A new cellular network just for kids? The company behind it, Gabb Wireless, promises their phones help protect kids from the dangers of smartphones. Deana Mitchell dials in.
 
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Facebook says it is banning “deepfake” videos, the false but realistic clips created with artificial intelligence and sophisticated tools, as it steps up efforts to fight online manipulation.The social network said late Monday that it’s beefing up its policies to remove videos edited or synthesized in ways that aren’t apparent to the average person, and which could dupe someone into thinking the video’s subject said something he or she didn’t actually say.Created by artificial intelligence or machine learning, deepfakes combine or replace content to create images that can be almost impossible to tell are not authentic.“While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases,” Facebook’s vice president of global policy management, Monika Bickert, said in a blog post.However, she said the new rules won’t include parody or satire, or clips edited just to change the order of words. The exceptions underscore the balancing act Facebook and other social media services face in their struggle to stop the spread of online misinformation and “fake news” while also respecting free speech and fending off allegations of censorship.The U.S. tech company has been grappling with how to handle the rise of deepfakes after facing criticism last year for refusing to remove a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, which was viewed more than 3 million times. Experts said the crudely edited clip was more of a “cheap fake” than a deepfake.Then, a pair of artists posted fake footage of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showing him gloating over his one-man domination of the world. Facebook also left that clip online. The company said at the time that neither video violated its policies.The problem of altered videos is taking on increasing urgency as experts and lawmakers try to figure out how to prevent deepfakes from being used to interfere with U.S. presidential elections in November.Facebook said any videos that don’t meet existing standards for removal can still be reviewed by independent third-party fact-checkers. Those deemed false will be flagged as such to anyone trying to share or view them, which Bickert said was a better approach than just taking them down.“If we simply removed all manipulated videos flagged by fact-checkers as false, the videos would still be available elsewhere on the internet or social media ecosystem,” Bickert said. “By leaving them up and labeling them as false, we’re providing people with important information and context.” 
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Sex tech will grace the CES gadget show in Las Vegas this week after organizers endured scorn for revoking an innovation award to a sex device company led by a female founder.
                   
CES will allow space for sex tech companies as a one-year trial. The companies will be grouped in the health and wellness section of the Sands Expo, an official, but secondary CES location, one geared toward startups.
                   
Lora DiCarlo, a startup that pushed for changes after organizers revoked its award, will showcase its Ose robotic “personal massager.” It’s one of a dozen companies at the show focused on vibrators, lube dispensers and other sex tech products. Founders of these startups say their products are about empowerment and wellness for women, something they say has often been overlooked in tech.
                   
The historically male-dominated tech trade show has received criticism in past years for having an all-male lineup of speakers and for previously allowing scantily clad “booth babes,” fostering a “boys’ club” reputation.
                   
Besides allowing sex tech, CES organizers brought in an official “equality partner,” The Female Quotient, to help ensure gender diversity. The Female Quotient, which trains companies in equality practices, will hold a conference for women during the show, which formally opens Tuesday and runs through Friday.
                   
“It’s been a process,” said Gary Shapiro, the head of the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES.
                   
It’s been a longer process for many sex tech companies to convince investors that they are part of a growing trend that has enough customers. Much of the push has come from the startups’ female founders and from younger consumers who talk more openly about sexuality.
                   
Sex tech has existed in some form for decades. But the gates really began to open in 2016, said Andrea Barrica, founder of sex education site O.school. That year, several other “fem tech” companies made progress in areas such as menstruation and menopause. Those paved the way for sex tech to grow and get investors interested.
                   
“Larger institutions are starting to take note, all the way from VC firms to large Fortune 100 companies,” said Barrica, who recently published the book “Sextech Revolution: The Future of Sexual Wellness” Large institutions like CES had no choice but to look at sex tech, she said.
                   
The journey hasn’t been easy. Sex tech founders, many of them women, recount being turned down by dozens of investors. They faced decency arguments and entrenched corporate standards that equated them with porn.
                   
But investors are becoming more receptive, said Cindy Gallop, a former advertising executive turned sex tech entrepreneur and founder of the website MakeLoveNotPorn.
                   
“It’s entirely because of our refusal to allow the business world to put us down,” she said.
                   
Founders insist that their devices _ ranging from vibrators to lube dispensers to accessories _ have effects outside the bedroom.
                   
“Sexual health and wellness is health and wellness,” said Lora DiCarlo, CEO and founder of the company of the same name. “It does way more than just pleasure. It’s immediately connected to stress relief, to better sleep to empowerment and confidence.”
                   
