A change in Google’s policy (via Bloomberg) reveals that the company is stopping sites from showing up in news results if they mask their country of origin. Sites are now forbidden to “misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises.” In other words, a site from a foreign country can’t say it’s from the US.

Speaking to Bloomberg, a Google spokeswomen explains that this move is meant to make Google’s news results more accurate and transparent.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Google is doing this, especially with pressure from lawmakers and general consumer awareness of “fake news.” This also isn’t Google’s first move on tightening up search results like this, as was mentioned back in October.

Here is the statement that Apple provided us.

“We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. Today, it’s used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, across multiple platforms. Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to our users. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.”

Apple did not disclose the price but we have several sources that have confirmed to us that the deal is in the region of $400 million.

Sources also tell us that Apple’s deal had been in the works for about five months and came after Shazam had been in talks with others, including Snapchat and Spotify.

Apple generally does not spell out the details of how it plans to use acquisitions, but there are a number of areas where Shazam’s current business overlaps with that of Apple’s, making for an interesting range of possibilities for where and how the two will work together.

Shazam’s core business is in music recognition: people use its app to capture a clip of music that is playing, and then it matches that against its large database to tell you what you are listening to, a business that has brought the company over 1 billion downloads of its app to date.

Over the years Shazam has augmented this with a number of other services: it sends users through to other sites to download and listen to the music at their leisure; it provides more information to users about the music and the artists behind it; it keeps charts of popular music based on the clips that it hears and that people want to identify. It’s also branched out into more marketing services based on visual recognition — essentially augmented reality plays where users can capture snaps of images that lead them to more content from a brand or another organization.

Through all of this, Shazam has developed some interesting partnerships, specifically with Apple and Spotify (who together get around 1 million referrals each month via Shazam), and Snapchat, which currently has an integration with Shazam where Snapchat users can “recognize music, engage with Shazam content, and send their music and artist discoveries as Snaps to their friends.” It is no surprise that these are also the three names that we heard were all approached and discussed an acquisition of the startup.

Shazam provided us with the below statement.

“We are excited to announce that Shazam has entered into an agreement to become part of Apple. Shazam is one of the highest rated apps in the world and loved by hundreds of millions of users and we can’t imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users.”

Notably, Shazam had a post-money valuation in its last round of over $1 billion — a far cry from the roughly $400 million that is being paid by Apple. The reason for this, one source says, is that for all of Shazam’s popularity and move into revenue-generating areas like marketing, the company never really found a solid business model for the long-term future.

“Shazam should have moved into streaming music years ago,” the source said, “which is one reason why the Apple deal makes so much sense.” Spotify, as a point of comparison, has healthy recurring revenues from subscriptions and Apple Music has both subscriptions and downloads — not to mention the wider use of Apple Music and the ecosystem pull it gives Apple for its wider hardware business. That hints at some interesting integrations coming up.

Some backstory about how the deal got done between the two:

Apple and Shazam have had a friendly relationship for years, but the catalyst was that pending bid from Snap. As Recode first reported, the Snapchat parent had entertained buying the company.

It turns out that the conversations with Snap began about six months ago, after advisor Goldman Sachs drummed up interest. Snap was open to acquisition talks because its integration with Shazam’s music recognition technology had been going well.

But Snap has had a volatile time on the stock market since it went public in March, and so Shazam was getting mixed messages about how much the social media platform would be willing to pay.

Shazam’s conversations with Apple began the following month, and they became exclusive about two months ago. From what we understand, the Spotify talks were earlier and couldn’t progress because of the price, and likely also the fact that Spotify, which is gearing up for a public listing, has a lot on its plate right now.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, saw an opportunity for Shazam to help build out its music business. Since the days of the iPod, music has long been a priority for the company. Lately, it’s been focused on enhancing its Spotify competitor, Apple Music.

Cue believes that Shazam could help improve its offering and liked that the app had moved beyond music discovery, building out artist pages and other music-related content.

Shazam already integrates with Apple Music, referring many of its 100 million users to play songs on its platform. It also lets users buy the music directly via iTunes.

