barack

In a dinner meeting last night, the president and 12 of the country's leading technology executives discussed such hot-button issues as jobs, education, and how to get the U.S. economy back on track.

Joining the meeting with Obama were CEOs including notably Apple's Steve Jobs, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Google' Eric Schmidt, Yahoo's Carol Bartz, Cisco Systems' John Chambers, Twitter's Dick Costolo, and NetFlix's Reed Hastings.

Other participants were well-known venture capitalist John Doerr, Stanford University president John Hennessy, former Genentech CEO Art Levinson, and Steve Westly, founder of the … Read more

President Obama will make an appearance in the San Francisco Bay Area this week to meet with technology industry leaders, according to local reports.

Both the San Francisco Chronicle and CNET cousin KCBS (part of CBS Corp.) are reporting that Obama will make an appearance somewhere in the area on Thursday for meetings with "business leaders in technology and innovation," according to KCBS reporter Doug Sovern's Twitter feed. Obama outlined several proposals focusing on investment in technology and green energy during his State of the Union address in January.

The Chronicle said it's unclear whether any … Read more

U.S. President Barack Obama set a target for power plants to produce mostly clean electricity by 2035--including power from sources like clean coal and natural gas--in his State of the Union address last night.

Obama also called for investment in clean technologies and urged Congress to eliminate billions of dollars in subsidies for oil companies.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own," Obama said about oil company profits. "So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's."

Such a move, which … Read more

Republicans are planning to use the Internet as a sledgehammer to clobber the secretive way in which Congress has traditionally done business.

Through a set of almost-radical changes that most Americans would probably view as common sense, the incoming GOP majority is set to approve rules saying that legislation must be posted online three days before a vote and that committee amendments will also be publicly posted.

Politicians' formal votes in committees will also be disclosed, and audio and video recordings will be permanently posted "in a manner that is easily accessible to the public," according to the … Read more

commentary During one of the busiest online shopping periods of the year, legislation that protects online shoppers from being preyed upon by unscrupulous marketers and Internet retailers could become law soon.

A bill called the "Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act" was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week and should soon hit the desk of President Barack Obama.

The legislation is designed to stop a practice made infamous by three marketing firms: Webloyalty, Vertrue, and Affinion. These companies presented ads for membership programs to consumers just as they were completing transactions at Web stores. The … Read more

As a U.S. senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to "strengthen privacy protections for the digital age."

But it wasn't until today, nearly two years after taking office, that the president finally began appointing members of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Obama's first two picks: Jim Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Elisebeth Cook, a former assistant attorney general under President Bush now in private practice at the Freeborn and Peters law firm. The positions are subject to Senate confirmation.

A 2007 law requires Obama to appoint … Read more

Behind the fly-off-the-shelf popularity of products like Apple's iPad and iPhone are hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs--mostly overseas. Is it possible to create more of those jobs here in the U.S. to combat chronically high levels of unemployment?

Personal computing is moving rapidly beyond the laptop. And there's no better example than Apple, whose most popular products are arguably now the iPhone and the iPad. The surging demand for anything Apple is causing a seismic shift in chip manufacturing to Asia, the hotbed of new silicon ecosystems. Though companies like Hewlett-Packard and Dell also play a … Read more

A proposed law allowing the government to pull the plug on Web sites accused of aiding piracy received a sizable political boost yesterday.

Dozens of the largest content companies, including video game maker Activision, media firms NBC Universal and Viacom, and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) endorsed the bill in a letter to the U.S. Senate. So did Major League Baseball and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said new laws are needed to curb access … Read more

President Barack Obama met yesterday with two ascendant Silicon Valley powers: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Google VP Marissa Mayer.

With Jobs, Obama discussed American competitiveness and education, according to Reuters.

The president's visit to the home of Mayer and husband Zachary Bogue was for a $30,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner less than two weeks before mid-term elections, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Obama had good timing for catching people on the upswing.

Jobs this week revealed sleek new MacBook Air computers and announced Apple's quarterly profit of $4.31 billion.

Mayer--who is vice president of geographic and local … Read more