DiCarlo’s Ose $290 device has gotten $3 million worth of advance sales, bolstered in part by the attention it received after CES organizers overturned a decision by an independent panel of judges to give the vibrator a prestigious Innovation Honoree Award in the robotics and drone category. The organizers, CTA, told the company it reserved the right to rescind awards for devices deemed “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image.”
                   
DiCarlo and other female founders pushed back for banning them but allowing humanoid sex robots meant to serve men the previous year.
                   
Following criticism, CES organizers ultimately  reinstated the award and apologized. A few months later, the show announced policy changes such as a dress code to prevent skimpy outfits and new “Innovation for All” sessions with senior diversity officials.
                   
Ose began shipping to customers this month. DiCarlo said the company is planning to new devices, including less expensive options.
                   
Sex tech companies still face major barriers to growth.
                   
Polly Rodriguez, CEO of sexual wellness company Unbound, said the company is profitable and customers are more open about buying products than they once were. But she said she still faces roadblocks advertising on social media, and many traditional investors snub the company.
                   
“Things are better, but there’s just still this genuine fear of female sexuality more broadly within the institutional side of technology,” she said.
                   
And while Gallop offered to speak at CES, conference organizers declined, saying sex tech was not a part of its conference programming.
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The co-creator of a video and voice calling app suspected of being a spying tool of the United Arab Emirates defended his work in an  interview with The Associated Press  and denied knowing that people and companies linked to the project had ties to the country’s intelligence apparatus.Millions downloaded the ToTok app during the several months it was offered in the Apple and Google stores. Co-founder Giacomo Ziani described the popularity as a sign of users’ trust despite a longtime ban in the UAE on such apps.He denied that the company collected conversation data, saying the software demanded the same access to devices as other common communication apps. Emirati authorities insisted that they “prohibit any kind of data breach and unlawful interception.”But this federation of seven sheikhdoms ruled by hereditary leaders already conducts mass surveillance and has been  internationally criticized for targeting activists, journalists and others. Ziani repeatedly said he knew nothing about that, nor had any knowledge that a firm invested in ToTok included staff with ties to an Emirati security firm scrutinized abroad for hiring former CIA and National Security Agency staffers. He also said he did not know about ties a computer researcher says link companies involved with ToTok to Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirates’ national security adviser.“I was not aware, and I’m even not aware now of who was who, who was doing what in the past,” Ziani said. “These are not questions you should be (asking) me. You should be eventually asking” them.IIn this Dec. 31, 2019 photo, the Abu Dhabi Global Market, an economic free zone, is seen in Abu Dhabi, UAE.ToTok surged to popularity by allowing users to make internet calls long banned in the UAE, a U.S.-allied nation on the Arabian Peninsula that is home to Dubai. The ban means Apple iPhones and computers sold in the UAE do not carry Apple’s FaceTime calling app. Calls on Skype, WhatsApp and other similar programs do not work.Ziani said ToTok won rapid approval from the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, something long sought by the established competitors that remain banned. The 32-year-old native of Venice, Italy, attributed that to the monopoly on the telecommunications market held by two companies, Du and Etisalat, that are majority-owned by the government. ToTok’s small market share would not cut as deeply into their business as major firms if allowed access, he said.“They will see their business like totally crashed from a day to another,” Ziani said. With ToTok, “they felt like they were not risking to fall into this situation.”By installing the app, users agreed to allow access to their mobile device’s microphone, pictures, location information and other data invaluable to intelligence agencies. Most internet firms are based in the U.S., but privacy is viewed far differently in the Emirates, where ToTok’s headquarters are in the capital, Abu Dhabi.“By using this app, you’re allowing your life to be opened up to the whims of national security as seen by the UAE government,” said Bill Marczak, a computer science researcher at the University of California, Berkley, who has studied ToTok and other suspected Emirati spying operations. “In this case, you’re essentially having people install the spyware themselves as opposed to hacking into the phone.”In this nation of 9.4 million people where all but a sliver of the population comes from another country, the app represented what appeared to be the first government-blessed app that would allow them to connect freely to loved ones back home. That drew everyone from laborers to diplomatic staffers to download it amid a publicity campaign by state-linked and government-supporting media in the Emirates.An American diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said local embassy and consular staff received orders to remove the app from all U.S. government devices. That was only after The New York Times, citing anonymous U.S. officials, described the app as a “spying tool” of the Emirati government.Ziani alleged, without providing evidence, that criticism of ToTok came more from professional jealousy and trade tensions between the U.S. and China than security concerns. ToTok partly used code from a previously developed Chinese app called Yeecall, where his co-founder, Long Ruan, once worked in a senior position, he said. Ziani said he met Long through G42, which he described as a business “incubator.”But ToTok described itself on Apple as coming from developer Breej Holding Ltd. and on Google as being from ToTok Pte., a Singapore-based firm.Both ToTok and Breej Holding Ltd. had been registered in a publicly accessible online database of companies operating out