What Obama’s second term means for technology

Obama has four more years in the White House, but what will his policies mean for the future of the tech we use every day?

A couple of years ago, President Obama was having dinner with Silicon Valley movers and shakers, including an ailing Steve Jobs. Although no recording of the dinner has been made available, legend has it that the President asked Jobs what it would take for Apple’s manufacturing jobs to come back to America.

“Those jobs aren’t coming back,” replied Jobs.

Whether that is true or not, during the campaign both President Obama and Governor Romney focused a lot of their energies on plans to bring that kind of manufacturing back to American shores. Now that the president has won a second term, what does that mean for American technology and manufacturing?

Mr. Obama’s plan was built on education and training, investing in clean energy, and giving tax incentives to companies that bring jobs back to America.

Jobs’ grim reply was based on the fact that American workers are no longer trained for the needs of high-tech manufacturing. Obama believes that making college more accessible, both at the university and community college level, is part of the solution for closing that skills gap.

A major focus during Obama’s first term was keeping tuition rates down, doubling funding for Pell Grants, and trying to get community colleges to work together with local employers to better train outgoing students for jobs that already exist locally. There’s every reason to believe that push will continue.

Another creative idea from the campaign trail was the creation of “manufacturing innovation institutes,” where businesses and research institutions work together to make sure that American research and development produces corresponding high-tech manufacturing jobs. How the federal government can spur that idea remains to be seen, but it could be a key step in reshaping the American manufacturing sector and making sure the next Apple keeps its assembly lines here at home.

During the campaign, Obama predictably hit Governor Romney on the Republican Party’s close ties with the oil industry. In his first term, the president advocated an “all of the above” energy policy. He’s willing to explore any source, including oil, which can help America reach a majority of energy independence by 2035. It is now expected that investment in alternative energy technologies will only continue in the next four years.

During his first term, President Obama pushed ahead with plans to double fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks by 2025, which is spurring the auto industry’s investments in hybrid and electric vehicles and has led to an American manufacturing boom of sorts in battery technology. Since these rules are now under no threat of repeal, cars and light trucks are expected to sip less and less gas in the next four years. Horsepower may be a different story.

One of the places where we heard repeats of 2008’s campaign pledges was in the area of corporate tax structure. The president promised to end tax breaks for companies that participate in outsourcing during his first term and promised to do the same in his second term (which you can assume to mean that the first effort didn’t go so well).

He also wants to provide tax incentives for companies to bring jobs back to the US. Considering Apple currently enjoys a 1.9 percent tax rate on its foreign earnings, I’m not sure how much of an incentive the US government can provide. Perhaps they will mandate that all federal employees will have to buy an iPad Mini. At least all of our forest rangers will have something to do while they’re stuck in those fire towers.

Any conversation about tax policy centers on Congress. In the coming days, it will be interesting to see if our Republican House makes any overtures of bipartisanship to the president now that they know they are stuck with him for another four years. If history is any indication, don’t hold your breath. There’s probably better chance of an impeachment investigation than bipartisan tax reform.

Whatever the case, many pundits believe that the president will be bolder in his second term, enacting whatever policies he can without congressional approval if Congress proves to be as intransigent as they have been in the past. A lot of the policies mentioned above came to pass through that same kind of executive maneuvering. Because of that, the next four years of America’s technology and education policy might be just as much decided in courtrooms as in the Oval Office.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Barack Obama Announces ‘Four More Years’ With Tweet

Image credit: @BarackObama/Twitter

It wasn’t in a speech or a statement that Barack Obama announced that he was going to be re-elected as the president of the United States. It was through Twitter.

At 11:14 p.m. ET, @BarackObama tweeted, “This happened because of you. Thank you.”

A few minutes later: “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you. – bo.”

And finally along with a photo of him and Michelle Obama: “Four more years.” That last tweet is now his most retweeted tweet and one of the most retweeted tweets ever. Twitter would not confirm if it was the most retweeted tweet ever. Just 40 minutes after posting it, it had 308,705 retweets.

According to Twitter, after a network call of the presidential race at 11:19 p.m., there were 327,453 tweets per minute. On Election Day itself there were over 20 million election related tweets. For more on the social media reaction to Election Day, check out our guide.

Check out our full article on Barack Obama’s win. 

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Obama tweets his most retweeted tweet ever as news networks call election for Democrats

Barack Obama and his campaign team took to Twitter Tuesday night to thank supporters for turning out to vote, with Obama tweeting his most retweeted tweet ever in the process.

