Silicon Valley & Technology
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Hacker Spaces Offer More Than Sum of Their Tools

“Hackers,” whether they’re Wikileaks or malicious computer coders, have a bad reputation. But there are also hackers who are simply trying to create a more user-friendly world. Think of them as New Age do-it-yourselfers.

And they have playgrounds where they do their hacking.

Hacker Safe Spaces

Tinkerers around the world are starting to come together at so-called hacker spaces, to share tools and camaraderie.  These hacker spaces include a member-financed club in a warehouse in Oakland, California called Ace Monster Toys.

Jose’s full time work is as an architect, but in his spare time, he hangs out at Ace Monster Toys so he can use big “toys” like a buzz saw.

He hacks guitars out of old wood, including one created entirely from triangular scraps of highly-prized purple heartwood that a carpenter had thrown away after completing a project.

Different rooms, different tech

Rachel McCrafty, an artist, designer, and maker whose real name is Rachel Sadd, runs Ace Monster Toys. She says Jose’s work represents the heart of what they do here.

“That he made something epically beautiful out of trash,” she says, “that’s the essence, to me, of hacking.”

She says Ace is a great place to hack, tinker and collaborate on a variety of projects.  

There’s a textile room, where quilt squares made in the beginner’s sewing class are displayed on one wall. The highlight is the club’s professional sewing machine.

In another part of the building, it’s more high-tech. Software engineer Walt joins Jason, a sound engineer, to experiment with Jason’s latest “toy.” It’s a programmable music cube he’s developed that flashes green and yellow as it changes pitch, all in a clear cube that’s no bigger than the palm of your hand.

Upstairs at an electrician’s table, red lights flash as part of a baton-sized gizmo for scaring pets away from cars. Kam, its creator, is a salesman for a semiconductor equipment maker. He says that he’s learned new ways to program gadgets, thanks to other Ace Club members.

In fact, the people who hack here say that one of the best things about this place, is the people who hack here.

“Whenever I run into problems, people here help me,” Kam says. “They are very nice people.  Very helpful.”

McCrafty says she planned it that way.

“Our teachers are volunteers, our tool stewards are volunteers, our board members serve as volunteers.  They’re just incredibly generous.”

A cooperative space

The club’s 150 members pay monthly dues to cover the building’s rent, and to get their hands on cool stuff, like a 3-D desktop printer, and a monster-sized laser cutter that can cleanly cut wood into the curvy front of an electric guitar, or make something as delicate as a paper octopus.  Members can use the tools anytime, day or night.  McCrafty says it works out, thanks to rules that emphasize communication and respect.

“Respect yourself.  Be safe.  Respect the space,” she says. “Respect the people you’re sharing with.”

These values pay off, as they did for Owen and Arun. The young entrepreneurs are here every day, all day, using computers in the club’s shared office space.  They’re programming Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa to be a virtual banking expert that readily answers financial questions.

By hanging out at Ace, Owen says they’ve learned more about how a high-tech probability model can enhance Alexa’s virtual banking expertise.

“It was actually our friend, Walt.  We had just met him then, and he said, ‘Hey, I couldn’t help but overhear, you guys were talking about a Bayesian classifier.  Let me tell you how I use that in my current job.'”  

Looking around at his fellow hackers, Owen added, “So I think it’s pretty critical that we’re in a space where people are generous with their time, they’re super motivated and working on their own projects.  It just creates these chance encounters.”

It all makes this hackerspace greater than the sum of its parts, or its members, all of them offering unique ways for people to “play” together. 

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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McDonald’s Tests Mobile Ordering Before National Rollout

McDonald’s has started testing mobile order-and-pay after acknowledging the ordering process in its restaurants can be “stressful.”

The company says it will gather feedback from the test before launching the option nationally toward the end of the year. It says mobile order-and-pay is now available at 29 stores in Monterey and Salinas, California, and will expand to 51 more locations in Spokane, Washington, next week.

The rollout comes as customers increasingly seek out convenience through options like online ordering or delivery. McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook has noted the initial stages of visiting can be “stressful,” and the chain is making changes to improve the overall customer experience. That includes introducing ordering kiosks, which McDonald’s says can help ease lines at the counter and improve the accuracy of orders – another frustration for customers. Easterbrook has also talked about the potential of delivery.