of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, an economic free zone set up in the Emirati capital. After suspicions emerged about ToTok, records of the two firms no longer appeared online.Following an inquiry about the firms from an AP journalist, their information reappeared Tuesday night in the database. Market spokeswoman Joan Lew blamed a “data migration” problem for their disappearance.In this Feb. 6, 2019 photo, released by Emirates News Agency, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, left, walks to a meeting in Abu Dhabi, UAE.Information from that database shows ToTok’s sole registered shareholder as Group 42, a new Abu Dhabi firm that describes itself as an artificial intelligence and cloud-computing company. The company, also known as G42, in an email to the AP also described itself as “the registered shareholder in ToTok Technology Ltd.,” though Ziani said ToTok has another substantial investor he declined to identify.G42’s CEO is Peng Xiao, who for years ran Pegasus, a subsidiary of DarkMatter, the Emirati security firm under scrutiny for hiring former CIA and NSA staffers, as well as others from Israel. G42’s website also lists PAX AI as a subsidiary, the new name Pegasus operates under, according to job postings for PAX AI that mention Pegasus. Ziani similarly interchangeably referred to Pegasus as PAX AI while speaking to the AP.“G42 has no connection to DarkMatter, whatsoever,” the company told AP in a statement. It did not respond to further queries, though other former DarkMatter and Pegasus employees now work at G42, according to publicly accessible profiles on the social media website LinkedIn.G42’s sole director listed in Abu Dhabi Global Market filings is Hamad Khalfan al-Shamsi, whom Marczak identified as the public relations manager of the office of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Sheikh Tahnoun is a brother to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the powerful crown prince of Abu Dhabi who has run the country from day-to-day since its president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, suffered a stroke in January 2014.Sheikh Tahnoun, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner always photographed in sunglasses, has served as the UAE’s national security adviser since 2016. The sheikh’s adopted son, the mixed martial artist Hassan al-Rumaithi, is the sole director of Breej Holding Ltd., Marczak said, citing market filings. Similarly, an executive at Sheikh Tahnoun’s company Royal Group, Osama al-Ahdali, is the sole director of ToTok Technology Ltd., Marczak said.Royal Group did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Emirati officials, Apple and Google.ToTok on its website meanwhile still lists itself as Totok Pte. Ltd., the Singapore-based company initially listed on the Google app store. Singaporean business records obtained by the AP show a single shareholder, Manoj Paul, with a listed address at one of Abu Dhabi’s upscale Etihad Towers. Paul, who describes himself on LinkedIn as G42’s general counsel and head of group operations, declined to speak with an AP journalist.For now, Ziani said his focus remains on getting ToTok listed again in the Apple and Google app stores. He mentioned plans to have ToTok become like China’s all-encompassing app WeChat, handling payments, social media posts and other high-frequency activities. G42 appears to already have filed paperwork for a possible payment company in Abu Dhabi.That could create an Emirati version of WeChat, a service used by more than 1 billion people use in which Chinese government officials routinely censor posts. Dissidents suspect it of allowing surveillance.Ziani insisted a former NSA hacker named Patrick Wardle, who analyzed ToTok, said the app “simply does what it claims to do.”However, Ziani ignored the next sentence in Wardle’s analysis, which described “the genius of the whole mass surveillance operation” the app could represent by offering “in-depth insight in a large percentage of the country’s population.”
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The surge in Africa innovation is expected in 2020 with all sorts of solutions to the continent’s problems. One example is an innovation created by a Malian in 2019. It’s a voice-controlled app that entrepreneurs are using to market their goods and services to customers who can’t read. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports 
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The surge in Africa innovation is expected in 2020 with all sorts of solutions to the continent’s problems. One example is an innovation created by a Malian in 2019. It’s a voice-controlled app that entrepreneurs are using to market their goods and services to customers who can’t read. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports 
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A California startup called OFFWORLD has ambitious plans that are out of this world. They are working on developing autonomous robots that would be able to mine the Moon and Mars. Alexey Gorbachev has the story narrated by Anna Rice.
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India plans to make a fresh attempt to land an unmanned mission on the moon in 2020 after a failed bid last year, the head of the country’s space program said Wednesday.Work is going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organization chairman K. Sivan told a press conference.”We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.India seeking to become only the fourth nation after Russia, the United States and China to put a mission on the moon’s surface and boost its credentials as a low-cost space power.The country’s Chandrayaan-2 module crash-landed on the moon’s surface in September.Sivan said the new propulsion module, lander and surface rover would cost about $35 million, with a significantly higher outlay for the launch itself.He added that India had chosen four candidate astronauts to take part in the country’s first manned mission into orbit, pledged to take place by mid-2022.The four are to start training in Russia later this month. Up to three astronauts are to take part in the mission, which will be one of the landmark projects scheduled for the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from British rule.
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A pro-independence group in Spain’s Catalonia region is using a smartphone app to outwit authorities, as it steps up demonstrations following the jailing of several of the movement’s leaders.
 
