Daily Archives: May 15, 2020


NASA Builds COVID Ventilator

Scientists around the world are working to battle the coronavirus – an effort that extends to a space-travel lab that worked overtime to help sick earthlings. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has This Week in Space. …


How Contact Tracers Could Help Control COVID-19

One August day in 2017, a 31-year-old man with a cough boarded a crowded minibus in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.The man was dead before he could reach his destination.That touched off the most lethal outbreak of pneumonic plague in decades. By the end of November, more than 2,400 people had been infected and 209 had died.Basketball teams from around the Indian Ocean region were in Madagascar at the time for a championship tournament. A coach from the Seychelles died and a South African player fell ill. The risk of an international …


US Moves to Cut Off Huawei From Global Chip Suppliers

The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action ramping up tensions with China.The U.S. Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”The reaction from China  was swift with a report saying it was ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list,” as part of countermeasures in response to the new limits on Huawei, FILE – A security …


Taiwanese Chip Company to Build $12 Billion Arizona Plant

A Taiwan-based company is planning a $12 billion semiconductor factory in the U.S. state of Arizona.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of computer chips.The firm said Friday the factory will create as many as 1,600 jobs. Thousands more jobs are expected to be created along the supply lines to support production of the 5-nanometer chips.The factory will be able to produce 20,000 of the wafers each month. They’re used in an array of consumer electronics, including the iPhones and defense equipment.Construction of the facility is to …


The Scramble to Create COVID-19 Apps

It’s a race against time.As communities start to open, governments are rushing to put together smartphone apps that can be part of their arsenal to curtail the spread of COVID-19.But the apps — and the technologies they rely on — vary, and for many that has led to confusion about what to expect.“It’s overwhelming how many proposals are coming out,” Gennie Gebhart, associate director of research at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said. “There’s total alphabet soup of different acronyms, of different technologies. And it’s hard to understand exactly what …


Stopped Cold: ‘Frozen’ Musical on Broadway Not to Reopen

The big budget musical “Frozen” will not reopen when Broadway theaters restart, marking the first time an established show has been felled by the coronavirus pandemic.The Disney show opened in March 2018 and placed among the top five Broadway productions for both gross and attendance over both years it ran, often pulling in over $1 million, and even $2 million, a week.Until now, only shows that were waiting to officially open have announced postponements or cancellations. Disney still has “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” on Broadway and five productions of …