president

Does a Reddit live chat give Obama more tech cred?

Ever the tech-conscious politician, President Barack Obama today held a live Q&A session on, arguably, the geekist message board around -- Reddit.

The session may up the president's tech cred, which has already been bolstered in the past by his social media prowess and use of technology in campaigns.

Many have said that his use of social media in the 2008 election helped him get elected and just last week, Obama's campaign became the first to accept contributions via text messages.

Reddit General Manager Erik Martin said he didn't know what this would do for … Read more

How the White House is aiming the X Prize model at big problems

On October 4, 2004, the idea of incentive prizes hit the mainstream when Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites launched SpaceShip One into orbit for the second time and won the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

Since then, prizes like that have become more and more common, and though the X Prizes are still the gold standard, there are now similar competitions from medical research to science to business, and beyond.

Not long ago, however, the U.S. government got into the business (PDF) of using competitions like these to come up with new ways to solve existing … Read more

Silicon Valley big shots to pay $36,000 for dinner with Obama?

President Barack Obama will be the special guest at a dinner tonight in Silicon Valley that will cost attendees a sizable sum to brush shoulders with the commander in chief.

Details on the dinner party and how much it will cost attendees have been mixed. However, the event is scheduled to take place at the Atherton, Calif., home of Lisa and Doug Goldman, well-known Bay Area philanthropists. According to reports, attendees will pay $35,800 for a ticket to the event. The Mercury News reported earlier this month that President Obama's campaign will receive $5,000 of that contribution, … Read more

White House aims to boost U.S.-made high-tech materials

"Made in USA." That's a designation that President Barack Obama and dozens of American companies, universities, and research labs want to apply to a new generation of high-tech materials, the White House said today.

As part of its Materials Genome Initiative, the Obama administration and partners in business, academia, and national labs are pushing the fast and efficient development and utliization of a wide range of new advanced, American-made materials. The goal is to cut the time it takes to discover, develop, and deploy these new materials in half, the White House said.

The theory behind the … Read more

Why CTIA may mark one conference too many

NEW ORLEANS--This hasn't exactly been a CTIA Wireless show to remember.

The conference was a virtual snooze fest this year, with the lack of product news and the disappearance of a few key players on the show floor leaving many questioning the relevancy of the show.

Are this week's show, as well as the second enterprise and application-focused CTIA conference in the fall, worth the time and effort? I'm starting to have my doubts, and I'm not alone. Industry executives have privately expressed to me hope that the trade group consolidates the two conferences and move … Read more

Obama to take made-in-America tour to N.Y. chipmaking hub

President Obama will visit a chipmaking region in New York that includes a just-completed Globalfoundries manufacturing facility, one of the most advanced in the world.

Globalfoundries (GF) announced that it will take part in hosting a visit by President Obama on May 8 at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's (CNSE) NanoTech Complex at the State University of New York in Albany. The President's visit was originally planned to be held at Globalfoundries new Fab 8 facility but was moved to CNSE for logistical reasons, according to the chipmaker.

Fab 8 -- located in Malta, N.Y. … Read more

White House takes aim at CISPA with formal veto threat

The White House today escalated its opposition to a cybersecurity-related surveillance bill with a formal veto threat.

In a new statement, the White House's Office of Management and Budget said that the CISPA bill endangered Americans' privacy and inappropriately shielded private companies from liability.

The statement suggests that CISPA -- also known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act -- goes too far by giving the National Security Agency too much power:

H.R. 3523 effectively treats domestic cybersecurity as an intelligence activity and thus, significantly departs from longstanding efforts to treat the Internet and cyberspace as civilian … Read more

MPAA chief: SOPA and Protect IP back from the grave?

The Motion Picture Association of America believes there's still hope for the controversy-plagued Stop Online Piracy Act.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that was published online today, MPAA chief Christopher Dodd said he was "confident" that President Obama was using his "good relationships in both communities" -- that is, Silicon Valley and Hollywood -- to advance SOPA.

When asked whether there are negotiations going on now, Dodd replied: "I'm confident that's the case, but I'm not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes … Read more

'Star Trek' in the White House: Obama and Uhura go Vulcan

Conspiracy theorists focused on President Obama's citizenship may have been on the wrong track. Perhaps he didn't call Kenya or Indonesia home. Perhaps he's not a citizen of Earth at all.

In fact, new photographic evidence leaked to TwitPic suggests the commander in chief may not even be human. The photo -- no doubt intended as a personal memento and not for the eyes of Earthlings -- shows Obama (if that's really his name) flashing the Vulcan salute alongside none other than Admiral (formerly Lt.) Nyota Uhura, who apparently time-traveled from her administrative offices at Starfleet Intelligence for a top secret conference with the president.

Come to think of it, Obama always did strike us as looking a bit Vulcan-like.… Read more