The group Democratic Tsunami released the app to coordinate demonstrations across the region.The latest target was the world-famous El Clasico soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid on Dec. 18. There were violent clashes outside the stadium, and protesters disrupted the game by throwing balls bearing pro-independence slogans onto the field.Democratic Tsunami has no apparent leader and those behind it are anonymous. In recent weeks, the group has mobilized thousands of demonstrators in minutes, catching authorities by surprise.WATCH: Henry Ridgwell’s video report
The Future of Protest? Catalans Outwit Spanish Authorities With Phone App video player.
Embed” />Copy Link“It is decentralized in the sense that you can’t identify who is sending the notifications for the protests,” said professor Enric Lujan, a political scientist at the University of Barcelona.“They developed it that way. The app has that architecture in order to avoid the authorities from knowing who is behind Tsunami Democratic, which is the main obsession, for example, of the Spanish Interior Ministry.”
 
Lujan said the Democratic Tsunami app takes special steps to remain anonymous.
 
“You cannot download it from the usual channels such as the Google Play Store or the iPhone App store. You have to look for a link and then download the app directly,” he said.
 
Even after the app has been downloaded, it still needs to be activated by another approved user, explained software engineer Silvia Puglisi of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
 
“You just go to a protest, and you exchange a QR code. The QR code is a cryptographic key, and once the keys are exchanged, you are part of the system.”
 
Democratic Tsunami has grown rapidly in the space of a few months, staging protests that have paralyzed Barcelona’s airport and the main highway to the French border. Spain’s National Court has ordered the Democratic Tsunami website to be shut down, citing possible terrorism offenses. Madrid jailed nine Catalan independence leaders in October on charges of sedition.
 
The political party Pirates of Catalonia has taken the fight to the European Union’s Court of Justice, claiming the terrorism investigation is an abuse of basic human rights.
 
Experts say that if the coding is made available, the app could be used by other protest movements, like pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
 
“The idea is to just exchange a key. You don’t exchange any other information, and it’s totally decentralized. There is no central service, and you just communicate with your friends on a peer-to-peer basis,” Puglisi said.
 
There are concerns that with no oversight from a regulated app store, the Democratic Tsunami app could break strict European rules on storing and sharing data, such as the tracking of its users’ movements.
 
Supporters say it’s a vital tool in the face of what they claim is an attempt to stifle basic freedoms.
 
