DUTYSELL

A stuffed toy monkey called Tiwa holds some of Nigeria’s oldest folk tales and is helping to revive the traditional practice of storytelling by appealing to a younger generation. Faith Lapidus reports. …

Twitter has permanently banned far-right media personality Alex Jones for violating its policy against “abusive behavior.” Jones, who is known as a conspiracy theorist, has about 900,000 followers on Twitter. His Infowars website has hundreds of thousands of followers, as well. Twitter accused Jones of violating its policy after he …

Tennis fans have descended on New York to watch the world’s best players at the US Open — one of four Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the world. With so much action on the courts, staying on top of the matches is a nonstop job. But officials are employing extra …

Facebook and Twitter executives defended their efforts to prevent Russian meddling in U.S. midterm elections before congressional panels Wednesday. The social media companies’ efforts to provide assurances to lawmakers come amid warnings from internet researchers that Moscow still has active social media accounts aimed at influencing U.S. political discourse. VOA’s …

Josh Russell works as a systems analyst and programmer at Indiana University, has two daughters, and exposes Russian internet trolls in his spare time. Russell first became interested in the phenomenon of Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election, when he noticed a large amount of misinformation distributed about Democratic …

Facebook and Twitter executives insisted at a Senate hearing Wednesday that they were aggressively trying to identify foreign actors who wanted to inflict damage on the U.S. before the November midterm elections. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told the Senate Intelligence Committee her company was “now blocking millions of attempts …

Ben Judah is the author of This Is London and Fragile Empire, a contributing writer at Politico, and an expert at the Hudson Institute. His think tank project on modern-day kleptocracy was recently targeted in a cyberattack that Microsoft has linked to the Fancy Bear (ATP28) hacking unit associated with …

Many people enjoy playing video games but take for granted that they can hold and easily operate game controllers. Now Microsoft is making it possible for disabled gamers to join in the fun. Tina Trinh reports. …

Top Twitter and Facebook executives will defend their companies before U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday, with Facebook insisting it takes election interference seriously and Twitter denying its operations are influenced by politics. But no executive from Alphabet’s Google is expected to testify, after the company declined the Senate Intelligence Committee’s request …

As legislators prepare to grill Silicon Valley executives over Russian hacking ahead of midterm elections, some observers say the debate over expanded government oversight is far from over. On Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey met with legislators in Washington ahead of Wednesday morning’s hearing, where Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl …

Science fiction has long teased consumers about a future where robots are our personal assistants. But it’s no longer science fiction. The recent spike in consumer-grade “smart speakers” that respond to users’ voice commands has been given a face — with the help of a self-navigating robot that listens to …

The U.S. space agency NASA is offering a public challenge, with a lofty $750,000 reward, to anyone who can find ways to turn carbon dioxide into compounds that would be useful on Mars. Calling it the “CO2 Conversion Challenge,” NASA scientists say they need help finding a way to turn …

A key opponent of high-tech, automated weapons known as “killer robots” is blaming countries like the U.S. and Russia for blocking consensus at a U.N.-backed conference, where most countries wanted to ensure that humans stay at the controls of lethal machines. Coordinator Mary Wareham of the Campaign to Stop Killer …

Britt’Nee Brower grew up in a largely Inupiat Eskimo town in Alaska’s far north, but English was the only language spoken at home. Today, she knows a smattering of Inupiaq from childhood language classes at school in the community of Utqiagvik. Brower even published an Inupiaq coloring book last year …

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to shut down U.S. government radio stations that announce official time, a service in operation since World War II. WWV and WWVB in the state of Colorado and WWVH on the island of Kauai in the mid-Pacific state of Hawaii, send out signals that allow …

California lawmakers have voted to make net neutrality state law, becoming the latest of several states to approve such measures. The move by state legislators is a rejection of the Trump administration’s repeal of national net neutrality rules that did not allow internet service providers to discriminate in their handling …

From an app to diagnose disease on Zambian farms to Tinder-style matchmaking for Senegalese land owners and young farmers, young coders have been finding solutions to hunger in the first Africa-wide hackathon on the issue. Eight teams competed in the hackathon, organized by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) …

A federal judge hearing arguments over a settlement between the Trump administration and a company that wants to post plans for printing 3D weapons on the internet said Tuesday that the issue is best decided by the president or the Congress. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik that while he will …

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that it is “very dangerous” for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to silence voices on their services. Trump’s comments in an interview with Reuters come as the social media industry faces mounting scrutiny from Congress to police foreign propaganda. Trump has …

The rise of information sharing in the digital age has made it easier to disseminate knowledge, but it also brings with it heightened risks: from hackers stealing our information, to launching cyberwarfare and even potentially weaponizing legitimate platforms. This week on “Plugged In,” VOA Contributor Greta Van Susteren explores these …

Greta Van Susteren talks to technology journalist Kara Swisher about cybersecurity and privacy. …

One American university is putting electronic voice-controlled assistants in every student housing room on campus. Saint Louis University recently announced it will equip every student living space with Amazon’s Alexa system. The school in St. Louis, Missouri, will place about 2,300 Echo Dot “smart” devices in all student dorms and …

How do you know if a piece of art is real or fake? Ask a scientist. At New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, chemistry, physics and geology are all playing a part in the detective work of determining whether a work of art is original or a forgery. Now teens …

Even if you have “Location History” off, Google often stores your precise location. Here’s how to delete those markers and some best-effort practices that keep your location as private as possible. But there’s no panacea, because simply connecting to the internet on any device flags an IP address that can …