election

The election is over, the iPad Mini was revealed, and that can only mean one thing: it's finally Humiliation Day time. But before we get to that, we talk business. Namely the fact that Microsoft is rumored to be working on something that would make Karyne quit her job and become a full-time gamer. It's possible that nobody is as excited as she is about this news. Anyone?

Also this week, we mention the rumor that must not be mentioned anymore because it's been talked about to death; we wonder what the point of Google Wallet is; … Read more

Elections are all about winners and losers, who is up and who is down. Here's a CNET look at the winners and losers in the 2012 election in which President Obama bested former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, from a tech perspective.

WINNERS

Nate Silver: The FiveThirtyEight forecaster's algorithms correctly calculated that on election day President Obama had a nearly 92-percent chance of winning, and accurately projected the voting outcome in 49 states (Florida has not yet been called).

Read: Obama's win a big vindication for Nate Silver, king of the quants

Big data: Many, especially … Read more

Twitter came out with a bunch of stats for Election Day 2012 and boasted that amid a steady and fast stream of tweets, the service managed to keep going strong.

All told, people sent more than 31 million election-related Tweets, according to a blog post by VP of Infrastructure Mazen Rawashdeh called "Bolstering our infrastructure." He said Twitter tracked the surge in election-related tweets at 327,452 tweets per minute (TPM).

"These numbers reflect the largest election-related Twitter conversation during our 6 years of existence," he wrote, "though they don't capture the total volume … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Beyonce reacts to President Obama's re-election.

- Marijuana now legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington.

- I'm joining the rest of the world and getting cable TV; which Time Warner package is the best deal, and are there any pro tips out there to get more for my dollar?

- Measure B in California requires L.A. porn stars to wear condoms.

- Don't forget to enter our Halloween Samsung Galaxy S3 Giveaway contest!

Bathroom break video: Horse crashes Huffington Post's election night coverage.

Shortly after President Obama won re-election last night, a simple photo of the president embracing his wife was posted on his Facebook page. Just a few hours later, and with apologies to Gangnam Style, Justin Bieber, and adorable kittens worldwide, that shot became the most "liked" photo ever on Facebook.

At the moment, it's been liked over 3.1 million times, and the number is still climbing.

The same photo was also posted to the president's Twitter account last night, and quickly smashed Twitter records for the most retweets. At the moment it's been retweeted … Read more

The most controversial technology topics in President Obama's second term are likely to be two political flashpoints: piracy and privacy.

When Internet activists allied with an hastily assembled coalition of Silicon Valley companies blocked votes on a pair of Hollywood-backed copyright bills early this year, they didn't end efforts to slap stiffer anti-piracy sanctions on the Internet. They merely postponed the fight.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act are dead, of course. Those names have become radioactive on Capitol Hill, thanks to a broad public outcry that involved millions of Internet users and actually … Read more

"Maybe we got you a slow computer back there," said a Fox News wit to Karl Rove during the network's election broadcast.

Rove was insisting that President Obama hadn't quite yet won the election, when his own network had already called the result.

Yes, I watched election night on Fox News. I sensed this would be the place for a little action, a little color.

And yet, as the evening wore on to its Silver-lined conclusion, I couldn't quite shake a sight that seemed especially peculiar: the computer that Rove was using was a Mac. … Read more

A tweet sent this evening by President Obama minutes after winning re-election has quickly become the most retweeted message ever.

Obama's official Twitter account -- which now has more than 22 million followers -- posted a photo of the President hugging First Lady Michelle Obama, with the message "Four more years."

Four more years. twitter.com/BarackObama/st...

The tweet quickly logged more than 350,000 retweets and 100,000 votes as favorite tweets, easily surpassing a Justin Bieber tweet grieving the passing of Avalanna Routh, a young fan who died … Read more

New Jersey's experiment in allowing storm-displaced residents to vote by e-mail has been extended until Friday.

In the wake of widespread reports of glitches affecting e-mail and fax ballots, the state announced today it will extend the deadline to 8 p.m. ET Friday for returning ballots to county clerks. However, ballots had to be requested by 5 p.m. today.

While e-mail ballots are usually made available only to residents living overseas and the military, the state announced Saturday that it would allow voters displaced by Superstorm Sandy to cast ballots by e-mail or fax. However, many New … Read more