obama

Obama takes cyberwarfare to new level, report says

President Barack Obama has been fighting a clandestine cyberwar against foreign governments and al-Qaeda, and his efforts in that arena have far exceeded those of his predecessors, according to a new report.

The New York Times today published a wide-ranging report, adapted from an upcoming book, "Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power," by Times reporter David Sanger, on the Obama administration's use of cyberwarfare to take on Iran and potentially other countries or entities it views as a threat. Chief among the administration's targets was Iran's nuclear plants, … Read more

The data is in: The world's Wi-Fi routers support Obama

If America's Wi-Fi routers could vote, they'd likely reelect President Obama by about 6 percentage points.

That's just one of the unprovable conclusions I reached after looking at some clever new research by OpenSignalMaps, an Android app that relies on its crowd of users to keep track of all kinds of wireless data signals around the world. The app has gathered a database of almost 75 million geolocated routers worldwide and OpenSignalMaps co-founder James Robinson decided to parse some of that data for sentiments toward the president after noticing how many nearby routers were expressing themselves politically. … Read more

Politwoops publishes all politicians' deleted tweets

Ever wanted to know the deleted tweets of President Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, or even your local congressperson? Well, a new site called Politwoops launched today that aims to collect and preserve all of those tweets.

"From minor typos to major gaffes, Politwoops is now there to offer a searchable window into what they hoped you didn't see," Nicko Margolies, communications coordinator at the Sunlight Foundation, which created Politwoops, wrote in a blog post.

Granted, most of the deleted tweets are not that juicy and the majority seeming to have been nixed for small typos. However, … Read more

Facebook user pleads guilty for threatening to kill Obama

As President Obama toured through south Florida on a fundraising and speaking tour in February, a Miami college student posted on his own Facebook wall:

"If anyones going to UM to see Obama today, get ur phones out and record. Cause at any moment im gonna put a bullet through his head and u don't wanna miss that! Youtube!"

Today, Joaquin Amador Serrapio Jr., 20, pled guilty in a U.S. District Court to a single count of threatening to kill or harm the president via the social network, according to the Guardian. He could be sentenced … 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

Your vote could change Facebook's privacy policy

It's time to vote on Facebook policy, expect changes in Motorola, and give thanks in five words:

Within the coming days, expect the chance to vote on Facebook's privacy policy. Facebook recently made an amendment stating that if it announces a policy change and 7,000 users write comments on that announcement post, then Facebook has to put it up to a world-wide vote. Activists from the website our-policy.org encouraged people to post comments on a recent change, and it worked: more than 47,000 comments poured in, so its expected Facebook will open the change to … Read more

Romney uses targeted Google ads to tweak Obama

If you needed any further reason to alert you to the early arrival of the silly season, Politico is reporting how the Romney campaign is taking advantage of interest in President Obama's commencement speech at Barnard today to game the system to its advantage.

When users search Google for "barnard commencement" in the area of New York City around Barnard and Columbia, the first ad that shows up is a link to Romney's website titled, "Obama's Wasteful Spending." The ad is targeted just to the zip code in which the colleges are located, … 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

Obama's same-sex marriage tweet goes viral

At 12:18 PT this afternoon, shortly after President Obama got on TV and publicly announced for the first time that he supports same-sex marriage, this tweet was posted on his Twitter page:

"Same-sex couples should be able to get married." --President Obama

Just eight hours later, this tweet had been retweeted more than 50,000 times... and counting.

Normally, people can only see up to 50 retweets on Twitter's own counter. But these numbers are being tallied by a customized ticker made by "evangelist/hacker" Michael Schonfeld, according to tech news site The Next Web. … Read more