Barack Obama has taken to Twitter to thank his supporters for turning out to vote and returning him (almost certainly) to office for another four years.

At the time of writing, all the major American news networks are calling the presidential election for Obama, with a number of key swing states projected to fall to the Democrats.

At around 11.15pm ET, Obama’s campaign team tweeted, “This happened because of you. Thank you.”

Another came a minute later: “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you. -bo” The inclusion of “-bo” The inclusion of -bo apparently indicates a personal tweet from Obama himself.

The campaign team then tweeted a photo (below) of Obama hugging wife Michelle, accompanied by the words, “Four more years.” Twitter has just reported that this has already become @BarackObama’s most tweeted retweet ever – at the time of writing this stands at 314,000 – not bad for a tweet posted 40 minutes ago. The account has 22.1 million followers.

However, Mitt Romney’s Twitter account has so far stayed silent, with the last tweet posted around 3pm ET. “With your help, we will turn our country around and get America back on the path to prosperity. Please vote today,” it said.

Earlier in the evening, Twitter announced that Election Day had already become the most tweeted about event in US political history.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Election Night 2012 Social Media: The Memes, Photos, Stats

From the Big Bird memes to the animated GIFs of the candidates to the non-stop Invisible Obama jokes, the 2012 Election as a whole has been one of the most shared and commented-on events in social media history. And on the final day of the election, the social media wheels are churning at a record pace.

Below you will find the highlights of what is being tweeted, liked, pinned, and Instagrammed on this historical night.

The Photos and Memes

Did you hear? Big Bird not only voted, but also waited in line! 

Image credit: @sophers_/Instagram

Nate Silver has been trending in many of the swing states. Who is he? The former baseball statistician turned political prognosticator got 49 out of 50 states right in 2008. This year he has predicted Obama has a 91.8 percent chance of winning tonight. Lots of Democrats have been passing around the image below made by @tbogg using a meme generator this past Saturday. It has been re-blogged 846 times on Tumblr so far.

Image credit: @tbogg/Twitter

Of course, the celebrities you know and love made it out to the polls. Kisses from Mariah…

Credit: @MariahCarey/Twitter

And, uh, something from Joan Rivers…

Credit: @joanrivers / Twitter

According to the AP, Obama was asked by a radio show in New Hampshire if he would do a rendition of the Gangnam Style dance if he wins. Obama said, “I think I can do that move. But I’m not sure that the inauguration ball is the appropriate time to break that out.” Naturally the Internet took to creating an animated GIF…

Credit: Ryan Broderick @ryanhatesthis

It’s an old photo, but it’s been making the rounds again. Worried baby is… worried!

Hal Yeager/The Birmingham News/AP Photo

Twitter Trends

From midnight through 2 p.m. ET today there were 6.4 million tweets about the election. According to Twitter, there was an average of 3,000 tweets per minute with people expressing that they “voted!” Twitter’s Election 2012 portal is located here.

- As of 7:45 p.m. ET, Twitter was reporting that there were more than 11 million #Election2012 tweets already today.

- As of 8:30 p.m. ET, Twitter had hit a new peak: 65,000 tweets per minute bringing up the total count of tweets to 13 million.

- As of 9:26 p.m. ET, Twitter had hit a new peak of 66,019 tweets per minute when the Pennsylvania results were announced.

- #Election2012 has been trending, but #StayInLine has also been trending high.

ABC News has a pretty nifty map showing real-time results from the polls, but Facebook has a vote tally based on who has mentioned they have voted on the site. You can check it out at FacebookStories.com/vote.

Image credit: Facebook

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Growing number of Americans ‘dual screened’ debates last week

When you watched Mitt Romney and Barack Obama debate against each other last week, did you do so on television, on your computer, or both at the same time? A new survey suggests that, if you went for the latter option, you weren't alone.

If you’re planning on tuning into tonight’s US Vice Presidential Debate between current VP Joe Biden and Republican challenger Paul Ryan, then here’s a question: How are you planning on tuning in? After all, although the debate will be carried live by multiple television channels (including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS, as well as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC), it’ll also be streamed live online in multiple locations as well, and aired on the radio. Which venue and format is the preferred one for checking out the political conversation of the evening?

The reason I ask is that the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press have looked into the ways in which people watched last week’s first Presidential Debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, and discovered that more and more people than ever before appear to be using multiple methods for watching at the same time. According to Pew, 56 percent of those polled said that they watched the debate live, with 11 percent of those watchers admitting to being what the research body calls “dual screeners” – viewers who watched the event on television and followed it online at the same time.