Neither Apple nor Shazam have returned our earlier requests for comment.

In fact, it's been a while since the song-identifying software squeezed its way into the iOS App Store's top 10.

So, why has Apple confirmed it is "combining" its business with that of the smaller London company?

It has not revealed the price it is paying, but the sum is rumoured to be as much as $400m (£300m), which would make it one of Apple's most expensive takeovers to date.

The US technology giant also hasn't disclosed its motivations beyond saying that it has "exciting plans in store".

But there are several reasons the deal may have appealed.

• Beats headphones division
• Beats 1 radio station
• iTunes store
• Carpool Karaoke TV show (with other music-themed programming reportedly on the way)

Always-listening

Homepod help

Augmented reality advertising

Worker says he routinely heard the n-word at Tesla’s Fremont factory.

Marcus Vaughn is an African-American who worked on Tesla’s factory floor from April to October of this year. Vaughn charges that workers and managers on the factory floor routinely used the n-word within his earshot. When he complained to the human resources department, Vaughn says, he was fired for “not having a positive attitude.”

According to Bloomberg, Vaughn is seeking to be the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than 100 black Tesla workers.

The lawsuit was filed by Lawrence Organ, the same civil rights lawyer who sued on behalf of three other black Tesla workers for racial discrimination last month. Those men also said they routinely heard people on the factory floor using racial epithets. A third lawsuit, alleging similar facts, was filed in March.

“Part of not being a huge jerk is considering how someone might feel who is part of [a] historically less represented group,” Musk allegedly wrote. “Sometimes these things happen unintentionally, in which case you should apologize. In fairness, if someone is a jerk to you, but sincerely apologizes, it is important to be thick-skinned and accept that apology.”

“The law doesn’t require you to have a thick skin,” Organ told Bloomberg. “When you have a diverse workforce, you need to take steps to make sure everyone feels welcome in that workforce.”

Most expensive, in the list compiled by Business Insider, is Russia, at 79,990 rubles – the equivalent of $1,390.

Russia isn’t the only country where the local price exceeds $1300 equivalent. This is also true in most mainland European countries, the UK and Mexico.

Lest anyone accuse Apple of price-gouging, it’s always worth noting that headline prices can be misleading. The U.S. price doesn’t include taxes, so most Americans will pay more than the $999 official price. Combined state and local sales taxes can range from nothing in a handful of states to more than 9% in Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama.

This variation by state is the reason Apple shows tax-exclusive pricing. In most other countries, where the sales tax rate is the same throughout the country, Apple shows the inclusive price.

In the UK, for example, sales tax (known as Value Added Tax, or VAT) is 20%. The headline £999 price, therefore, is £832.50 before tax – or the equivalent of $1127. That’s still expensive compared the U.S. price, but not by as much as it initially appears.

Apple last year increased its UK prices to reflect the fall in the value of the pound following the Brexit referendum result, at the time falling right within the range of exchange rates seen. There has been some recovery since then, making Apple’s pricing seem high.

Google has never publicly shared how much it spends on its self-driving cars. At first, Project Chauffeur was hidden away in Google’s ultra-secret X moonshot program. When that went public, its costs were bundled together in a vague “Other Bets” category that includes the company’s fiber Internet service, home automation, and life science spin-offs.

Now, a court filing in Waymo’s epic and ongoing lawsuit against Uber has accidentally revealed just how big a bet Google placed on autonomous vehicles. Between Project Chauffeur’s inception in 2009 and the end of 2015, Google spent $1.1 billion on developing its self-driving software and hardware, according to a recent deposition of Shawn Bananzadeh, a financial analyst at Waymo.

Bananzadeh was testifying as part of the lawsuit, in which Uber stands accused misappropriating trade secrets and violating patents from Waymo, Google’s self-driving-car offshoot. Because Waymo has yet to commercialize any of its technology in a meaningful way, the company thinks any damages in the case should be calculated on the basis of how much it spent building the technology in question..