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What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out
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Ride-share company Uber and on-demand meal delivery service Postmates sued Monday to block a broad new California law aimed at giving wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent contractors.The lawsuit filed in U.S. court in Los Angeles argues that the law set to take effect Wednesday violates federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.Uber said it will try to link the lawsuit to another legal challenge filed in mid-December by associations representing freelance writers and photographers.The California Trucking Association filed the first challenge to the law in November on behalf of independent truckers.The law creates the nation’s strictest test by which workers must be considered employees and it could set a precedent for other states.The latest challenge includes two independent workers who wrote about their concerns with the new law.”This has thrown my life and the lives of more than a hundred(equals)thousand drivers into uncertainty,” ride-share driver Lydia Olson’s wrote in a Facebook post cited by Uber.Postmates driver Miguel Perez called on-demand work “a blessing” in a letter distributed by Uber. He said he used to drive a truck for 14 hours at a time, often overnight.”Sometimes, when I was behind the wheel, with an endless shift stretching out ahead of me like the open road, I daydreamed about a different kind of job — a job where I could choose when, where and how much I worked and still make enough money to feed my family,” he wrote.The lawsuit contends that the law exempts some industries but includes ride-share and delivery companies without a rational basis for distinguishing between them. It alleges that the law also infringes on workers’ rights to choose how they make a living and could void their existing contracts.Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego countered that she wrote the law to extend employee rights to more than a million California workers who lack benefits, including a minimum wage, mileage reimbursements, paid sick leave, medical coverage and disability pay for on-the-job injuries.She noted that Uber had previously sought an exemption when lawmakers were crafting the law, then said it would defend its existing labor model from legal challenges. It joined Lyft and DoorDash in a vow to each spend $30 million to overturn the law at the ballot box in 2020 if they don’t win concessions from lawmakers next year.”The one clear thing we know about Uber is they will do anything to try to exempt themselves from state regulations that make us all safer and their driver employees self-sufficient,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “In the meantime, Uber chief executives will continue to become billionaires while too many of their drivers are forced to sleep in their cars.’’The new law was a response to a legal ruling last year by the California Supreme Court regarding workers at the delivery company Dynamex.
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China’s Huawei Technologies said Tuesday that its sales rose a lower-than-projected 18% in 2019 and predicted tough times ahead as the U.S. moves to restrict its business.The flash sales estimate came in an annual New Year’s message to employees. Chairman Eric Xu warned that mediocre managers would face demotion as the telecom giant and leader in 5G mobile technology focuses on survival.”It’s going to be a difficult year for us,” he wrote, calling on the company’s more than 190,000 employees “to work hard and go the extra mile to bring their capabilities to a new level.”No one is predicting Huawei’s demise. The unlisted company, a major maker of both mobile transmission equipment and handsets, estimated 2019 sales would rise to more than 850 billion yuan ($120 billion).”These figures are lower than our initial projections, yet business remains solid and we stand strong in the face of adversity,” Xu said in the letter, which was released to the AP and other media.Huawei, based in the tech hub of Shenzhen in southern China, typically releases its official and audited annual financial results in March.The U.S. government says Huawei technology poses a security risk and has urged other countries not to buy its 5G mobile network equipment. It has also put Huawei on its entity list, blocking U.S. technology sales to the company. Huawei denies the allegation.Calling difficulty the prelude to greater success, Xu said America’s “strategic and long-term” campaign against Huawei is an opportunity to build up some muscle and build capabilities to navigate future challenges.”Despite concerted efforts by the U.S. government to keep us down, we’ve made it out the other side and continue to create value for our customers,” he wrote.The five-page letter exhorts employees to hone their skills and rid themselves of complacency. Saying that survival is the company’s top priority, Xu warns that mediocre managers “who have lost their enterprising spirit” will be removed faster than before.
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Brazil’s Ministry of Justice said on Monday it has fined U.S. tech giant Facebook Inc 6.6 million reais ($1.6 million) for improperly sharing user data.The ministry’s department of consumer protection said it had found that data from 443,000 Facebook users was made improperly available to developers of an app called ‘thisisyourdigitallife.’ The data was being shared for “questionable” purposes, the ministry said in a statement.Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The ministry said the world’s largest social network failed to provide users with adequate information regarding default privacy settings, particularly related to data of “friends” and “friends of friends.”The ministry said it launched the investigation following media reports of the misuse of data by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica in 2018.Facebook has 10 days to appeal the decision. The fine should be paid within 30 days. 
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Spotify Technology SA said on Friday it would pause selling political advertisements on its music streaming platform in early 2020.The world’s most popular paid music streaming service, with nearly 141 million users tuning into its ad-supported platform in October, said the pause would extend to Spotify original and exclusive podcasts as well.The move, which was first reported by Ad Age, comes as campaigns for the U.S. presidential election in November 2020 heat up.Online platforms including Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google are under growing pressure to police misinformation on their platforms and stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims.Twitter Inc banned political ads in October and, last month, Google said it would stop giving advertisers the ability to target election ads using data such as public voter records and general political affiliations.”At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content,” a Spotify spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.”We will reassess this decision as we continue to evolve our capabilities.”Advertisers ‘on the hunt’Spotify, which was only accepting political advertising in the United States, did not answer a Reuters question on how much revenue the company generates from political ads.”Spotify wasn’t a widely used online advertising platform for campaigns before,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. “But as other online platforms restricted their political ad inventory, advertisers were on the hunt for new options.”The new policy will cover political groups such as candidates for office, elected and appointed officials, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and SuperPACS, as well as content that advocates for or against those entities. Spotify will also not sell ads that advocate for legislative and judicial outcomes.The move only applies to Spotify’s ad sales, not advertisements embedded in third-party content, though those will still be subject to Spotify’s broader content policies.
 