With its mobile order-and-pay option, McDonald’s says customers place an order on its app then go to a restaurant and “check in” to select how they want to get their food. That could be at the counter, in the drive-thru, or with curbside delivery, where an employee brings out orders to a designated space. Orders are prepared once customers check in at the restaurant.

Starbucks has already found success using its mobile app and loyalty program to encourage people to visit more often and spend more when they do. The chain has also said its mobile order-and-pay option was so popular that it caused congestion at pick-up counters last year, leading some customers who walked into stores to leave without buying anything. Starbucks said it is working on fixing those issues.

It’s not clear whether McDonald’s will be able to get the same level of usage for its mobile app and order-and-pay option. Since coffee tends to be more of a daily habit, for instance, people may be more willing to download an app for it on their phones.

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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2 Popular Messaging Apps Vulnerable to Hackers

Those encrypted messaging apps you may have been using to avoid prying eyes had a major flaw that could have allowed access to hackers, according to a cybersecurity firm.

According to Check Point Software Technologies, both Telegram and WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, were vulnerable.

The company said it withheld the information until the security holes were patched, saying “hundreds of millions” of users could have been compromised.

The vulnerability involved infecting digital images with malicious code that would have been activated upon clicking the pic. That, according to Check Point, could have made accounts susceptible to hijacking.

“This new vulnerability put hundreds of millions of WhatsApp Web and Telegram Web users at risk of complete account take over,” Check Point head of product vulnerability Oded Vanunu said in a news release. “By simply sending an innocent looking photo, an attacker could gain control over the account, access message history, all photos that were ever shared, and send messages on behalf of the user.”

Both apps tout so-called end-to-end encryption to ensure privacy, but according to Check Point, that made it hard to spot malicious code.

Patching the vulnerability involved blocking the code before the messages were encrypted.

WhatsApp claims to have more than one billion users, while Telegram has more than 100 million.

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Economy & business
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Trump, on Michigan Trip, to Hit Brakes on Tougher Fuel-Efficiency Standards

President Donald Trump is to tell American autoworkers Wednesday in the state of Michigan that he is setting aside strict fuel-economy requirements imposed by the previous administration in its waning days.

The Trump White House contends that action broke an earlier agreement with the auto industry to wait until 2018 to review the standards.

“The auto industry, rightly, cried foul,” a senior White House official told reporters Tuesday. “We’re going to get this midterm review back on track.”

Advocates of the tougher standards dispute that.

The year 2018 “was the deadline by which they were obligated to complete the review. No agreement was broken,” Therese Langer, transportation program director at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) told VOA News.

“The agencies completed a comprehensive technical assessment report in July 2016, which made clear that the standards as adopted remained feasible and cost-effective. At that point, making the decision promptly was consistent with the goal of providing adequate lead time for manufacturer product planning.”

Setting standards

The Trump administration wants to set standards “that are technologically and economically feasible,” according to the official who briefed reporters on condition he not be named.

Some automakers argued that the tougher standards, set just prior to the January inauguration, will be too costly.

The pro-business president and his new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, who has expressed skepticism about the scientific consensus on climate change, support rolling back the stricter standards.

But the administration cannot scrap the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mandate completely without Congress’ consent. Lawmakers originally approved the CAFE regulations in the mid-1970s, following the oil embargo by OPEC members.

The current issue deals with rules on fuel economy and emissions affecting automobiles that will appear in showrooms from the years 2022 through 2025.

The proposed vehicle standards for those model years “will save consumers tens of billions of dollars at the pump and help domestic automakers stay competitive in a global vehicle market that is moving steadily toward highly efficient vehicles,” ACEEE executive director Steve Nadel told VOA.

Detroit automakers

But the move to cars and trucks that do not rely on conventional fossil fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, has slowed, say those in the Trump administration and in the auto industry.

“Because we have low gas prices, consumers just aren’t buying those vehicles” that run on batteries in addition to or instead of fuel, said the Trump administration official briefing reporters at the White House.

Trump’s trip to Michigan will include meetings with Detroit automakers, suppliers and unions, and then attending a rally of automakers.

