election2012

Obama faces piracy, privacy tests in his second term

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

Karl Rove stroking a Mac: Bad for both brands?

"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

Obama 'four more years' tweet skyrockets to No. 1 retweet

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...

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

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 extends e-mail voting deadline for displaced residents

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

Bing's Election 2012 page can filter news by political bias

As election results roll in with Barack Obama taking Vermont and Mitt Romney winning Kentucky and West Virginia, Bing lets users tailor the political news they're getting.

In it's Election 2012 page, Microsoft's search engine has what you'd normally see, a map with color-coded states, numbers showing how many states each candidate has won, up-to-the-minute news, and results from the Senate and House races. But, there's one additional feature that's a bit more unusual -- a political bias slider.

In the upper right corner of the page, users can slide the bar to the … Read more

Obama returns to Reddit to drum up last-minute votes

With mere hours left before the polls close, President Obama turned to Reddit for a last-minute push to round up support for his re-election bid.

After making headlines in August when his question-and-answer session overwhelmed servers running the popular link-sharing site, the president returned to Reddit this afternoon to remind voters to vote.

"I'm checking in because polls will start closing in this election in just a few hours, and I need you to vote," Obama said in his post. "Millions of Americans have stepped up in support of this campaign over the last 19 months, and today we decide what the next four years look like -- but only if we show up." … Read more

Very absentee ballots: How do astronauts vote?

Even if you're outside the U.S., rocking the vote is relatively easy -- as long as you're on Earth. But how do you make your mark if you're an astronaut up above?

The International Space Station has been hosting international crews for 12 years, and there are now two Americans aboard: Sunita Williams and Kevin Ford.

While both voted in Russia before they left Earth, there are provisions for astronauts who want to vote from space. … Read more

Pennsylvania e-voting machine casts wrong ballot. Oops

An electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania was briefly taken offline today -- and apparently reconfigured and placed back in service -- after a YouTube video showed evidence of voting irregularities.

The video, which received a flurry of attention after being posted at Reddit.com, appeared to show an attempted vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama being reflected as a vote for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Republicans have also warned of voting machine glitches going in the other direction. In a letter (PDF) to state voting officials last week, the GOP's top lawyer said the party has received … Read more

Sergey Brin's political bonfire

It's election day in America, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin isn't happy about the situation. In a Google + post he wrote:

...no matter what the outcome, our government will still be a giant bonfire of partisanship. It is ironic since whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party.

He pleaded with the victors in today's election to "please withdraw from your respective parties and govern as independents in … Read more

Mark 2012 as history's last 'social media' election

As soon as President Obama offered the phrase "horses and bayonets" during his final debate with Mitt Romney last month, the Twitterverse lit up. It wasn't long before we learned that the quip turned out to be the most tweeted remark of the final presidential debate, good for some 105,767 tweets per minute.

The media duly took note of the occasion. In fact, each time there's big news -- Hurricane Sandy or a presidential debate -- the media quickly inform us how the event is playing out on social media. Indeed, we've come to … Read more