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A recent trade fair in Tokyo showcased the robots of 2019.  Engineers created some that play games and others that could save lives.  As VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, these robots exist to make the world a little better.
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A Moroccan YouTuber was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for “insulting the king” in a video broadcast on social networks, his lawyer said.In a separate case, a Moroccan journalist and activist was charged and detained over a tweet that had criticized a court decision, his defense council told AFP.The cases come after the Moroccan Human Rights Association had deplored in July an “escalation of violations of human rights and public and individual freedoms” in Morocco.The YouTuber Mohamed Sekkaki, known as “Moul Kaskita”, was sentenced by a court in the western city of Settat to four years in prison, his lawyer Mohamed Ziane told AFP.Sekkaki, whose videos usually exceed 100,000 views, was arrested in early December after posting a video in which he insulted Moroccans as “donkeys” and criticized King Mohammed VI, whose is considered “inviolable” under the constitution.Ziani said his client would appeal the verdict.The conviction of the YouTuber came less than a month after a Moroccan rapper was sentenced to a year in prison for “insulting a public official”.Also on Thursday, journalist Omar Radi, 33, was detained in Casablanca and now faces trial, his lawyer Said Benhammani told AFP.He is being prosecuted for a tweet published nine months ago criticizing the judge in charge of the case against the leaders of the Hirak protest movement, he said.Morocco’s criminal code punishes “insulting magistrates” with imprisonment of between one month and one year.The group Reporters Without Borders in its latest annual press freedom index ranked Morocco 135th out of 180 countries.
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The era of Silicon Valley operating largely free from government regulation may be coming to an end.In 2019, lawmakers grilled tech executives at multiple hearings in Washington and federal regulators slapped record fines on tech firms. They promise action in the coming year on a host of issues: competition, online privacy, encryption and bias.U.S. tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon are girding themselves for more federal scrutiny.“As the internet companies matured without a lot of regulation, some issues have emerged where attention is needed,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley since 1994 and who has introduced a national online privacy bill.“I think it’s fair enough to examine what kind of rules should be set in certain elements of the tech economy,” she said.FILE – Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is pictured during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 24, 2019. Lofgren was the chief sponsor of a bill approved Oct. 23 to better protect the country’s elections from foreign interference.For years, Washington was enamored with the technology industry and its iconic companies that fueled economic growth. They created new tools for campaigning and reaching voters, and enjoyed an aura of cool.Online privacy and user dataNow, there are threats of fines over things such as violating users’ privacy or stifling competition.In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission issued a record $5 billion fine against Facebook for “deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.” It also issued a $170 million fine against Google for violating children’s privacy on YouTube, which Google owns.New laws, such as the one Lofgren proposes, could give American users more control over their online data and limit companies’ ability to collect user data. Those moves could limit companies’ ability to sell advertising, which funds the free internet.FILE – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives to testify before a Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees joint hearing regarding the company’s use and protection of user data, on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 10, 2018.Antitrust and competitionBoth Democrats and Republicans criticize “Big Tech,” as it is now called. And in the coming year, the pressure will likely increase.“Whenever the word ‘Big’ is placed before your industry, it’s not a good thing,” said Carl Guardino, president and chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents many of the region’s tech firms. “It’s now ‘Big Tech,’ and you know it’s not used as a term of endearment.”Foreign users of American tech products could also see changes if Washington follows through on threats to break up large companies like Facebook. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is reportedly drafting a bill to toughen the country’s rules about antitrust and competition.The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly looking into stopping Facebook’s further integration of Whatsapp and Instagram, in case it would one day see a need to break up the social network giant.Washington seems to have woken up to the dangers of technology companies that have become the gatekeepers of communications and commerce, said Sally Hubbard, the director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute, a research group that focuses on antitrust issues.