2015: End of Cybersecurity, Rise of the Robots, Digital Amnesia

Posted January 1st, 2016 at 10:47 am (UTC-5)
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In many ways, 2015 saw the demise of cybersecurity as hackers violated website after website, taking security breaches to new levels and compromising the personal data of millions of users around the world.

The year also witnessed the steady advance of robotics and artificial intelligence, frequently giving shape to the idea that the future might be dominated by robots. Breakthrough advances in robotics offered help to the disabled, but questions swirled around the implications of artificial intelligence and whether humans will be able to cope with the pace of their own innovation.

Meanwhile, the race to bring more of the world’s unconnected populations to cyberspace heated up as several tech giants pushed to put the remaining 60 percent of the world’s population online.

The end of cybersecurity

Employees of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management  (OPM) return to their building during lunch in Washington, June 5, 2015. In the latest in a string of intrusions into U.S. agencies' high-tech systems, OPM suffered what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of information ever on government workers. (Reuters)

Employees of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) return to their building during lunch in Washington, June 5, 2015. In the latest in a string of intrusions into U.S. agencies’ high-tech systems, OPM suffered what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of information ever on government workers. (Reuters)

US Office of Personnel Management Hacked

Perhaps the most noteworthy security breach of 2015 was the infamous hacking of the U.S. government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The intrusion went undetected for nearly a year. Compromised data includes federal security clearances, social security numbers and some very detailed personal information.

Internet connectivity

FILE - A high altitude Wi-Fi internet hub Google Project Loon balloon is displayed at the Airforce Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. (AFP)

FILE – A high altitude Wi-Fi internet hub Google Project Loon balloon is displayed at the Airforce Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. (AFP)

Four Billion Still Offline in 2015

In 2015, the high-tech race continued to hook up the world’s unconnected populations to the Internet, via balloons, drones and satellites. According to Facebook’s State of Connectivity report, only 40 percent of the world’s population is connected to the Internet – about 4 billion people, according to the United Nations Broadband Commission.

The power of mobile

Indians use a mobile phone at a market area in New Delhi, Sept. 27, 2015, following a rare visit to Silicon Valley by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AP)

Indians use a mobile phone at a market area in New Delhi, Sept. 27, 2015, following a rare visit to Silicon Valley by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AP)

Mobile Opens New Doors for Connecting the World

According to Ericsson’s mobility report for 2015, about 70 percent of the world’s population will be using smartphones by 2020. That means 6.1 billion smartphones will be sold globally within five years.

Social media

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg interacts with technology students in a town hall-style meeting in New Delhi, Oct. 28, 2015. During his second visit to India, Zuckerberg rejected criticism that his free Internet access platforms are a luxury for people who cannot afford it. (AP)

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg interacts with technology students in a town hall-style meeting in New Delhi, Oct. 28, 2015. During his second visit to India, Zuckerberg rejected criticism that his free Internet access platforms are a luxury for people who cannot afford it. (AP)

Zuckerberg: ‘Muslims Always Welcome on Facebook’

As 2015 drew to a close, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Muslim users are always welcome on Facebook. His statements followed a call by U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to ban Muslims from the United States, which sparked international rage. Trump made the call after a Muslim couple went on a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, in early December, killing 14 people.

Enter the robots

FILE = SoftBank's human-like robot named 'Pepper' poses for pictures in its role as a PR manager of Tottori prefecture at the prefecture specialty store in Tokyo, Japan, July 1, 2015. (Reuters)

FILE = SoftBank’s human-like robot named ‘Pepper’ poses for pictures in its role as a PR manager of Tottori prefecture at the prefecture specialty store in Tokyo, Japan, July 1, 2015. (Reuters)

Japan Unleashes Robot Revolution

Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics continued in leaps and bounds in 2015, providing new hope for the disabled. In Japan, robot development continued its evolution for commerce, tourism, and elderly care.

Digital amnesia

A woman takes a selfie while cycling along a street during a biking tour for charity, in Damascus, Dec. 11, 2015.

A woman takes a selfie while cycling along a street during a biking tour for charity, in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 11, 2015.

The increasing dependency on technology and addiction to mobile devices raised questions in 2015 about the ability of humans to cope with the breakneck speed of their technological innovations.

