president

It's a busy job being president of CBS Interactive, but Jim Lanzone takes an hour to sit down with CNET's The 404 Podcast to talk shop, so we're minding our Ps and Qs, our Fs....Ss....Bs....and Ds.

Jim kicks off the conversation and tells us about his experience in the start-up world with eTour, Clicker, and Ask.com, then we explore his ideas about the future of television and how Web programming will compete with DVRs.

We'll also chat about GameSpot and EA teaming up for The Controller, a competition reality show where the best pro-gamers from around the country battle in a high-stakes competition without ever touching the controller.

Finally, we're taking questions from the live chat room and talking with Jim about today's tech news headlines, like the new Lytro camera that captures light in every direction in every point in space (whoa), the most annoying tech words in Web 2.0, and a reminder to turn off Siri access in your iPhone 4S's lock screen!… Read more

President Obama and a trio of House Republicans are visiting Silicon Valley today to highlight their competing proposals for boosting the U.S. economy.

Advisers had promised that Obama's town-hall style event organized by LinkedIn would address questions about jobs, the economy, and "how to move the country forward." It turns out Obama's answers amounted to a single recommendation: pass his proposed legislation known as the American Jobs Act (PDF), which includes a mix of additional government spending, temporary tax breaks, and permanent additional taxes that would take effect 16 months from now.

For their part, … Read more

As tomorrow's September 11 anniversary dominates headlines and a former Air Force One pilot recalls his nervousness during the attacks, Japan is in damage-control mode over the posting of President Obama's flight plan to an air traffic controller's personal blog.

Japan's Transportation Ministry said today that an air traffic controller at the Tokyo International Airport at Haneda could be charged for leaking national secrets, the New York Times reports.

The controller posted detailed flight plans for Air Force One--plans usually kept secret--regarding a visit to Asia by President Obama in November. He also posted information about an American military drone that was taking radiation readings near the earthquake-hobbled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Japanese officials said they learned of the leak Monday.

The controller apparently posted the 12 pages of information simply to show his friends, the Times reports, in what seems to be yet another example of someone displaying remarkable cluelessness as to the sensitivity of data and the public nature of the Web.

Earlier this week, a prestigious hospital confirmed that a spreadsheet containing private patient data had wound up online as, it seems, a component of a student's homework assignment. And the Times points out that the flight plan leak recalls an episode in 2007 when a Japanese Navy officer copied classified data about a U.S. radar system and handed it out on CD-ROMs to classmates at his naval school. … Read more

Barack, Do you really want everyone to know where you are? In the Googorola aftermath, Microsoft was reportedly one of the comapnies in negotiations with Motorola. And the best way to kill an iPad 3 rumor, is to squash it with another rumor that you made up. Plus, Wilson Tang of the 404 joins us in studio.

A White House terrorism strategy released today says Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks aid in "advancing violent extremist narratives" and should be monitored by the government.

The 12-page strategy (PDF), which outlines ways to respond to violent extremism, promises that: "We will continue to closely monitor the important role the Internet and social-networking sites play in advancing violent extremist narratives."

President Obama said in a statement accompanying the report that the federal government will start "helping communities to better understand and protect themselves against violent extremist propaganda, especially online."

While much of the … Read more

President Obama will host a Webcast at the White House at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET) today to answer questions submitted via Twitter. We're covering it live.

The White House and Twitter are billing the event as a "town hall," but it's not exactly going to be an exercise in open-microphone democracy. Instead, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey will select a handful of questions submitted through the #AskObama hashtag.

Among the #AskObama questions: immigration, taxes, gigabit Internet speeds, and whether it's possible to win re-election if the unemployment rate is 9 percent or … Read more

President Obama has an unusual problem when appearing at Internet "town halls": the distinct presence of marijuana. And by that we mean a committed cadre of legalize-pot activists, not the plant.

Obama's first event of the sort, which took place mere weeks after his inauguration, used a democratic-style voting mechanism soon flooded by marijuana legalization advocates, who propelled their questions to the top of the "green jobs," "financial stability," "jobs," and "budget" categories. During a YouTube Q&A earlier this year, 198 of the highest-rated 200 questions dealt with drug policy. … Read more

The state of Alaska is planning to release 24,000 of former Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mails, which are likely to be closely scrutinized as the 2012 election nears.

State officials told the Anchorage Daily News that they're sending the e-mails to a commercial printer so they can be copied, a process that should take about four days.

The request for the former governor's e-mails comes from the media and stems from as far back as the 2008 presidential campaign, in which the former governor was a vice presidential candidate. Multiple news organizations, including the New York Times, … Read more

Just months after becoming Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo will also be joining a presidential advisory committee.

Last night, President Obama announced his intent to appoint Costolo to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC). Costolo became the CEO of Twitter in October, taking over from site co-founder Evan Williams. Prior to becoming CEO, Costolo served as Twitter's chief operating officer.

The president also announced plans to appoint to the committee Scott Charney, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group, and David DeWalt, McAfee president.

"I am proud to appoint such impressive men and women to these … Read more