“The traction has definitely really intensified over the last year,” she said. “There’s also just a growing awareness that these companies are causing a wide range of harms, whether it’s harms to our democracy, harms to innovation, harms to entrepreneurship. They are playing the game and controlling it, too.”A Huawei employee on Huawei’s campus in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guandong Province, Dec. 5, 2019. The Chinese tech giant is asking a U.S. federal court to throw out a rule that bars rural phone carriers from using government money to purchase its equipment.China and 5G infrastructureMeanwhile, there is growing concern over China’s expanding role in advanced global communications and whether the authoritarian country can be entrusted with user data. The U.S. government has warned other countries not to work with the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, which sells equipment that is building the new 5G networks around the world.Much is at stake. With more than a majority of the Earth’s 7 billion people online, Washington’s rules for the U.S. technology industry and its global competitors could determine the future of communication.
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One California-based rocket company is 3D-printing engines that can be quickly made in high volumes. Rocket Lab says these high-performing rockets are reliable and are regularly used to launch satellites to low-Earth orbit each month. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from Huntington Beach, California 
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The Church of England has launched a study into an existential question: do its investments in big-tech giants contradict the Christian faith?The Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) will determine whether some of the new technologies undermine “the very idea of God”, a spokesman for the Church told AFP on Monday.The year-long review was first reported by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.EIAG was set up in the early 1990s to help make sure that more than £12 billion ($15.5 billion, 14 billion Euros) in assets held by the Church’s various institutions are put to ethical use.”Artificial intelligence [AI] is an important element of this review,” the spokesman said.The EIAG is in talks with technology experts as well as politicians and theologians “to try to make sense of the issues”, the spokesman said.It wants to reach a conclusion “that is not only grounded in theology and distinctly Anglican but is also practical”, he added.EIAG did not specify how much money the Church has invested in the likes of Google’s parent company Alphabet and Amazon.The Church’s 2018 annual report also reported investments in drugs development companies AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.”Some argue that tech has brought enormous benefits to society but others note a growing realization of the limitations and downsides of technology,” the spokesman said.
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Boeing Co’s Starliner astronaut spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, the company said, after faulty software forced officials to cut short an unmanned mission aimed at taking it to the International Space Station.The landing at 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) in the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities.
“We hit the bull’s-eye,” a Boeing spokesman said on a livestream of the landing.
The landing will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after failing to meet its core objective of docking to the space station.
After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed.
The spacecraft was in an apparently stable condition after landing, according to images posted by officials from the U.S. space agency NASA.
The CST-100 Starliner’s debut launch to orbit was a milestone test for Boeing. The company is vying with SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities.  SpaceX carried out a successful unmanned flight of its Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in March.
The Starliner capsule was successfully launched from Florida on Friday, but an automated timer error prevented it from attaining the right orbit to meet and dock with the space station. That failure came as Boeing sought an engineering and public relations victory in a year that has seen corporate crisis over
the grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes of the aircraft. The company’s shares dropped 1.6% on Friday.Parachute challenge
Ahead of Sunday’s landing, Starliner’s three main parachutes deployed just over one mile (1,600 metres) from the Earth’s surface after enduring intense heat from the violent reentry through the atmosphere, plummeting at 25 times the speed of sound.
The parachute deployment, one of the most challenging procedures under the program to develop a commercial manned space capsule, earned Boeing a fresh win after a previous mishap where one parachute failed to deploy during a November test of Starliner’s abort thrusters.
That test tossed the capsule miles into the sky to demonstrate its ability to land a crew safely back on the ground in the event of a launch failure.
For the current mission, Boeing and NASA officials said they still do not understand why software caused the craft to miss the orbit required.
Sunday’s landing marked the first time a U.S. orbital space capsule designed for humans landed on land.
All past U.S. capsules, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, splashed down in the ocean. Russia’s Soyuz capsules and China’s past crew capsules made land landings.
  