And as the fascination with mobile technology continues to deepen, more and more people are relying on their gadgets to remember their contacts and information, thereby displacing their own memories. But what happens if their digital memories are lost?

Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

Egypt Bans Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’; Twitter Under Fire for Diversity Pick

Posted December 31st, 2015 at 11:30 am (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

Motorists ride past a billboard displaying Facebook's Free Basics initiative in Mumbai, India, Dec. 30, 2015. Egypt became the second country to temporarily ban the app on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Motorists ride past a billboard displaying Facebook’s Free Basics initiative in Mumbai, India, Dec. 30, 2015. Egypt became the second country to temporarily ban the app on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Following India, Egypt Shuts Down Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’ Service

Once again, Facebook’s efforts to provide free internet services are running into trouble in some parts of the world. Egypt on Wednesday joined India in temporarily banning the company’s Free Basics app. Critics argue the service violates net neutrality by favoring some websites and carriers over others and by creating a “walled garden” Internet.

Twitter Criticized for Hiring White Male as New Diversity Chief

The lack of diversity has been plaguing Silicon Valley for some time now. And tech companies have been trying to address the shortage of women and minorities on the tech scene. Among them is Twitter, whose workforce is heavily male and white. Yet it didn’t help that Twitter’s new global diversity chief, Jeffrey Siminoff, who has an impressive resume, is also male and white.

Cyberattack Takes BBC Websites Offline

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack brought down BBC websites Thursday. An earlier statement from the British broadcaster blamed the outage on technical issues. Service was restored four hours later.

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Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

Toxic Web User Warnings; 2015 Technology in Review

Posted December 30th, 2015 at 11:00 am (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

FILE -Vietnamese Internet activist Nguyen Lan Thang looks at a Facebook page at a cafe in Hanoi, Nov. 27, 2013. (Reuters)

FILE – Vietnamese Internet activist Nguyen Lan Thang looks at a Facebook page at a cafe in Hanoi, Nov. 27, 2013. (Reuters)

Vietnam Warns of ‘Toxic’ Web Use Ahead of Party Shakeup

Using its new Facebook page, Vietnam’s government vows to tackle an anticipated increase in “toxic” activity on social media ahead of the country’s Communist Party congress in January. The Internet is hugely popular in Vietnam, used by nearly half of its 90-million-strong population.

Twitter Gets Tough With ‘Hateful’ IS Profiles

Although Twitter’s updated rules do not mention the Islamic State group or any other organization by name, they now state: “You may not promote violence or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease.”

This Was the Year Tech Became the Bad Guy

Tech companies are increasingly seeping into government itself – and vice versa. They spend millions of dollars to lobby Congress, having recognized that when they’re playing in the world of public policy, political savvy matters at least as much as innovative technology.

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Facebook, India Battle Over Free Internet; China’s Tech Transformation

Posted December 29th, 2015 at 11:03 am (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

FILE - A staff member stands next to a display screen during a joint news conference by Reliance Communications Ltd. and Facebook Inc. in Mumbai, India, Feb. 10, 2015. (Reuters)

FILE – A staff member stands next to a display screen during a joint news conference by Reliance Communications and Facebook in Mumbai, India, Feb. 10, 2015. (Reuters)

Battle Over Facebook’s Free Basics Internet Service Intensifies in India

India’s net neutrality activists are on the war path as Facebook launches a new app that offers free internet service to users of the Reliance network in six Indian states. Save the Internet (STI) members argue that there are many ways to provide free internet access without discrimination between web services and without violating net neutrality. Both sides have been battling it out in the media.

How a Nation of Tech Copycats Transformed Into a Hub for Innovation

A decade ago, technology observers complained China did not produce enough innovators. Its tech companies tended to duplicate Western leaders like Google or Yahoo or Amazon. But all that is changing as a new generation of young, urban techies, more confident with risk-taking and bold moves, climbs up China’s social and corporate ladders.

Massive Trove of US Voter Data Discovered on Web

According to security researcher Chris Vickery, more than 191 million U.S. voting records and personal data have been exposed. The information has been publicly available on a Web server due to a misconfigured database and includes personal contacts, addresses, dates of birth and voting records going back to 2000. It is unclear who owns the server.