At the last event Wednesday, the president is to announce his intention to stall the goal of having a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon (23.2 kilometers per liter) by the year 2025.

One hitch for the industry and other proponents of the looser standards is that 13 states say they will follow California in adhering to stricter fleet fuel efficiencies – a market that makes up more than 40 percent of the U.S. automotive sales market.

“That’s an issue we’ll have to confront, but it’s farther down the road,” the senior White House official said when asked about that issue by reporters.

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Economy & business
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China Anxious About Trade War With US

China is warning about the possible impact of a trade war with the United States, even as the world’s two biggest economies take steps to map out relations under the administration of President Donald Trump.

Speaking at an annual news conference Wednesday, at the end of high-level political meetings in Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang talked up the benefits of good relations between the two countries. He said he was optimistic about ties, but also warned a trade war would hurt American businesses first.

“We do not want to see any trade war breaking out between the two countries. That would not make our trade fairer and would harm both sides,” Li said. “Our hope on the Chinese side is that no matter what bumps the China-U.S. relationship hits, we hope it will continue to move forward in a positive direction.”

Getting personal

Chinese state media this week have been releasing a steady drumbeat of opinion pieces and editorials supporting that view. Some even going so far as to highlight the personal benefits Trump’s business empire would reap through better economic relations with China.

One opinion piece in the Communist Party-backed Global Times highlighted the huge business interests Trump’s commercial empire has in China and Beijing’s recent and unprecedented “preliminary approval” of more than 30 Trump trademarks. The approval of so many trademarks at once – covering business ventures such as golf clubs, hotels and restaurants – has surprised analysts.

Much like Li did in the press conference Wednesday, the Global Times article argued that American businesses would suffer if there was a trade war. It also added a not so subtle threat: “Trump’s position as U.S. president would not offer his business immunity from a trade war with China and would be impacted just as other U.S. enterprises if Sino-U.S. relations were to suffer.”

The piece ended by arguing that one tough test of Trump’s political wisdom will be how he manages following through on his pledge to put “America First” while avoiding setbacks in U.S.-China relations.

Tough talk

On the campaign trail and since his election, President Trump’s blunt criticisms of China have unnerved leaders in Beijing. Trump has talked and Tweeted about a wide range of issues from trade to the South China Sea, as well as Beijing’s handling of North Korea.

But it is his threats on the campaign trail to label China a currency manipulator and to impose huge tariffs on Chinese goods that worry Beijing the most. So far, he has not followed through on either of those pledges, but the U.S. Treasury will issue a semi-annual currency report in April.

 

That continues to unnerve Beijing despite recent signs that the two sides are beginning to engage.

 

Reports this week have suggested that Trump and Xi could meet in early April in Florida. On Saturday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first trip to Beijing.

 

Fairer trade

 

In an interview with CNBC earlier this week, Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton said Tillerson’s visit would help set up the relationship going forward and lay out a framework for issues on which Washington wants to see progress.

 

And one of the key issues for that visit that she highlighted in that interview was fairer trade.

 

“While we have a very important economic relationship with China, it hasn’t been a level playing field vis a vis U.S. companies and U.S. interests,” Thornton said. “We are going to be insisting that there be fair trade measures that be put in place and that be observed and implemented.”

 

Concerns about the lack of a level-playing field for American businesses in China and the impact of trade on U.S. jobs persist. Last year, the United States trade deficit with China was $347 billion, down only slightly from the previous year.

 

At his press conference, Li pledged that China would continue to open up its economy and argued that American companies and others were already seeing benefits.

 

 “We may have different statistical methods, but I believe whatever differences we may have, we can always sit down and talk to each other, and work together to reach consensus,” Li said.

 

China’s premier also added that statistics show that trade and investment between the two countries created over one million jobs in the United States last year.

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Science & Health
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Study Ties Premature Death to Air Pollution

The Trump administration may be ready to roll back some regulations covered by the Clean Air Act limiting some pollutants that contributed to smog-choked American cities in the 1970s.

But new research from China suggests clean air can save millions of lives.

More pollution, more deaths

Researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention compared the levels of particulate air pollution in 38 of China’s largest cities.

