital firm, 146 startups in 19 African countries raised $1.16 billion for African digital entrepreneurs in 2018. Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa received 78% of the total funding, with Egypt close behind.  In French-speaking Africa, Senegal is the leading hub with $22 million raised in four deals. Compared with their Anglophone peers, Africa’s Francophone countries operate in smaller markets, and lack capital and mentors.   A key: Seeking advice   Marieme Diop, a venture capital investor at Orange Digital Ventures, said that “unfortunately in Francophone Africa, it is not in our DNA. People who succeed in business or in electing positions do not necessarily reach back to help their peers to show them how to be successful. In the Anglophone world, it is a must for anyone who wants to start something: seeking advice. So the gap is not only financial” between the regions.    Africa is seen by many as the next frontier for venture capital, with its booming population and mobile-first economy. That’s why Google, Facebook and PayPal participated in Paris in Afrobytes 2019.     …

Joyce Huang contributed to this report. SHENZHEN, CHINA — One day after the United States effectively banned Chinese telecom titan Huawei from building next-generation “5G” mobile networks in the United States, the company warned the move would harm American workers. “It will do significant harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business,” the company said, and “affect tens of thousands of American jobs.” The company added it would quickly “find a resolution” to the ban and work to “mitigate” its impact. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars American companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies that pose a national security risk. The order, which declares a national emergency, is the first step toward formalizing a ban on doing business with Huawei. The United States also warned other countries about Huawei’s national security risks. Huawei has been making extraordinary pledges to win over its critics and dispel allegations that it is a security threat. The company has said it will quit its business if forced to spy on its customers and its company chairman Liang Hua has offered to sign “no spy” agreements as well. Speaking through an interpreter during a visit …

A Tesla Model S involved in a fatal crash with a semitrailer in Florida March 1 was operating on the company’s semi-autonomous Autopilot system, federal investigators have determined. The car drove beneath the trailer, killing the driver, in a crash that is strikingly similar to one that happened on the other side of Florida in 2016 that also involved use of Autopilot. In both cases, neither the driver nor the Autopilot system stopped for the trailers, and the roofs of the cars were sheared off. The crash, which remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, raises questions about the effectiveness of Autopilot, which uses cameras, long-range radar and computers to detect objects in front of the cars to avoid collisions. The system also can keep a car in its lane, change lanes and navigate freeway interchanges. Tesla has maintained that the system is designed only to assist drivers, who must pay attention at all times and be ready to intervene. In a preliminary report on the March 1 crash, the NTSB said that preliminary data and video from the Tesla show that the driver turned on Autopilot about 10 seconds before …

Facebook said Thursday it banned an Israeli company that ran an influence campaign aimed at disrupting elections in various countries and has canceled dozens of accounts engaged in spreading disinformation. Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, told reporters that the tech giant had purged 65 Israeli accounts, 161 pages, dozens of groups and four Instagram accounts. Many were linked to the Archimedes Group, a Tel Aviv-based political consulting and lobbying firm that boasts of its social media skills and ability to “change reality.” Gleicher said Facebook could not speculate about Archimedes’ motives, which “may be commercial or political.” But he said Facebook discovered “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” with accounts posing as certain political candidates, smearing opponents and presenting as local news organizations peddling supposedly leaked information. The activity appeared focused on Sub-Saharan African countries but was also scattered in parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America. The pages have racked up 2.8 million followers and hundreds of thousands of views. Gleicher said Archimedes had spent some $800,000 on fake ads and that its deceptive activity dated back to 2012. He said Facebook has banned Archimedes. Facebook has come under pressure to more aggressively and transparently tackle misinformation aimed at sowing …

Joyce Huang contributed to this report. SHENZHEN, CHINA — U.S. officials have effectively banned Chinese telecom titan Huawei from building next-generation 5G mobile networks in the United States and are warning other countries about the company’s national security risks. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars American companies from using telecommunications equipment that is made by companies that pose a national security risk. The order, which declares a national emergency, is the first step toward formalizing a ban on doing business with Huawei. For its part, however, Huawei has shown no signs of backing down and has been making extraordinary pledges to win over its critics and dispel allegations that it is a security threat. The company says it will quit its business if forced to spy on its customers and now its company chairman Liang Hua has offered to sign “no spy” agreements as well. Speaking through an interpreter during a visit to London, Liang said Huawei is willing “to commit ourselves to making our equipment meet the no-spy, no-backdoors standard.” What does Huawei hand over? It is unclear what Liang means by “no-spy, no-backdoors” since Huawei, like all technology companies, requires users to sign …