When asked by an Uber lawyer how an estimate for developing one of the trade secrets, number 90, was arrived at, Bananzadeh replied: “My understanding is that it is a cost that captures the entire program spend from inception to the period of time where it stops.” He later clarified that meant from 2009, when Sebastian Thrun got the go-ahead for the project from Larry Page, to the end of 2015.

Throughout Bananzadeh’s deposition, every dollar amount was redacted to protect Waymo’s confidential commercial information. Every time, that is, except in the Uber lawyer’s very next question: “The calculation that was the basis of the $1.1 billion cost estimate for Trade Secret 90 is the same calculation that was done for Trade Secret 2 and Trade Secret 25?”

Waymo had apparently given an identical $1.1 billion cost estimate for each of the trade secrets being discussed. Bananzadeh was unable to provide a clear answer as to why that might be, except to say, “Insofar as it is part of the entirety of this self-driving system…. therefore, all of the costs of the program since inception… are what then informs that number.”

Waymo’s position seems to be that all of its trade secrets are inextricably linked to the whole self-driving car project, and any damages should reflect that fact.

In a filing, Otto Trucking called Waymo’s damages theory “entirely speculative” and “over the top,” and called on the court to forbid Waymo from offering any evidence or argument beyond the actual damages it has incurred.

Though $1.1 billion is unquestionably a massive figure, it actually seems quite reasonable compared to the recent over-heated market for self-driving car acquisitions. In March 2016, General Motors paid a billion for San Francisco–based Cruise Automation, a company that was a seller of after-market semi-autonomous vehicle kits. In February of this year, Ford invested the same amount in a joint venture with Argo AI, a two-month-old Pittsburgh start-up headed by a former Google self-driving car engineer. The largest self-driving acquisition to date, however, was Intel’s $15.3 billion purchase of Mobileye in March. The Israeli company had originally provided vision-based semi-autonomous technology for Tesla vehicles.

Uber shelled out a reported $680 million for self-driving truck maker Otto in August 2016, sight almost unseen. But it’s the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of Otto, and in particular its lidar technology, that are at the heart of Waymo’s case against Uber. Otto’s founder, Anthony Levandowski, allegedly had a draft contract for the purchase of the company before he even quit Google.

By spending its money earlier than others and mostly in-house, Google’s billion-dollar investment now looks relatively modest—almost a bargain. Waymo has, by far, the most sophisticated self-driving software. It has simulated over a billion miles of driving, and its cars have had the most self-driving experience on real streets (over 3 million miles in multiple cities).

The court case seems to suggest that Waymo has also built up an enviably solid platform of intellectual property. So, undesirable as this peek into its books might be for Google today, the company should pride itself on demonstrating that in-house R&D can still make a lot of financial sense.

Since November, Chinese-backed Canyon Bridge Capital Partners has been seeking approval for a $1.3bn (£984m) deal to buy Lattice Semiconductor.

The firms said they were "disappointed" by the decision.

The order comes as the US has been toughening its stance on business dealings with China.

The US last month launched a formal review of China's intellectual property practices, which it says may force US companies to surrender valuable information.

US politicians and military leaders have also urged the administration to take a closer look at Chinese investments in the US, particularly in the technology industry.

In its announcement, the Trump administration said it was concerned about the "potential transfer" of intellectual property from Lattice, which makes advanced computer chips.

It also cited the use of Lattice products by the US government.

Mr Trump's decision was in line with an earlier recommendation by the US government panel that reviews foreign transactions for national security considerations.

That step typically decides such matters, but the companies made the rare move to appeal directly to the president in an effort to win approval.

Oregon-based Lattice has faced falling revenue, with losses in 2016 and 2015. The proposal from Canyon Bridge offered a premium on its share price.

In a statement, Lattice chief executive Darin Billerbeck said the failed deal "was in the best interests of our shareholders, our customers, our employees and the United States".

The chipmaker, which makes about a third of its revenue in China, has shifted its business away from the military and said it did not think the deal posed a security risk.

It had also pledged to double the number of US jobs in a bid to win approval.

Canyon Bridge did not address the security concerns raised by the US government in its response.

The company, which is backed by the China Venture Capital Fund, said it would continue to pursue other investments. The China Venture Capital Fund is owned by state-owned entities, according to the US.