The survey contacted 1006 adults in the US between October 4 (the day after the debate) and October 7 to ask about their viewing habits when it came to the debate. It found that, of the 56 percent who said that they watched the debate live (563 people, assuming that the 56 is a rounded figure), 85 percent of them watched the debate exclusively on television. That figure breaks down, as you might expect, to skew heavily in the older age ranges: Of viewers 65 and older, 98 percent of them watched solely on television, with 89 percent of those aged 40 through 64 years old. Only 67 percent of viewers aged between 18 and 39 restricted themselves to television. The younger demographic was more friendly to online viewing, with 10 percent of the 18-39 group watching only online, and 22 percent watching both television and online simultaneously, compared with 10 percent of the 40-64 group, and 2 percent of the 65 and above group (No-one in that latter group said that they watched the debate online only, and only 1 percent of those in the 40-64 group watched solely via Internet).

(For those who are curious, there was no noticeable pattern in the political affiliations of viewers when it came to their method of viewing; democrats, republicans and independents alike essentially watched television, online and both in equal numbers.)

Overall, the survey found that traditional media can feel confident about the way it’s measuring up to the Internet, with more than twice as many respondents also saying that they watched more traditional sources (Television, radio, newspapers) than digital in terms of overall debate coverage, 78 percent against 36 for digital (Maybe they were waiting for the Bad Lip Reading remix). While traditional media may be in trouble in the larger scheme of things, apparently it still feels like the best choice for people when it comes to political news.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Obama’s DNC speech sets new political record on Twitter

President Obama helped set a new Twitter record Thursday night, with his DNC speech provoking the most tweets ever for a "political moment."

Twitter went into overdrive Thursday night as masses of its users fired off a ton of tweets during President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to the official Twitter blog, the speech set a new record for “political moments” on the microblogging site, with 52,756 tweets-per-minute being posted at the end of the president’s address.

Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of government, news, and social innovation, wrote in the post: “The Democratic National Convention has driven an incredible amount of Twitter conversation since the very first day. [At] the close of the official proceedings, we have seen more than 9.5 million tweets sent about the events in Charlotte.”

He added that Thursday alone saw 4 million tweets relating to the convention, a figure equal to the total number sent during the entire duration of last week’s Republican National Convention.

Sharp singled out the moments during Obama’s speech which really got Twitter users going:

- 43,646 tweets for “I’m no longer just the candidate, I’m the President.”

- 39,002 tweets for “I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.”

- 38,597 tweets during a discussion of Medicare

- 37,694 tweets for “We don’t think government can solve all our problems…”

- 34,572 tweets for quips about the Olympics and “Cold War mind warp.”

Sharp assured its users the Twitter blog would be following events closely between now and Election Day in November. “With the conversation about the 2012 election happening on Twitter, the road to Election Day 2012 will be paved in tweets,” he wrote.

It seems that wherever Obama goes, the connected world goes with him. Last week he did a 30-minute ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, setting a new record for visitors to the site in the process. In fact, so many people logged on to view Obama’s AMA that the site buckled under the weight of demand, causing it to crash several times over the course of the session.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Michelle Obama’s Tuesday speech drives 28K tweets per minute

Michelle Obama's keynote speech at last night's Democratic National Convention provoked almost twice as much conversation on Twitter as Mitt Romney's address to the Republican Convention last week. Is there a message in there about who the Internet is more interested in?

The people have spoken – Well, Tweeted  – and it’s official: America prefers Obama to Romney. Michelle Obama, that is.

According to a post on Twitter’s official blog, last night’s Democratic National Convention keynote speech by the First Lady resulted in an impressive 28,003 Tweets Per Minute, almost double that of the Republican National Convention speech from Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney last week (He peaked at 14,289 Tweets Per Minute).

The most popular line from Obama’s speech was “We’ve got so much more to do,” which Twitter reported had 22,004 TPM – Something not entirely surprising, considering the bipartisan appeal of the line (“We’re not done yet!” for the Democrats in the crowd, while the Republicans could take it to mean “We haven’t managed to do what we promised in the last three years.” Would thatall speeches offered quite so much to everyone listening) – while the second most popular line was the equally-agreeable “Living the American Dream,” with 21,577 TPM. Third place went to “How hard you work matters,” which scored 18,669 TPM.

