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GOP flip-flops over supporting digital copyright reforms

In an bizarre policy flip-flop, a group of more than 160 House Republicans appeared to endorse extensive digital copyright reform on Friday, then disavowed its position the next day.

The House Republican Study Committee, an influential collection of conservatives that tends to pull the House leadership to the right, published a set of recommendations that could have been penned by Larry Lessig and the Electronic Frontier Foundation: expanded fair use rights, lower penalties for "willful" infringement, and dramatically abbreviated copyright terms.

That seemed to be more evidence that Republicans had become copyright skeptics, especially since most of the … Read more

Spock oven mitt: For food hot out of the replicator

Food generally isn't too big of a deal in the "Star Trek" universe unless you're talking about tribbles eating all the quadrotriticale or Picard ordering up a hot cup of tea to go with his space scones.

All those Enterprise crew members still have to eat and that means there's going to be some hot food coming out of the replicators. That also means you're going to need a space-worthy oven mitt. A Spock oven mitt. The $14.99 oversize Spock hand has just enough blue uniform on the cuff to designate its rank.… Read more

Friday Poll: Did stances on tech issues sway your vote?

Some major technology-related political hot potatoes have been tossed around this past year. The Stop Online Piracy Act may have gotten the most attention.

CNET broke down the presidential candidates' stances on a variety of tech issues before the election. For example, when it came to SOPA, Romney spoke out against it, while Obama danced a little more delicately around the issue.

The election will be shaping the direction of tech-related legislation for several years to come. It has already had an impact by weeding out three SOPA-sponsoring congressmen.

As an informed geek voter, how much did tech issues sway … Read more

Romney victory site goes live by mistake

It's well known that before any big game, the T-shirts and hats that laud a victory are prepared by both sides.

Yet a curious thing happened after Barack Obama was re-elected on Tuesday night: Mitt Romney's victory Web site went live.

Perhaps it was someone's idea of humor -- or even anger. Yet it was immediately spotted by Political Wire, which cheerily took screenshots for public edification.

Those who enjoy schadenfreude will offer their snorts and smirks. For them, this is a Rom-Com.

Yet we seek deeper significances here.

What was odd about this election was that … Read more

Among the top election quants, Nate Silver reigns supreme

While there's already been whole swimming pools of ink devoted to the Election Day prediction performance of polling aggregators like FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver, CNET is ready to hand out one more round of kudos to the king of the quants.

By now, anyone following the presidential election knows that Silver successfully predicted the winner in the race between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in all 50 states. That performance was one for the ages, earning him worldwide admiration and validating a polling aggregation model that had drawn mockery and ire from many pundits.

But … Read more

The 404 1,160: Where we turn over a new leaf (podcast)

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.

Episode 1,160 … Read more

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

In the end, big data won.

Not the presidential election -- although there's no doubt that President Obama's victory tonight was aided by a sophisticated understanding of the American electorate born of years of analysis of voting trends and demographic shifts.

No, big data -- and its patron saint, Nate Silver -- won the battle to predict the outcome of the contest between Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Where breathless pundits brandishing equivocating polls shouted from the rooftops over the last few weeks that the race for the White House was a "tossup," or &… 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

The 404 1,159: Where we challenge you to a vote-off (podcast)

Tune into today's show to hear an update to The 404's Halloween Samsung Galaxy SIII Giveaway Contest! With all the chaos of last week, we're editing some of the rules (see full list at the bottom of this page), but here's how to enter:

Follow @the404. Tweet out using #404S3 a photo and quick description why you need a new phone. Your photo MUST include your Twitter handle handwritten in the image. The submission deadline is Sunday 11/11 at Midnight ET.… 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