WASHINGTON — Chinese social media users are not impressed by the newly released AI model Grok 3 by Elon Musk’s xAI, retaining their preference and support for DeepSeek, the free China-made AI model that rivals leading Western competitors while costing significantly less to train.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
…

A recent study found doctors were able to detect breast cancer more often when they used artificial intelligence to help read mammogram results. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, AI helped boost the breast cancer detection rate by more than 17%.
…

NAIROBI, KENYA — Milk and egg vendor Caroline Mukundi has lost a lot of her stock in her years of selling fresh food at a Nairobi market.

Mukundi said she had no way to keep food fresh, and the cost of refrigerating was out of reach.

“The food would go bad,” she said, and she would have to throw it away. “It was a big challenge for me.”

Mukundi said her situation turned around when she acquired a solar-powered refrigerator.

The refrigerators, named Koolboks and manufactured in Kenya, are fitted with ice compartments that can chill food even without a source of power. The devices can keep food cool for up to four days without electricity, even with limited sunlight.

Customers can buy the refrigerators on a customized payment model, said Natalie Casey, chief business officer at the Koolboks startup company.

“They can be between 1,500 and 3,000 US dollars, because it includes not only the appliances but also the solar panels and battery storage to enable the continuous cooling,” she said. “We’ve decided what might be more accessible to them is to first pay a down payment between 20 and 35% of the total, and the customer can pay in installments of up to 24 months.”

Koolboks has sold about 7,000 solar-powered refrigerators.

Conventional refrigerators for businesses can cost anywhere from $11,000 to $100,000 or more, said Dorothy Otieno, program manager at the Center for Environmental Justice and Development.

“Some businesses, especially small businesses, are not able to afford it,” she said.

“We are looking at, for example, how businesses can be supported to get access to [the Koolboks refrigerators], especially for communities that are not able to afford,” she said.

The refrigerator was among dozens of innovations showcased at the recent Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi. The conference’s founder, Andrew Fassnidge, told VOA that such creations are crucial to solving local problems on the continent.

“What’s interesting with … Koolboks refrigeration is, if we look at the Covid vaccine, one of the biggest issues at the time was refrigeration, and it’s still an issue in most markets,” he said.

Koolboks markets a refrigerator specifically for vaccines.

The refrigerators could have an impact on climate change, too.

A 2024 survey by the U.N. Environmental Program showed Kenya has a high level of food waste, with annual waste ranging from 40 to 100 kilograms per person.

Environmentalists say high levels of organic waste worsen climate change, so preventing food waste can have an impact.
…

Manila, Philippines — The Philippines has detected foreign attempts to access intelligence data, but its cyber minister said on Tuesday no breaches have been recorded so far.

Attempts to steal data are wide-ranging, said minister for information and communications Ivan Uy. Advanced Persistent Threats or APTs have repeatedly attempted but failed to infiltrate government systems, suggesting the country’s cyber-defenses have held firm.

APTs are a general term for cyber actors or groups, often state-backed, that engage in malicious cyber activities.

“These have been present for quite some time, and threats come from many actors, but a big majority of them are foreign,” Uy told Reuters.

Some of these threats, which Uy referred to as “sleepers,” had been embedded in systems before being exposed by government’s cyber security efforts.

“Why are these things operating in those systems, without even anybody calling it out?,” he said.

So far, the government has not seen any cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure, he said.

“Hopefully it’s because our cyber defenses and cyber security are strong enough,” he said.

Uy acknowledged the difficulty of attributing cyber intrusions to specific attackers, as they sometimes leave misleading digital traces.

However, the government is working through diplomatic channels and sharing intelligence with the military, including with other countries, to validate threats and strengthen defenses, he said.

Last year, the Philippine said it thwarted attempts by hackers operating in China to break into websites and e-mail systems of the Philippine president and government agencies, including one promoting maritime security.

Uy described the escalating cyber threats as part of a global arms race, where nations and criminal organizations exploit digital vulnerabilities for financial or strategic gain.

“World War III is happening and it is cyber,” Uy said. “These weapons are non-kinetic. They are cyber, digital, virtual, but it’s happening. The attacks and defenses are happening as we speak, without any physical manifestation.”

Beyond cyberattacks, Uy has also flagged a surge in deepfakes and what he referred to as “fake news media outlets” aiming to manipulate public opinion ahead of the Philippines’ mid-term elections in May, and the ministry has deployed tools to combat them.

“Misinformation and disinformation are riskier with respect to democracies like ours, because we rely on elections, and elections are based on personal opinion,” Uy said.
…

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korea’s data protection authority on Monday said new downloads of the Chinese AI app DeepSeek had been suspended in the country after DeepSeek acknowledged failing to take into account some of the agency’s rules on protecting personal data.

The service of the app will be resumed once improvements are made in accordance with the country’s privacy law, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) said in a media briefing.

The measure that came into force on Saturday aims to block new downloads of the app, the agency said, though DeepSeek’s web service remains accessible in the country.

The Chinese startup appointed legal representatives last week in South Korea and had acknowledged partially neglecting considerations of the country’s data protection law, the PIPC said.

Italy’s data protection authority, the Garante, said last month it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after failing to address the regulator’s concerns over its privacy policy.

DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When asked about earlier moves by South Korean government departments to block DeepSeek, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a briefing on February 6 that the Chinese government attached great importance to data privacy and security and protected it in accordance with the law.

The spokesperson also said Beijing would never ask any company or individual to collect or store data in breach of laws.
…