If Romney feels bad about being overshadowed by Mrs. Obama, perhaps he can take some solace in the fact that her 28K TPM last night also scored significantly higher than President Obama’s last State of The Union address, which only managed to reach 14,131 TPM as its peak – 156 TPM lower than Romney’s keynote from last week, should such things matter.

Overall, Twitter engagement with this week’s DNC seems up on last week’s RNC, Twitter’s Head of Government, News and Social Innovation Adam Sharp reported. “Although it’s just the first night at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte,” he wrote, “people have already posted more than 3 million Tweets, including #DNC2012 and related terms. In comparison, there were 4 million Tweets sent throughout the three days of last week’s Republican National Convention (#RNC2012).”

It wasn’t just Mrs. Obama raising the numbers, either; Mayor Julian Castro, considered by many pundits to be an up-and-comer akin to President Obama’s status back in 2004, reached the Tweets Per Minute total of 11,503 during his much-anticipated speech. That number puts him higher than any individual speaker at the RNC last week with the exception of Mitt Romney, surprisingly (Somewhere, Paul Ryan is very upset… or else, working out for his P90X for the day). Last night’s other speakers Massuchussets Governor Deval Patrick and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley also hit worthy numbers, with 6.909 and 7,502 TPM respectively.

All of which raises the question: Why?

It’s not that the Republicans are necessarily any less of a force on Twitter; Romney’s numbers have been rising impressively over the last few months, and he’s expected to reach parity with the President before too long in terms of TPM about their respective campaigns, so… Are people just more engaged with the DNC as a topic this year? And if so, why? Expect experts from both sides of the political divide trying to work that one out over the next few days, if not weeks.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

‘Invisible Obama’ turns up on Twitter following Clint Eastwood’s bizarre RNC speech

It didn't take long for someone to sign up on Twitter as 'Invisible Obama' following Clint Eastwood's bizarre speech at the RNC on Thursday night. The account has already gathered over 30,000 followers – that's pretty good going considering it only went live a couple of hours ago.

It was all a bit bizarre, a bit confusing, a bit, well, odd. At the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, movie legend Clint Eastwood was brought out to entertain the audience prior to Mitt Romney’s big speech.

The 82-year-old actor proceeded to have a conversation – kind of – with an empty chair that he said seated President Obama. Over the next ten minutes or so, the movie actor asked the Invisible Obama a range of questions, but his rambling manner made the routine something of an awkward watch.

Of course, it didn’t take long for one wit to sign up to Twitter as Invisible Obama. The account – with the bio ‘Stage left of Clint Eastwood’ – has already gathered over 30,000 followers in the space of just a couple of hours.

Invisible Obama has been posting tweets steadily throughout the evening. Here’s a few of them:

– “When Mitt Romney says “Mr. Chairman”, do you think he’s referring to me?”

– “I’m behind Mitt. No seriously. I’m right behind him.”

– “Clint Eastwood’s performance opposite an invisible man was the best since Daryl Hannah’s. I should know. I had a front seat”

As you might expect, the Twitter hashtags #clinteastwood and #invisibleobama are also on fire just now. And tonight’s speech has given birth to a new meme: Eastwooding – take a look here to see pictures of people talking to empty chairs.

Obama’s campaign team has even made a reference to Eastwood’s speech, posting a picture of Obama in a chair on its Twitter account with the comment, “This seat’s taken.”

A spokesman for the Romney presidential campaign team told The Wrap that Eastwood was making it up as he went along, which certainly appeared to be the case. “His ad-libbing was a break from the political speech-making, and the crowd enjoyed it,” the spokesman said.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

DT Daily: Obama on Reddit, Samsung’s Windows 8 line-up, 4Chan strikes again

Tweet

August 30, 2012

• DT Daily Syndication

President Obama braves an AMA interview on Reddit, Samsung announces its fall lineup, researchers implant the world's first bionic eye, Microsoft announces the Xbox 2012 election hub, 4Chan strikes a Taylor Swift contest, and October 5th officially becomes James Bond Day.

Related Links:

• President Obama to Reddit: ‘Internet freedom’ will be part of 2012 Democratic platform
• Samsung introduces the world to its upcoming Windows 8 line-up
• Bionic eye goes live in world first by Australian researchers
• Microsoft to Launch “Election 2012 Hub on Xbox LIVE”
• 4Chan rigs “Taylor Swift Sing on Your Campus” contest which could see her performing at a DEAF school
• Taylor Swift on Campus
• October 5 dubbed ‘Global James Bond Day’

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Obama weathers site crashes and takes Reddit by storm in his AMA

In a spur-of-the-moment AMA, President Obama took to Reddit, weathered some site issues, and answered (10) of our questions.

