Author: iMaster

Author: iMaster

World Semiconductor Shortage Raises Taiwan’s Bargaining Power with US
03/05/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. President Joe Biden’s order to secure semiconductor supply chains for high-tech hardware production offers a commercial boost to Taiwan, one of the world’s biggest providers of chips, and gives Taipei new weight in any free-trade talks, analysts say.Biden signed an executive order Feb. 24 for the United States to start overcoming a chip shortage

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US Tech Competition With China Draws Bipartisan Support
03/05/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

This week a U.S.-government backed commission of technology experts completed a three-year review of the country’s artificial intelligence capabilities, urging the development of a new national technology strategy to stay competitive with China.The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) has been studying how artificial intelligence and machine learning can address U.S. national security and

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Vietnam Tapping Hackers to Silence Critics, Experts Warn
03/04/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

An international advocacy group’s claim that the Vietnamese government has tapped hackers to target activists shows that the communist Southeast Asian state is widening the use of technology to quash its biggest opponents, experts believe. Ocean Lotus, a shadowy group suspected of working with the Vietnamese government, is “behind a sustained campaign of spyware attacks,” London-based

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Learning a Dog’s Many Moods … With a Smart Collar
03/03/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

From a smart dog collar that can tell you your pet’s emotional state to toys that automatically move, the pet tech industry is growing, especially during the pandemic when many people staying at home have been adopting dogs and cats.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has more on the latest tech devices for pets.Camera:  Elizabeth Lee, Sam Verma    Producer:

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Growing Digital Economy Offers New Opportunities – and Challenges 
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The latest International Labor Organization FILE – Travelers request an Uber ride at Los Angeles International Airport’s LAX-it pick up terminal, Aug. 20, 2020.However, there are a number of downsides to this new form of work.  For example, Ryder notes workers sometimes have to pay a commission or a fee just to access the digital

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Attack on US Capitol Renews Interest in Regulating Social Media Giants
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. technology companies, with millions of users worldwide, face renewed scrutiny and stepped-up efforts to regulate them in Washington. Michelle Quinn reports.Produced by: Matt Dibble  …

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Facebook’s Oversight Board Has Received Appeal From ‘User’ in Trump Ban Case
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Facebook Inc.’s oversight board has received a “user statement” for the case it is deciding about whether the social media company was right to indefinitely suspend former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, a board spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday. Facebook handed the case to its independent board in January after it blocked Trump’s access to

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Facebook Pledges $1B in News Investments Over 3 Years
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Facebook on Wednesday pledged to invest at least $1 billion to support journalism over the next three years as the social media giant defended its handling of a dispute with Australia over payments to media organizations.Nick Clegg, head of global affairs, said in a statement that the company was willing to support news media while

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Australia Approves Law to Make Facebook and Google Pay to Carry News Content
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Australia has become the world’s first nation to make digital companies such as Facebook and Google pay domestic news outlets for their content.Parliament approved the law Thursday that would allow a government arbitrator to decide the price a digital company should pay news outlets if the two sides fail to reach an agreement.The final legislation

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ByteDance Agrees to $92 Million Privacy Settlement with US TikTok Users
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

ByteDance has agreed to a $92 million class-action settlement over data privacy claims from some U.S. TikTok users, according to documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Illinois. ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the short video app that has more than 100 million U.S. users, agreed to the settlement after more than a year

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Tech Executives Warn Full Extent of US Cyber Breach Still Unknown
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

U.S. lawmakers launched an investigation this week into the December 2020 SolarWinds hack that included a breach of many private and U.S. government computer systems. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, tech leaders are telling lawmakers the full scope of the breach is still not known.  Camera: Adam Greenbaum  Produced by: Katherine Gypson   

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Carter Center Targets Online Threats in Ethiopia
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

With internet access increasing in many emerging democracies, use of social media is changing the ways that candidates and voters interact.  It’s also changing how the non-profit U.S.-based Carter Center assesses elections. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, monitoring online disinformation and threats to prevent political violence is a new front in the center’s democracy initiatives

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US Judge Approves $650M Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Settlement
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

A federal judge on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users.U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in

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What Is Clubhouse and Why Did It Get So Popular?
03/01/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

There’s a new player in the social media webspace: it’s called Clubhouse. But unlike other social media platforms this one isn’t open to just anyone. Mariia Prus looked into why the platform got so popular so fast. Camera: Oleksii Osyka …

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Facebook Oversight Board Announces First 5 Rulings
01/28/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Facebook’s quasi-independent oversight board has ruled the social media company must restore four of five posts that it had taken down. The cases involved Facebook’s policy regarding adult nudity, hate speech and “dangerous individuals.” The oversight board ordered images of female nipples displayed by a Brazilian user on Instagram to raise awareness about breast cancer

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Facebook’s Profits Surge as Pandemic Fuels Use
01/28/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Facebook’s profits surged in the final three months of last year as people enduring the holidays in a pandemic turned to the leading social network for work and pleasure, the company said Wednesday. Facebook reported a profit of $ 11.2 billion on revenue of $ 28 billion, increases of 53% and 33% when compared with

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Facebook Says it Will Permanently Stop Recommending Political Groups to Users
01/28/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Facebook Inc’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday the company would no longer recommend civic and political groups to users of the platform. The social media company said in October that it was temporarily halting recommendations of political groups for U.S. users in the run-up to the presidential election. On Wednesday, Facebook said it would

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Internet Outages, Slowdowns Reported from Boston to Washington
01/27/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

People from Boston to the Washington area were reporting internet outages or slow service Tuesday.  According to Downdetector.com, which tracks outages, users reported problems with Verizon, Google, Zoom, YouTube, Slack and Amazon Web Services.  Many of those services have become staples for millions of Americans working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Students attending school

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EU Leader Urges US to Join Digital ‘Rule Book”’
01/27/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

The European Union (EU) Tuesday called upon the United States to join the alliance in creating a common rule book to rein in the power of internet companies like Facebook and Twitter to combat the spread of fake news as well as protect data. In a wide-ranging virtual speech to the Davos World Economic Forum

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Twitter to Crowdsource Content Policing
01/25/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Twitter on Monday unveiled a new tool it is piloting to combat misinformation.  Called Birdwatch, the crowdsourcing tool aims to enlist other Twitter users to vet tweets they think contain misinformation. Instead of deleting an offending tweet or having Twitter attach a warning label, users will be able to add annotations to the tweet to “provide

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Twitter Bans Suspect Iran Account After Post Threatens Trump
01/23/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Twitter said Friday it has permanently banned an account that some in Iran believe is linked to the office of the country’s supreme leader after a posting that seemed to threaten former President Donald Trump. In the image posted by the suspect account late Thursday, Trump is shown playing golf in the shadow of a

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Google Seals Content Payment Deal with French News Publishers
01/22/2021 iNews,iTechnology iMaster

Google and a French publishers lobby said Thursday that they had agreed to a copyright framework for the U.S. tech giant to pay news publishers for content online, a first for Europe. The move paves the way for individual licensing agreements for French publications, some of which have seen revenues drop with the rise of

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