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Facebook Inc has taken down a well-financed campaign that used dozens of artificially generated faces to spread pro-Trump and anti-Chinese government messages, the company and outside researchers said on Friday.Researchers from New York-based Graphika and the Digitial Forensics Research Lab, an arm of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, said it was the first time they had seen the large-scale use of computer-generated faces to spread disinformation on social media.Tell-tale signsThe researchers said in a report that while tell-tale signs such as misshapen ears and distorted backgrounds had helped them identify the fakes, “this technology is rapidly evolving toward generating more believable pictures.”Facebook said 610 Facebook accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were involved in the network.The social media giant said those behind the operation had spent upward of $9 million on advertising to promote their content, which touched on hot-button issues such as “impeachment, conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, trade, family values and freedom of religion.”Activity traced to Vietnam The amount is almost 100 times what Facebook said Russia’s infamous troll farm spent in the run-up to and shortly after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Facebook said its investigation linked the activity to U.S.-based Epoch Media Group and individuals in Vietnam working on its behalf, though the accounts more openly associated with The BL, for the Beauty of Life.In a statement, Epoch said it had “no connection with the website BL.””The BL was founded by a former employee, and employs some of our former employees,” publisher Stephen Gregory said in a post to the Epoch Times website. He called on Facebook to withdraw its allegation and lift a pre-existing ban on Epoch Media’s advertising.Facebook respondsFacebook fired back, saying that BL executives “were active admins on Epoch Media Group Pages as recently as this morning when their accounts were deactivated and the BL was removed.”The BL, whose website lists its headquarters as a single-family home in Middletown, New York, did not immediately return emails seeking comment. Its listed phone number rang unanswered.The Epoch Times was set up as a print publication by followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, banned in China, before moving heavily online. Its output has tended to steer toward support for Trump and attacks on his opponents.The content removed by Facebook had the same tilt. Groups identified by the outside researchers bore names such as “America Needs President Trump,” “TRUMP MAGA 2020,” or “WE STAND WITH TRUMP & PENCE!””Alongside pro-Trump material, these assets posted large quantities of material attacking his critics and rivals, often presenting users with a partisan statement and urging them to respond if they agreed,” the researchers wrote in their report.’Moral standards and values’The BL’s now-removed Facebook page said it would “focus on content that represents fundamental moral standards and values, to enlighten all who prefer to be inspired,” according to the researchers.While the page said it rejected misinformation, Facebook said, “The BL-focused network repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation.”The takedown followed investigative stories by NBC on the Epoch Times’ heavy use  of Facebook and by the fact-checking website Snopes.com  on The BL.
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The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding talks with General Motors Co. on the automaker’s petition to deploy a limited number of self-driving vehicles on American roads without 
steering wheels or other human controls, the head of the agency 
said Friday. Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency aims to decide soon on GM’s January 2018 petition as well as on a request by Nuro, a driverless delivery startup backed by Softbank Corp., to deploy a limited number of low-speed, highly automated delivery vehicles without human occupants. The agency’s review comes at a time of heightened concerns 
about the safety of automated piloting systems in vehicles and 
aircraft, a potential revolution in ground and air transportation. “I expect we’re going to be able to move forward with these 
petitions soon — as soon as we can,” Owens told Reuters, adding 
action “definitely” would come next year. “This will be a big deal because this will be the first such action that will be taken,” Owens said. GM, the No. 1 U.S. automaker, confirmed it has been in talks with NHTSA about the petition. Nuro also confirmed it is in talks with NHTSA. Still work to doGM Chief Executive Mary Barra and U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao last week met and discussed the petition, officials said, but significant work remains at the technical level. Owens said NHTSA officials are “crawling through these petitions because we want to make sure” the driverless vehicles are at least as safe as other cars on the roads. “There’s a lot of back and forth between us and the companies,” Owens said during a Reuters interview that also included Chao and other Transportation Department officials. “We’re sharing with them thoughts and ideas and concerns. They come back to us with additional information.” Chao said it is important that NHTSA take its time in reviewing the GM petition. Chao suggested that some auto industry officials and analysts were too optimistic about the timing for deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. “I think the complexity was far greater than what a lot of very optimistic advocates were thinking,” Chao said.  FILE – In this Aug. 16, 2018, photo a self-driving Nuro vehicle parks outside a Fry’s supermarket, which is owned by Kroger, as part of a pilot program for grocery deliveries in Scottsdale, Ariz.In GM’s petition, NHTSA is for the first time looking at a vehicle in which all driving decisions are made by a computer rather than a human driver. Nuro, which partnered with Kroger Co. last year to deliver groceries, seeks approval not to include a windshield in the vehicle. The petitions — formal applications for action by the agency — seek exemptions from U.S. vehicle safety rules largely written decades ago that assumed human drivers would be in control of a vehicle. The petitions are for up to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer. GM initially said it hoped to win approval to deploy the vehicles by the end of this year. But in July its self-driving unit, Cruise, said it was delaying commercial deployment of cars as more testing of the vehicles was required. A new target date wasn’t specified. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit this year began offering some rides with no human driver in its limited autonomous ride-hailing service in Arizona, but with steering wheels and employees watching remote feeds of the vehicles’ cameras. “We’re in communication with them about how they are ensuring the safe operation of the vehicle,” Owens said. “We will continue having a back-and-forth with them.” 
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