U.S. lawmakers are pushing legislation that would force the State Department to report what it is doing to control the spread of U.S. hacking tools around the world. A bill passed in a House of Representatives’ appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday said Congress is “concerned” about the State Department’s ability to supervise U.S. companies that sell offensive cybersecurity products and know-how to other countries. The proposed legislation, released on Wednesday, would direct the State Department to report to Congress how it decides whether to approve the sale of cyber capabilities abroad and to disclose any action it has taken to punish companies for violating its policies in the past year. National security experts have grown increasingly concerned about the proliferation of U.S. hacking tools and technology. The legislation follows a Reuters report in January which showed a U.S. defense contractor provided staff to a United Arab Emirates hacking unit called Project Raven. The UAE program utilized former U.S. intelligence operatives to target militants, human rights activists and journalists. State Department officials granted permission to the U.S. contractor, Maryland-based CyberPoint International, to assist an Emirate intelligence agency in surveillance operations, but it is unclear how much they knew about its activities in …

Beijing has broadened its block of online encyclopedia Wikipedia to include all language editions, an internet censorship research group reported just weeks ahead of China’s most politically explosive anniversary. According to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), China started blocking all language editions of Wikipedia last month. Previously, most editions of Wikipedia — besides the Chinese language version, which was reportedly blocked in 2015 — were available, OONI said in their report. AFP could not open any of Wikipedia’s versions in China on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, the content that really matters is Chinese-language content,” said Charlie Smith, the pseudonym of one of the co-founders of Greatfire.org, which tracks online censorship in China. “Blocking access to all language versions of Wikipedia for internet users in China is just symbolic,” he told AFP. “It symbolises the fear that the Chinese authorities have of the truth.” Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia, said it had not received any notices explaining the latest block. According to the organisation, Wikipedia has been blocked intermittently in China since 2004. “With the expansion of this block, millions of readers and volunteer editors, writers, academics, and researchers within …

Facebook toughened its livestreaming policies Wednesday as it prepared to huddle with world leaders and other tech CEOs in Paris to find ways to keep social media from being used to spread hate, organize extremist groups and broadcast terror attacks. Facebook’s move came hours before its executives would face the prime minister of New Zealand, where an attacker killed 51 people in March — and livestreamed parts of it on Facebook.   The CEOs and world leaders will try to agree on guidelines they will call the “Christchurch Call,” named after the New Zealand city where the attack on a mosque took place.   Facebook said it’s tightening up the rules for its livestreaming service with a “one strike” policy applied to a broader range of offenses. Any activity on the social network that violates its policies, such as sharing a terrorist group’s statement without providing context, will result in the user immediately being temporarily blocked. The most serious offenses will result in a permanent ban.   Previously, the company took down posts that breached its community standards but only blocked users after repeated offenses.   The tougher restrictions will be gradually extended to other areas of the platform, starting with …

San Francisco supervisors voted Tuesday to ban the use of facial recognition software by police and other city departments, becoming the first U.S. city to outlaw a rapidly developing technology that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates.  The ban is part of broader legislation that requires city departments to establish use policies and obtain board approval for surveillance technology they want to purchase or are using at present. Several other local governments require departments to disclose and seek approval for surveillance technology.  “This is really about saying: ‘We can have security without being a security state. We can have good policing without being a police state.’ And part of that is building trust with the community based on good community information, not on Big Brother technology,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who championed the legislation.  The ban applies to San Francisco police and other municipal departments. It does not affect use of the technology by the federal government at airports and ports, nor does it limit personal or business use.  The San Francisco board did not spend time Tuesday debating the outright ban on facial recognition technology, focusing instead on the possible burdens placed on police, the transit system and …

If you’re fuzzy on next-generation 5G wireless connectivity, you aren’t alone. Powerful U.S. lawmakers who help shape the legal framework for America’s technological advances on Tuesday admitted ignorance and confusion about the highly-anticipated broadband system already being deployed in parts of the world. “I actually know very little about 5G,” said Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Today, we’re going to talk about something that I’m by no means an expert on,” the panel’s chairman, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, said at a hearing where America’s top cybersecurity officials testified on 5G’s promise and looming perils. “It’s really hard for people to get their heads around what we’re talking about here,” Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska said. “First of all, what is it?” Witnesses said the fifth generation of wireless technology, or 5G, will bring eye-popping data transmission capacity and spur a new age of digital device connectivity that will revolutionize many people’s daily lives, as well as America’s economic output. “5G is going to be about machine-to-machine communication, the internet of things,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cyber and International Communications Robert Strayer. “Advances in 5G will support greater …