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Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

How NORAD Tracks Santa

Posted December 25th, 2015 at 11:18 am (UTC-5)
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Volunteers at NORAD's Operations Center take calls from people interested in tracking Santa during his 2014 Christmas travels. (NORAD Public Affairs)

Volunteers at NORAD’s Live Operations Center take calls from people interested in tracking Santa during his 2014 Christmas travels. (NORAD Public Affairs)

Millions of people tracked Santa’s travels around the globe this Christmas, thanks to NORAD Tracks Santa, a non-profit program that provides updates on his whereabouts with a bit of imagination, some tech wizardry, and a lot of heart.

It all starts in early April, when NORAD – the North American Aerospace Defense Command – assembles its volunteers and partners to start charting Santa’s journey.

“We start out pulling together sort of where we would think that Santa traveling at the speed of starlight would … have to go to actually make it around the world to reach the billions and billions of kids,” said NORAD’s Chief of Integrated Communications, Michael Kucharek.

NORAD Tracks Santa 2014

  • 21.8 million unique website visits from 234 countries between December 1-30
  • 1,500 volunteers manning the Live Operations Center for 23 hours received 134,970 calls
  • 1.5 million mobile downloads of NORAD’s Santa tracker app
  • 65 contributors helped, including Microsoft, Verizon, HP, and many more

Moving from the most eastern part of the globe westward, the tracking team picks various places on the map that Santa will visit before his journey ends in Honolulu, Hawaii. They determine how often they want Santa tracked on December 24 and add his arrival and departure times to the map.

“We plotted in the times and then we lined up those times and locations,” said Kucharek. “So we do the front-end work and then we push that to Microsoft who renders that so that it is automatic to people on [December] 24, so that they see as Santa goes along how that’s actually done.”

Microsoft, NORAD’s prime partner, uses the data to render the tracking map. Santa and his sleigh, led by the famous Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, are then placed in their proper location on the map.

As many as 70 other partners provide assistance on everything from the 2-D and 3-D website and SantaCams, to mobile apps and social media.

NORAD and its partners meet on a regular basis through the end of November and intensify their collaboration to determine how to take the project to the next level.

“They are the people that actually make all this technology tick and tock and making sure that Santa is represented on the globe according to his location, using what we plot out, starting very early on,” said Kucharek.

All the data – locations, arrival and departure times – are then fed to NORAD’s ground-based radars.

Once Santa leaves the North Pole, the radars are then able to identify the shape of his sleigh, its harnesses and reindeer.

For 60 years, NORAD fighter jets have intercepted Santa many times. When the jets intercept Santa, they tip their wings to say, "Hello Santa! – NORAD is tracking you again this year!" (NORAD Public Affairs)

For 60 years, NORAD fighter jets have intercepted Santa many times. When the jets intercept Santa, they tip their wings to say, “Hello Santa! – NORAD is tracking you again this year!” (NORAD Public Affairs)

“All those are things that a ground-based radar can see,” said Kucharek. “And then obviously we got Rudolph’s nose that provides an infrared signature that certain military satellites are able to pick up … But also those satellites on a day-to-day basis are used for a real world mission of spotting launches that may occur anywhere around the globe.”

When all the maps, trackers, cameras and countdown clocks are in place, NORAD Tracks Santa goes live on December 1, following a tradition started in 1958 by Colonel Harry Shoup, when a little girl misdialed NORAD’s number asking to speak with Santa.

NORAD still holds true to that tradition as way of “paying the goodwill forward” and putting smiles on people’s faces, as Kucharek put it.

“You’ve got second and third generations … of people that are now tracking Santa,” he said. “They get together during the December 24 evening and throughout the day just checking to see where Santa is. They do it as a family. It’s become a holiday tradition for a lot of people.”

Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

In 2016, Social Media, IoT to Dominate; Asia Startups Likely to Shine

Posted December 24th, 2015 at 11:20 am (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

Amazon's Echo, an Internet-connected digital assistant that can be set up in a home or office to listen for various requests, such as songs, sports scores or the weather, is shown in New York, July 29, 2015.  (AP)

Amazon’s Echo, an Internet-connected digital assistant that can be set up in a home or office to listen for various requests, such as songs, sports scores or the weather, is shown in New York, July 29, 2015. (AP)

Technology Trends for 2016? IoT, Social Media Rule

The Internet of Things (IoT) will take root in 2016, projects Mark Barrenechea, CEO of Enterprise Information Management firm OpenText. Barrenechea says IoT will become more prevalent in 2016 as social media dominate the world, becoming the new marketing avenues of choice.