"We are obviously disappointed in today's decision by the President of the United States to forgo what we believe to be an excellent deal for Lattice's shareholders and its employees by expanding the opportunity to keep jobs in America," the company said in an emailed statement.

Mr Trump's decision is the fourth time a president has barred a private deal on national security grounds. President Barack Obama used that authority twice, in both cases against Chinese companies.

In 1990, President George HW Bush also blocked a Chinese company from acquiring a Seattle manufacturer,

The decisions have come as Chinese investment in the US surged, exceeding $46bn in 2016, triple the amount in 2015, according to the Rhodium Group.

Chinese investors are on track to surpass that number this year.

Other deals waiting approval include Jack Ma's Ant Financial bid to buy US money transfer company MoneyGram for $1.2bn.

China Oceanwide Holdings Group is also seeking approval of its $2.7bn acquisition of US insurance company Genworth Financial.

US politicians have urged rejection of other deals as well, including a bid to buy to the Chinese stock exchange.

A new Far Infrared (FIR) sensor from Israeli company AdaSky could help bring vehicles with Level 3, 4 and 5 autonomy features to market faster. The solution is the first to offer an FIR camera with built-in machine learning software for processing the results, in a solid-state form factor with no moving parts, at a cost that AdaSky says is “suited for mass market” use.

AdaSky’s solution is called “Viper,” and it works by passively collecting FIR signals sent out as heat by warm objects, including other cars and humans. Its range means that it can pick up signals from as many as a few hundred meters away, allowing it to detect pedestrians earlier than other sensors, and work in concert with different tech including LiDAR and traditional cameras to verify that pedestrians are in fact pedestrians ahead of time.

When building a tech business, the tech stack question pops up very early on in the journey. Rightly so, as this can define how your startup is built and its chances of scaling with user growth.

Do you know that the number one factor influencing the decision of a non-technical founder choosing a tech stack is also the most dangerous for their startup?

For the uninitiated, a tech stack is a combination of software products and programming languages that come together to create a website or a mobile app, comprising of a backend and a frontend or also known as server-side and client-side, respectively.

Here’s typically how most non-tech founders take this crucial decision: by relying on their developer to suggest and picking one that makes the most financial sense in the short term.

Now, the development team you’re talking to is biased in their suggestion, purely because the tech stack they recommend is the one they’ve built their expertise up on. That’s what they’re most comfortable with.

Secondly, that decision may just not be right for your type of product, the market it serves and the business objective around it. A stack for a on-demand or marketplace app would be very different than for a real-time video conferencing application.

A pertinent question in today’s context is whether to build for mobile or web first, and most people falter at making the right decision. The only way to decide between the platforms, at least for the initial version(s) of your product, is to know your customer well.

This means, understanding the use cases well, knowing at what points will your product be used by your customers – does it naturally lend itself to mobility (think: Uber) or something that doesn’t necessarily need to be mobile for a great first experience.

When it comes to mobile, you’re presented with two options – one is to build cross platform and the other is to build a native app. While cross platform technologies are more cost effective than native when you’re building an app for two platforms at the same time, they do fail to deliver on a great user experience.

Don’t make a decision purely on pricing as most often, it gets expensive at a later stage to make amends.

The more niche or newer a technology or language, the more difficult it is to find the right people to help you build it. At the same time, it’s also going to be that much more expensive simply for the reason there is shortage of people in that stack.

Going just with the latest technology or language can result in higher costs and difficulty to find talent.

Look at what’s readily available in abundance at the location where your tech team is – whether in-house or outsourced. This should be coupled with how many support groups already exist for the tech. If there aren’t enough or bigger support groups already, it’s going to be challenging to find solutions when issues arise.

The type of product you’re building has a very big influence on the tech stack for the startup. As mentioned earlier on, the stack for a content-based or a marketplace product would be very different from that of a video conferencing app.

Does your product need to support high concurrency of users or high traffic? Is speed a critical component? Ask these questions to your tech team and find out what suggestions do they have for the stack they’re recommending.

