joe biden

VP Biden to Hangout, talk gun control on Google+

President Obama's "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit drew more than 5 million views, and now Vice President Joe Biden is going to try his hand at a different newfangled social-media real-time electronic telegraph technology.

In an event dubbed a "Fireside Hangout," the vice president will be hanging out in Google+ starting at 10:45 a.m. PT tomorrow to discuss the recently released White House policy recommendations on reducing gun violence in the wake of a downright awful 2012 that was plagued by a number of mass shootings in the United States. … Read more

Game developers urge balanced approach in Biden probe of violence

Ahead of a meeting between Vice President Joseph Biden and video game makers, one of the trade organizations representing game developers put out a statement today saying it "does not seek to impede more scientific study about our members' products."

In a letter to Biden the International Game Developers Association's Daniel Greenberg wrote that the organization would "welcome more evidence-based research into the effects of our work to add to the large body of existing scientific literature that clearly shows no causal link between video game violence and real violence."

Greenberg also urged Biden to … Read more

CNET Tech Voters' Guide 2012: Romney vs. Obama on the issues

Technology topics can mark a rare bipartisan area of political agreement: Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama say they would make cybersecurity a priority, and both like to talk up government funding of basic research.

If you look a bit more closely, however, differences emerge. They're perhaps most marked over federal regulation, where the two major parties have long-standing disagreements, but also exist on topics like WikiLeaks, copyright legislation, and whether to levy a new tax on broadband providers.

Keep reading for CNET's 2012 Tech Voters' Guide, in which we highlight where the four candidates -- we've … Read more

New 'Jack Kennedy' line in VP debate tops reaction on Twitter

For the second time, JFK may have been the star of a vice presidential debate, and Twitter was all over it.

During tonight's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the two got into a brief skirmish over former President Kennedy, leading Biden to say, disbelievingly to Ryan, "Now you're Jack Kennedy?" The line brought to mind then Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen's famous moment in his 1988 debate against Republican vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle, who had compared his level of experience to that of JFK prior to Kennedy becoming … Read more

Obama DNC speech triggers record 52,757 tweets per minute

President Barack Obama has set a new record, at least on Twitter.

The president's speech at the Democratic National Convention yesterday lit up the Twittersphere with 52,757 tweets per minute, a new record for the micro-blogging site, Twitter has revealed.

Overall, the DNC has generated heavy traffic on Twitter. From the starting festivities on Tuesday to the closing events last night, more than 9.5 million tweets about the convention have made the rounds. The final day saw around 4 million tweets alone, according to Twitter, many of them sent during Obama's speech.

The 4 million one-day … Read more

U.S. Attorney: Biden hands-off in MegaUpload bust

Vice President Joe Biden did not orchestrate the criminal case against MegaUpload, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Kim DotCom, the founder of MegaUpload, a cloud storage service accused of trafficking in pirated materials, said this week that he has proof Biden ordered the prosecution against him and six other MegaUpload managers.

"There was no White House involvement in the decision to charge this case," the office of Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote in an brief e-mail to CNET. MacBride is the federal prosecutor who filed a criminal … Read more

MPAA: Kim DotCom's conspiracy theories are bunk

The film industry is laughing at allegations made by Kim DotCom, the founder of accused pirate site MegaUpload.

DotCom claims leaders from the major Hollywood studios gathered last June in Washington to discuss MegaUpload with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

In an interview with TorrentFreak on Tuesday, DotCom produced White House records that showed some of the chiefs of the six largest film studios, including Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures, and Ron Meyer of Universal Studios, met with Biden at the White House on July 27, 2011. He noted that also in attendance was Mike Ellis, an executive … Read more

White House taps developers to fight date violence

The White House hopes the application-developer community will answer its call for help in preventing sexual assault and dating violence.

Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced such a technology challenge to the development community today. Both have been advocates for the prevention of sexual assault and dating violence among young adults.

The challenge is part of the broader use of technology by the White House to get the public involved with larger government issues. White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra said there are 80 such challenges on the Web site Challenge.gov, … Read more

White House wants new copyright law crackdown

The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers.

In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.

The report was prepared by Victoria Espinel, the first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator who received Senate confirmation in December 2009, and represents a broad tightening of many forms of intellectual property law including ones that deal with counterfeit pharmaceuticals … Read more

Feds seize cash, Web sites of alleged film pirates

A week after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned that the government would start cracking down on illegal file sharing, the feds swooped in and seized assets belonging to operators of accused movie-pirating sites.

The government on Wednesday also took control of at least seven of the sites in question: Movies-Links.tv, Now-Movies.com, TVShack.net, Filespump.com, Planetmoviez.com, ZML.com, ThePirateCity.org, Ninjavideo.net, and NinjaThis.net. More than a dozen bank, investment, and advertising accounts were seized, and authorities served search warrants on residences in several different states.

Authorities are searching for operators of the sites … Read more