How Vulnerable IoT Devices Are Changing the Cybersecurity Landscape

On the other hand, IoT devices – from connected cars, smart home devices, and wearables – are raising a lot of concern over privacy and security because they often lack basic security safeguards to prevent hackers from breaking into them. Writer Jonathan Camhi argues IoT devices in 2016 will create new opportunities for hackers and defenders alike.

13 Asian Startups to Watch in 2016

Asia’s tech scene is booming, with India projected to become the world’s second-largest tech market. In China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia as a whole, many tech companies made leaps and bounds and are likely be on the radar in 2016. Writer Catherine Shu looks at some Asian startups that are expected to shine this coming year.

60 of the Best Android Apps From 2015

The Next Web put together a list of some of the more interesting apps on the Android mobile platform in 2015. But if you have an iPhone, then this app list is for you.

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Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

Google Gives Vietnam’s Startups a Lift; X-ray Tech Becomes Reality

Posted December 22nd, 2015 at 12:15 pm (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (C) addresses a conference with Vietnamese IT community in Hanoi, Vietnam, Dec. 22, 2015. (Reuters)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (C) addresses a conference with the Vietnamese IT community in Hanoi, Dec. 22, 2015. (Reuters)

Google CEO’s Vietnam Visit Gives Hope to Local Startups

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who is visiting Vietnam, sees no reason why Vietnamese startups cannot be successful global players. Given time, he said Vietnamese startups can become stronger and learn from the experiences of their Indian counterparts before branching out of the country.

The Web Is 25. What Will It Be Like When It’s 50?

Writer Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols looks at the progress the World Wide Web has made in the past 25 years and offers some insight into its future. He projects increased migration to the cloud and a significant change to the way users interface with the World Wide Web as wearable and embedded technologies become more prevalent.

Technology Makes X-ray Vision a Reality

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed software that detects people’s silhouettes through walls. The technology, which uses variations in radio signals to accomplish this, could help care providers keep an eye on toddlers or the elderly and law enforcement personnel to track suspects.

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Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

Modular Devices Coming, But Don’t Hold Your Breath

Posted December 18th, 2015 at 11:00 am (UTC-5)
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FILE - Prototype modular parts created by Yezz Mobile for Project Ara, Google's modular smartphone project, are shown during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, March 1, 2015. Google's Project Ara is a development effort to create a modular smartphone ecosystem. (Reuters)

FILE – Prototype modular parts created by Yezz Mobile for Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone project, are shown during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, March 1, 2015. Google’s Project Ara is a development effort to create a modular smartphone ecosystem. (Reuters)

When desktops ruled, upgrading individual computer parts instead of buying a new machine was probably the closest users ever got to having a modular PC with interchangeable parts. But in today’s mobile-driven, disposable-tech world, the only way to upgrade a smartphone is to buy a new one.

“We’ve created an environment where it’s just so much easier to just trash something and then start over,” said John Horn, CEO of Ingenu, a machine-to-machine and Internet of Things wireless firm.

The industry grew up with a different mindset both on the industrial and wireless modular side, said Horn. “Everything has been so handheld, consumer-focused, that it worked in that environment.”

But that disposable mentality does not work in today’s Internet of Things world, where “we are connecting all these different machines and having to communicate data. … It’s totally counter-intuitive,” he said.

The endless “churn-and-burn cycle,” is due to a number of factors, said spokesman Jonas Allen, Director of Marketing at the Green Electronics Council, in an interview.

“One of them is the hardware itself,” he said. “The devices are getting smaller and smaller and more and more complex. So everything really does relate to another component. So it’s challenging to create modular hardware.”

The other reason, he argued, are consumer trends.

“As long as we wanted the newest, greatest-looking device, it’s going to be hard for people to say ‘well, I’m okay just upgrading this one little widget,’” he said. “…. We don’t necessarily want that incremental upgrade. We want the next best, brightest piece of hardware.”

Old cellular phone components are discarded inside a workshop in the township of Guiyu in China's southern Guangdong province, June 10, 2015. (Reuters)

Old cellular phone components are discarded inside a workshop in the township of Guiyu in China’s southern Guangdong province, June 10, 2015. (Reuters)

But it is not entirely the consumers’ fault. While customers have long demanded “really small, really compact, super-sexy products,” Allen said making those types of devices modular is hard because their marketing strategy speaks to the “other side of your brain.”