Explore the problem space to see what tools and technologies are commonly used by other startups in that domain. For instance, if your product has to have strong computational problem solving capabilities like for data science or machine learning, Python with libraries such as Pandas, SciPy, etc may be best suited.

Follow the customer and product when making the decision for a tech stack and don’t just rely on what your developers suggest. This could define how your product or startup would scale in the future.

“To the women doing this, there’s no female brain and male brain, we are all persons not just gender. Career and professions don’t have gender. It’s about your ability, not your gender. So if there is something you can do, you don’t have to look at who is in there. They are a human being just like you.”

— Anne Amuzu, CEO Nandi Mobile

In an industry where men outnumber women, the tech scene in Ghana has seen some tremendous growth over the years. From software development, training, influencing, blogging, engineering, to leadership roles with top global I.T giants, these women are blazing the trail for women in this space here in Ghana. They are influencers and role models not just for young women aspiring for a career and impact in the tech space but any young person aspiring to reach the skies in tech here in Ghana.

Here are women influencing tech.

Lucy Quist is an international business leader and the CEO of Airtel – one of Ghana’s largest telecommunications companies and industry leader in data and digital innovation. She passionately believes in harnessing the potential of people to deliver outstanding results in business to improve society.

At Airtel she has grown customer market share for both voice and data transformed Airtel into the most loved telecom brand in the daily lives of Ghanaians. This transformation has been recognized repeatedly with the company winning over 20 major awards during her tenure.

Her vast business experience has seen her work in the UK and Portugal as well as in West, Central and East Africa. Lucy is a great advocate for STEM encouraging greater student participation in STEM to accelerate development.

She is an accomplished speaker on many subjects in business leadership and technology. She has been on platforms such as TEDxEUSTON, the Leadership and Ethics Conference at Columbia Business School and the African Development Investment Convention in Zurich. She was featured on BBC’s Power Women series http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38033551

Lucy serves on several international and local Boards including the International Board for African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), Petra Trust Company Ltd, the Business Environment Enabling Programme under UKAID, the Industry Advisory Board for Ashesi University and The Exploratory – an initiative of the African Women Advocacy project.

She is a founding member of the Executive Women Network, a non-profit organization of women in senior management and executive positions committed to inspiring, empowering and supporting women executives to succeed.

She holds a first class degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of East London and is a Chartered Engineer with the Institute of Engineering and Technology, UK. She also holds an MBA from INSEAD in France.

Ethel D. Cofie. Named one of the top 5 women impacting I.T in Africa, Ethel is the CEO and Founder of EDEL Technology Consulting- I.T Consulting Company in West Africa and Europe (I.T Consulting Firm of the Year-Ghana Telecoms and I.T Awards) and founder of Women in Tech Africa (Africa’s Largest Tech Group) with members in over 30 African countries and in the diaspora and growing.

Ethel also created Women In Tech Week, a global event which started in 2016 which impacts over 10,000 women globally. She’s been featured on BBC and have had her opinion pieces published on CNN on topics of technology in emerging markets, and women leadership. When Ethel is not running EDEL or Women in Tech Africa, she advises and consults on technology growth in emerging markets. She sits on a number of boards across the continent.

Former U.S first lady, Michelle Obama believes, “Ethel is a blessing to her generation.”

Regina Honu is a Ghanaian Social Entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She has just opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and Human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. As one of the few women making significant contributions to Africa’s development through innovative technological solutions, Regina has received multiple awards for her tireless efforts, including being named by CNN as one of the one the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.

Her success has garnered international attention with features on platforms such as CNN African Voices, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Aljazeera as well as the Impatient Optimist blog by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

She was unveiled as the 2016 Vlisco Brand Ambassador. In an interview with the CNN’s African Start-Up she is described as a Ghanaian tech guru who wants to develop the next generation of women in technology.

Regina’s story was also published in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In book.

Regina started Tech Needs Girls Ghana movement which aims to train and educate more Ghanaian girls into studying technology related courses. The movement is well noted for teaching girls how to code.