The pollution they studied is tiny, less than 10 microns. That’s smaller than the width of a human hair. 

Over a three-and-a-half-year period from 2010 to 2013, the researchers recorded more than 350,000 deaths.

Examining those deaths, the researchers found that 87 percent of them could be tied to high levels of particulate matter in the air.

And the more research they did they discovered that air pollution “appeared to have a much greater impact on deaths due to cardiorespiratory diseases,” the researchers said in a press release, “such as asthma and chronic lung disease (COPD), than it did on deaths due to other causes.”

They also found that air pollution seems to have a larger effect on women and older people than on men or younger people.

The researchers predict that just lowering air pollution to the standards suggested by the World Health Organization could prevent “3 million premature deaths each year.”

The research is published in the journal BMJ.

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Science & Health
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Non-Invasive Procedure Is Proving Successful in Sinusitis Treatment

Springtime is allergy season, and many people suffer from recurring headaches and congestion. But while medication and nasal sprays provide relief to some patients, those with chronic sinus problems may need complex treatment and sometimes surgery. A breakthrough procedure called balloon sinuplasty is less invasive and has shown to be highly effective. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke looks into how it works.

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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Hacker Spaces Offer More Than the Sum of Their Tools

Hacking means tinkering, whether with computers, woodworking or really anything. Tinkerers around the world come together at hacker-spaces, to share tools, camaraderie and expertise. Shelley Schlender takes us to a hacker space in Oakland, California, called Ace Monster Toys, where members lend each other a “hacking” hand.

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Arts & Entertainment
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Mitch Seavey Becomes Oldest, Fastest Musher to Win Iditarod

Mitch Seavey won his third Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, becoming the fastest and oldest champion at age 57 and helping cement his family’s position as mushing royalty.

The Seward, Alaska, musher brought his dogs off the frozen Bering Sea and onto Front Street in the Gold Rush town of Nome after crossing nearly 1,000 miles of Alaska wilderness.

He outran his son, defending champion Dallas Seavey, and lapped the oldest musher record that he set at age 53 in 2013. He previously won the race in 2013 and 2004.

Seavey also set a time record of 8 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes and 13 seconds, the Iditarod said. That shaved several hours off the record his son set last year: 8 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes and 16 seconds.

“Sweet” was the first thing Mitch Seavey said after getting off the sled at the finish line under the famed burled arch. It was broadcast live statewide.

His wife, Janine, greeted him with a hug. “Oh, my gosh, look at what you’ve just done,” she told him. “You’ve changed the sport.”

After talking to his wife, Seavey greeted each of his dogs and thanked them with a frozen snack. He later posed with his two lead dogs, Pilot and Crisp.

“They get frustrated when they go too slow, so I just let them roll, which was scary because I’ve never gone that fast, that far ever, but that’s what they wanted to do,” he said.

Seavey said the dogs know only one thing — 9 to 10 mph.

“They hit their peak, they hit their speed, and that’s what they do,” Seavey said at the finish line. “They trusted me to stop them when they needed to stop and feed them, and I did that, and they gave me all they could.”

Seavey picked up $75,000 and the keys to a new pickup truck for winning the world’s most famous sled dog race.

The Seaveys have now won the last six races. Dallas Seavey won four, and his father finished second the last two years. The two are close but competitive.

“He and I have such a great relationship,” Mitch Seavey said. “There’s no malice, we just love running sled dogs. No question.”

Dallas Seavey finished in second place, five minutes ahead of France native Nicolas Petit.

The family’s ties to the race go back to the first Iditarod, held in 1973, when Mitch Seavey’s dad, Dan, mushed in the event. The younger Seavey, who is 30, had wins in 2012 and from 2014 to 2016.

The race started March 6 in Fairbanks, with 71 teams. Five mushers scratched.

Fans lined the finish, clapping and cheering on Seavey. As his team finished the last few blocks of the race, Seavey yelled, “Good boys! Hep!”

Just before reaching the chute, he got off his sled and ran with the dogs a bit.

Four dogs associated with the race have died this year, including a 4-year-old male named Flash who collapsed on the trail early Tuesday when his musher, Katherine Keith, was about 10 miles outside the checkpoint in Koyuk.

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