In today’s bulldog wrapup of technology and science news:

  • Foxconn, assembler of iPhones, eyes Wisconsin for plant
  • US blames North Korea for series of cyberattacks
  • ​Swimming robot to probe damage at Japan nuclear plant
  • Researcher finds Georgia voter records exposed on internet

The details:

  • Foxconn, assembler of iPhones, eyes Wisconsin for plant

A Taiwanese company that assembles Apple’s iPhones and other electronics is considering building a plant in Wisconsin that could employ thousands of people and give Gov. Scott Walker a huge political boost as he prepares to run for re-election.

A person with direct knowledge of the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the state is in talks with Foxconn. At least one other upper Midwest state, Michigan, is also pursuing the plant.

President Donald Trump alluded to negotiations with an unspecified company during a visit to Milwaukee on Tuesday, saying Walker might get “a very happy surprise very soon.” Trump said “we were negotiating with a major, major incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions.”

Foxconn assembles smartphones and other devices for Apple, Sony, Blackberry and other brands — mostly in China, where its plants employ about 1 million people. It has been the subject of complaints for years about its labor practices and worker suicides at plants in China that manufacture Apple products.

Walker’s administration deferred comment to the state’s chief economic development agency. Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation spokesman Mark Maley said the agency doesn’t comment on pending or potential opportunities.

  • US blames North Korea for series of cyberattacks

U.S. officials are blaming the North Korean government for a series of cyberattacks dating to 2009 against media, aerospace, financial sectors and infrastructure in the United States and around the world.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning this week, saying the cyberattacks were carried out by actors within the North Korean government who are known as “Hidden Cobra.”

“DHS and FBI assess that Hidden Cobra actors will continue to use cyber operations to advance their government’s military and strategic objectives,” the alert said.

U.S. officials are distributing internet addresses to help networks defend against any attacks. The FBI said it has high confidence that the internet addresses are linked to systems infected with Hidden Cobra malware to further exploit networks. The cyberattacks targeted weaknesses in Microsoft Corp. operating systems and Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software, which were patched in January and June, respectively.

The joint alert was issued Tuesday, the same day that American student Otto Warmbier, who was released from serving a 15-year sentence in a North Korean prison for participating in alleged acts against the government, arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio.

  • Swimming robot to probe damage at Japan nuclear plant

A Japanese industrial group unveiled Thursday a swimming robot designed for underwater probes of damage from meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Remote controlled robots are key to the decades-long decommissioning process for the plant. But super-high radiation and structural damage inside the reactors hampered earlier attempts to inspect areas close to the reactors’ cores.

The developers say they plan to send the probe into the primary containment vessel of Unit 3 at Fukushima in July to study the extent of damage and locate parts of melted fuel thought to have fallen to the bottom of the chamber, submerged by highly radioactive water.

The robot, nicknamed the “mini manbo,” or little sunfish, is about the size of a loaf of bread. It is equipped with lights, maneuvers with tail propellers and collects data using two cameras and a dosimeter.

During Thursday’s demonstration at a test facility near Tokyo, the probe slowly slid down from a rail and moved across the water. A team operated it remotely, with one guiding the robot while another adjusted a cable that transmits data and serves as its lifeline. The probe entered a mock-up of a containment vessel, its lights glowing in the murky water.

Officials hope the probe can swim deep into the reactor to illuminate the area underneath the reactor’s core.

Japan hopes to locate and start removing fuel from the reactors after Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics.

  • Researcher finds Georgia voter records exposed on internet

A security researcher disclosed a gaping security hole at the outfit that manages Georgia’s election technology, days before the state holds a closely watched congressional runoff vote on June 20.

The security failure left the state’s 6.7 million voter records and other sensitive files exposed to hackers, and may have been left unpatched for seven months. The revealed files might have allowed attackers to plant malware and possibly rig votes or wreak chaos with voter rolls during elections.

Georgia is especially vulnerable to such disruption, as the entire state relies on antiquated touchscreen voting machines that provide no hardcopy record of votes, making it all but impossible to tell if anyone has manipulated the tallies.

The true dimensions of the failure were first reported Wednesday by Politico Magazine . The affected Center for Election Systems referred all questions to its host, Kennesaw State University, which declined comment. In March, the university had mischaracterized the flaw’s discovery as a security breach.

Logan Lamb, a 29-year-old Atlanta-based private security researcher formerly with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, made the discovery last August. He told The Associated Press he decided to go public after the publication last week of a classified National Security Agency report describing a sophisticated scheme, allegedly by Russian military intelligence, to infiltrate local U.S. elections systems using phishing emails.

The NSA report offered the most detailed account yet of an attempt by foreign agents to probe the rickety and poorly funded U.S. elections system. The Department of Homeland Security had previously reported attempts last year to gain unauthorized access to voter registration databases in 20 states — one of which, in Illinois, succeeded, though the state says no harm resulted.