“It’s using the side that says ‘wow, that’s pretty. I want to have that product,’” he said. “So I think there’s shared opportunity there for improvement.”

The process becomes expensive when people “are forced to make the move and replace an entire piece of equipment instead of a module,” added Horn. Often, customers take their business elsewhere, thereby severing earlier relationships and losing a level of stability.

Applying modular design to wireless is more complicated – and expensive. In the wireless world, different devices have to interface with machines, using different frequency bands and different communication protocols.

“Every time you install some type of wireless connectivity, it interfaces with the machine. It costs a lot of money to do that,” Horn explained. “And you expect it to work. Any time you have to go back and replace it or touch it or change it, it’s very, very expensive. And so … you need that long-term stability instead.”

Horn believes that adopting a modular approach in wireless devices and computers can be done “in a way that makes sense.” Such a move, he argued, would cause “less hardware disruption, less trash and things to dispose of,” particularly on the industrial side of business, and would be “more stable and “user-friendly.”

“Someone will build the model that works and change everything,” he said. “And everybody else will have to follow suit … If it truly is very consumer-friendly and user-friendly and economical, which I believe it will be, then many others will follow.”

The process can be challenging, said Allen, though not impossible. There are opportunities where a modular approach can be beneficial with software and firmware that go out of date, for example, and even with hardware in seemingly-complicated devices like smartphones that are essentially composed of a display, a computer, and a frame.

“We look at mobile phones now and ‘phone’ … is almost a misnomer, ” he said. “We seldom use it [as a] phone, right? It’s a computer. It’s a Web browser. It’s a texting machine. And every now-and-then, it’s email and word processing. But at the end of the day, what these products are offering is not necessarily a computing device. It’s really a window to the cloud.”

As the industry continues to move processing, storage and various applications to remote servers on the cloud, Allen believes we will reach a point “where we won’t necessarily see that technology change so often from a device standpoint. It’s just how we view the information on the cloud.”

When processing is done in the cloud, smartphone processors will not need to be upgraded as often. “You’re not really dependent on that end-user device to do the processing,” said Allen. “So you can have a longer-living device. Really, the only thing that in that case you would want to change is maybe the display.”

There are already up to 1,000 companies tackling the issue of modularity in computing, including Google, Acer, Microsoft, Toshiba, Lenovo and Panasonic, to name a few. And Allen projects an increased push toward modularity as consumers and the tech industry look for sustainable products that use fewer resources.

“So as we look at the future of technology and the cloud and that mindset and those sensibilities, there is no question the future is greener,” said Allen.

Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.

Star Wars Technologies Almost Real; Can the Internet Be Shut Down?

Posted December 17th, 2015 at 12:15 pm (UTC-5)
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Today’s Tech Sightings:

Star Wars characters of  take part in an event held for the release of the film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallee, France, Dec. 16, 2015. (Reuters)

Star Wars characters take part in an event held for the release of the film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in Disneyland Paris in Marne-la-Vallee, France, Dec. 16, 2015. (Reuters)

10 Star Wars Technologies That Are About to Become Reality

The latest long-awaited installment in the Star Wars science fiction saga hits U.S. theaters December 18. The movie – Star Wars: The Force Awakens – comes with an array of futuristic technologies that have their origins in existing technologies or have equivalents in the real world. PC World offers a look at Star Wars technologies and the science behind them.

Dear Donald Trump: No, You Can’t Shut Down Parts of the Internet

Writer Rob Pegoraro takes issue with Republican presidential contender Donald Trump’s suggestion to shut down areas of the Internet to cut off terrorist groups. Pegoraro argues that Trump’s understanding of the Internet’s architecture is lacking and goes on to explain why this idea  won’t work. ABC also picked up the question: Is shutting down the Internet as easy as Donald Trump thinks?

Brazil WhatsApp Suspension Lifted

A Brazilian judge has ordered that a suspension on popular messaging application WhatsApp be lifted immediately. Brazil earlier suspended the service for 48 hours after the company, which is owned by Facebook, failed to comply with a request to provide information relating to a criminal case.

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Aida Akl
Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.