Dr. Kajsa Hallberg Adu is an interdisciplinary academic with a strong foundation in research, liberal arts, and community involvement. She joined Ashesi University College in 2009 as a lecturer, and teaches social theory, leadership as well as leads the work with our writing courses.

Kajsa is the founder of BloggingGhana, an organization for social media influencers in Ghana. She is herself a successful blogger on kajsaha.com and tweets @kajsaha, BloggingGhana has influenced blogging in Ghana since its inception.

Roshi Motman is the first woman to become the Chief Executive Officer of Tigo, Ghana. She studied Electrical Engineering and Business Development at Chalmers University in Goteborg, Sweden.

She has about ten years’ experience working with various companies in the Kinnevik Group, a key investor in Millicom. She occupied the roles of Product management, Sales and Customer Operations at Tele2 in Sweden. At Tele2, she was also responsible for development of mobile entertainment at Modern Times Group, parent company of TV channel Viasat. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Tigo, Ghana.

Roshi won the 2015 COM World Series AfricanCom Awards for CEO of the year in 2015. She was also recognized as a trailblazer at the 5th Ghana Telecom Awards in May 2015. She was also named second on the Sweden’s list of 75 young and promising women.

Estelle Akofio-Sowah. Currently the Country Lead of Google Ghana, Estelle is a highly motivated individual, committed to the social and economic development of Ghana. Previously the Managing Director of BusyInternet, Africa’s hugely successful internet startup, highlights of her leadership there include launching an ISP which went on to be awarded ISP of the year 2008, winning a World Bank Incubator SME program grant and successfully raising the finances required to open two additional cafe outlets serving an average of 1000 clients per day. In 2008, Estelle was awarded Top African ICT Business Woman by the ForgeAhead African ICT Achievers Award Program in South Africa.

A 2008 Class Fellow of the West African Leadership initiative (Aspen, Colorado), Estelle has a degree in Economics and Development Studies from the University of Sussex. Other work experience includes being the Conference and Banqueting Manager at La-Palm Royal Beach Hotel (Ghana’s only 5-star hotel) and Project Manager of the National Poverty Reduction Program at ProNet (local NGO partner to WaterAid UK). From her twelve years work experience in Ghana, Estelle has a broad understanding of local conditions, politics, social dynamics and the ICT community

Specialties: Being a woman, working with IT, loving Ghana, Africa

Anne Amuzu co-founded Nandimobile Ltd in 2010 and has been its Technical Development Lead since 2010. Ms. Amuzu has extensive knowledge and experience in software development, and in leading development teams. She holds a BSc in Computer Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Amuzu along with two partners, Michael Dakwa and Edward Amartey-Tagoe, launched Nandi Mobile after competing together as part of The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology entrepreneurship program for startups. For Amuzu and her team, their success building Nandi Mobile’s first application, Infoline, involved lots of listening and a willingness to embrace change.

Amuzu was also part of the #ILookLikeanEngineer campaign which has been trending on social media and helped to bring greater attention to gender disparity in the tech industry. Along with being Nandi Mobile’s CEO and promoting diversity in tech through social media, Amuzu also makes time to teach young Ghanaians how to write code. She said there is start-up potential in everyone.

Nandi Mobile – Infoline mobile services

Infoline service allows local hospitals, churches, NGOs and other businesses to track customer comments, send bulk messages to members using SMS or market specific elements of their organization to potential clients.

Farida obtained her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2005. She later acquired a certificate in Project Management in 2009 from Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in Ghana.

She has written a novel titled: Definition of a miracle. She has also created the gKudi micro-finance platform, a clouded banking system that allows small scale loans within Ghana.

Farida Bedwei. Farida, the Head of the Technical Department (CTO) of Logiciel is a Ghanaian software architect with over 15 years’ experience in the development and implementation of mobile and enterprise software. She has developed payroll, human resource and other information management systems for a number of clients within Ghana and the West African sub-region

Farida has an incredible story of overcoming cerebral palsy to become one of the top software engineers in Ghana. Cerebral palsy refers to a family of neurological disorders that appear in infancy or early childhood and permanently affect body movement, posture and muscle coordination.