Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a handful of other CEOs had an “honest talk” with President Obama Friday afternoon at a hastily arranged meeting to discuss Silicon Valley’s continued unhappiness with U.S. government surveillance practices. White House officials characterized the meeting as a “continued dialogue” on the surveillance issue, but it appeared to be a Continue Reading →
Barack Obama
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Question-and-answer service Quora has begun rolling out verified profiles for public figures, with President Barack Obama signing up as the first user to receive a blue checkmark. Obama has taken to Quora to answer questions about the Affordable Care Act ahead of the March 31 enrollment deadline. On-boarding the president of the US has become Continue Reading →
The White House is testing smartphones from Samsung and LG Electronics for internal use, a person familiar with the matter said, threatening one of the last and most high-profile strongholds of BlackBerry. The devices are being tested by the White House’s internal technology team and the White House Communications Agency, a military unit in charge Continue Reading →
Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the first name that comes to mind as a champion of privacy. But the seemingly endless revelations of NSA surveillance programs has inspired Facebook’s founder to call up no less than President Obama himself to defend his users from government intrusion. On Thursday Zuckerberg posted a statement on Facebook calling on the Continue Reading →
President Obama’s somewhat testy but endlessly hilarious Between Two Ferns clip with Zach Galifianakis is storming the Internet on Tuesday, racking up more than 3 million views in just a few hours. Even more, it appears that the president’s gambit — looking a little silly — was worth it to reach a core demographic of Continue Reading →
Connecticut has been so successful in getting people to sign up for health insurance through its online marketplace that it is setting up a consulting business to help other states build and operate websites where people can compare and buy private insurance policies. And the Obama administration has encouraged the effort, in the hope that Continue Reading →
Adobe has joined President Obama’s ConnectED initiative to help bolster technology education in US schools. The company plans to contribute $300 million in software to teachers and students, including Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, Presenter, Captivate, and even EchoSign, which Adobe hopes will help improve schools’ administrative processes. “We believe in the power of media creation Continue Reading →
Last Tuesday President Obama met with top engineers and Pentagon people. He publicly said: “Basically, I’m here to announce that we’re building Iron Man […] Not really. Maybe. It’s classified.” People laughed, but the truth is that yes, the US military is building Iron Man, and the first prototypes are coming in this June. First, Continue Reading →
Administration lawyers have presented the White House with four options for restructuring the National Security Agency’s phone-surveillance program, from ditching the controversial collection altogether to running it through the telephone companies, according to officials familiar with the discussions. President Barack Obama in January asked U.S. intelligence agencies and the attorney general to report by March Continue Reading →
While you’re sitting on the couch watching TV this weekend and feeling like you should be doing something more with your life, take comfort in the fact that the leader of the free world might be doing the exact same thing! President Obama is scheduled to be at Sunnylands, the Annenberg estate in Rancho Mirage, Continue Reading →