Google opened a privacy focused engineering center in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, its latest move to beef up its data protection credentials as tech companies’ face growing scrutiny of their data collection practices. CEO Sundar Pichai said the Silicon Valley tech giant is expanding its operations in the southern German city, including doubling the number of data privacy engineers there to more than 200 by the end of 2019. The new Google Safety Engineering Center will make Munich a global hub for the company’s “cross-product privacy engineering efforts,” Pichai said in a blog post. Staff will work with Google privacy specialists in other cities to build products for use around the world, Pichai said, adding that Munich engineers built the Google Account control panel as well as privacy and security features for the Chrome browser. Data privacy and security at Google and its tech rivals including Facebook are increasingly in the spotlight. Both companies dedicated much of their annual developer conferences last week to privacy, with Google unveiling new tools giving people more control over how they’re being tracked while Facebook outlined plans to connect people though more private channels. …

Spyware crafted by a sophisticated group of hackers-for-hire took advantage of a flaw in the popular WhatsApp communications program to remotely hijack dozens of phones, the company said late Monday.  The Financial Times identified the actor as Israel’s NSO Group, and WhatsApp all but confirmed the identification, describing hackers as “a private company that has been known to work with governments to deliver spyware.” A spokesman for the Facebook subsidiary later said: “We’re certainly not refuting any of the coverage you’ve seen.” The malware was able to penetrate phones through missed calls alone via the app’s voice calling function, the spokesman said. An unknown number of people – an amount in the dozens at least would not be inaccurate – were infected with the malware, which the company discovered in early May, said the spokesman, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.  John Scott-Railton, a researcher with the internet watchdog Citizen Lab, called the hack “a very scary vulnerability.”  “There’s nothing a user could have done here, short of not having the app,” he said. The spokesman said the flaw was discovered while “our team was putting some additional security enhancements to our voice calls” and that engineers …

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that an antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed. Consumers are suing the company, alleging Apple overcharges when downloading iPhone applications at the company’s App Store. Conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh joined with the four liberal judges in the 5-4 decision, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the 30% commissions Apple charges violate federal antitrust laws. Consumers allege Apple has monopolized the market by requiring apps be sold only through their stores.  Apple argued it is just a conduit between app developers and customers and that it is the developers who set the prices. “We’re confident we will prevail when the facts are presented and that the App Store is not a monopoly by any metric,” a company statement said.  Apple is also under scrutiny by Dutch antitrust authorities over complaints about commissions in European markets. …

A new mass spectroscopy machine is helping forensic scientists who are looking for a much better view of fingerprints on objects used in a crime. The current methods of making a copy of a fingerprint may not be good enough and DNA swabbing can damage evidence. VOAs Deborah Block reports. …

South Africa, which has the largest population of rhinos in the world, has been the country hit hardest by poaching. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a 9,000% increase in poaching there, reaching a high of 1,215 animals in 2014. While numbers have been declining since then, poaching remains a problem. But as Faith Lapidus reports, technology is helping turn one game reserve into a high-tech fortress. …

President Donald Trump signed an executive order this month designed to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity workforce, the front line against hackers, domestic and foreign. With 7 billion internet-connected devices in the world, and numbers expected to rise, the threat is growing. Faith Lapidus reports, web-connected devices, from smart homes to drones, are vulnerable. …

A cat who lost his back legs when he was hit by a train got a new lease on life by getting new prosthetic limbs. They were designed by engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using a 3D printer. VOA’s Deborah Block has more. …

Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space tourism dream a step closer to reality. Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set a specific deadline for the first commercial flight. An interior cabin for the company’s space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the company in the “home stretch,” Whitesides said. The manufacturing of the space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based in the community of Mojave, California. ​Taxpayer backing Taxpayers invested more than $200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant. Virgin Galactic’s …

The question comes up over and over, with extremist material, hate speech, election meddling and privacy invasions. Why can’t Facebook just fix it? It’s complicated, with reasons that include Facebook’s size, its business model and technical limitations, not to mention years of unchecked growth. Oh, and the element of human nature. The latest revelation: Facebook is inadvertently creating celebratory videos using extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of Islamic State and al-Qaida. The company says it is working on solutions and the problems are getting better. That is true, but critics say better is not good enough when mass shootings are being live-streamed and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly violence. “They have been frustratingly slow in dealing with everything from child sexual abuse to terrorism, white supremacy, bullying, nonconsensual porn” and things like allowing advertisers to target categories such as “Jew hater,” simply because some users had listed the term as an “interest,” said Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley. As new problems crop up, Facebook’s formula has been to apologize and promise to make changes, sometimes also noting that it did not anticipate how malicious actors …