President Obama announced on Twitter yesterday that he’d be partaking in a surprise question-and-answer session on Reddit.com. The President followed through with his promise, and took to the forum a few minutes earlier than his promised 4:30 EDT start time. Because of the understandably great demand for viewing the President’s forum, many users were met a message that the site was down due to a heavy load. Not to worry, a few refreshes and users were able to gain access to the site and the President’s answers to select questions.

The issues with bandwidth and access are part of a new set of concerns as more politicians and public figures begin to consider popular websites and social media an important way to reach their constituents. Obama is not new to the concept, having held Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Town Hall events in the past. But when you include Reddit in the mix, it appears one of these things is not like the others. Reddit, a trove of cat photos, block letter memes, and other mildly NSFW content, is also a destination for millions of Gen Yers and an opportunity for the President to interact with many of his potential voters.

The questions, in true Reddit form, varied wildly. One example was a recent law graduate who had questions about his future and what Obama was doing to improve his prospects:

The President’s seemingly spur-of-the-moment AMA is an example of how close the Internet allows us to get to our politicians. The event runs parallel to FDR’s fireside chats as a way of reaching into our homes and our lives in a way that hasn’t been done before. Although the event is interactive, the President took his pick of thousands of questions and comments to respond to and ended the event with 10 responses. His freedom to be selective speaks to a weakness of the presidential AMA concept and the forum in general. For example, he chose to respond to a question about the forthcoming White House beer:

That said, the President took the event far more seriously than most of the Reddit users who asked questions or provided color commentary to the his responses.

The event and its setting also appeared to be a nod, not just to the Internet and a faithful generation, but to entrepreneurs and tech startups everywhere.  Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, tweeted during the event: “Fun-fact: POTUS doing @reddit AMA from C-Ville, VA — where 7 yrs ago Steve & I founded the company that would build @reddit.” Another indication of the focus on entrepreneurship was the president’s selection of and response to PartyInYourMouth’s question about small business policy:

Despite a few technical concerns, the unexpected event provided unique access to the president and provided him to speak to a major part of his constituency on their level. Of course, as amazing — and it was amazing — as this event was, hopefully a future AMA with the president includes more than six minutes of interaction and a bevy of softball questions. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Obama Does Reddit AMA: President Answers Questions and Crashes Site

President Obama answering questions on Reddit. Image via Reddit.

If you had any doubt that the presidential candidates were trying to use every possible piece of technology and social media to communicate with voters, this should seal the deal. Today President Obama took to Reddit, a growing social media and forum site which has become a landfill of cat photos and animated GIFs, to participate in one of the site’s AMAs, or Ask Me Anything sessions. AMAs have become popular with other well-known individuals; users ask questions and the individual, well, answers.

The president began the question and answer session at around 4:00 p.m. ET, and within moments had received hundreds of questions. (You can see Obama’s answers here.) At points the site even went down, returning an error message when users tried to update or log on. Many wondered if it was really the president on Twitter and on the service itself. The Obama campaign confirmed it was in fact the president with a photo of him at his computer and a tweet.

The president fielded questions on internet freedom, the space program, the most difficult decision of his first term (the surge in Afghanistan) and the White House beer (“it’s tasty”), among other things.

“Im thrilled, obviously, but what makes this even more exciting is that President Obama is doing this AMA from Charlottesville, VA — the same place where 7 years ago, Steve Huffman and I started the company that’d create Reddit. (We were undergrads at UVA),” Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian told ABC News in a quick email.  

Reddit and Ohanian have also launched an “Internet 2012″ bus. The bus will make its way from Denver to Danville, Kentucky, with organizers talking to Americans, including students and startup founders, about how they use the Internet and about legislation around it.

After an hour, Obama had hundreds of comments and questions on Reddit. The site still appeared to be up… for at least some.  His closing comment: “If you want to know what I think about this whole reddit experience — NOT BAD!”

ABC News’ Mary Bruce contributed reporting.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Obama Now Taking Your Donations Via Text

Image credit: Obama for America

If you had any doubt that the smartphone was playing a bigger role than ever before in this election, this should do the trick. Today the Obama campaign announced that it will now accept campaign donations via text message. It is the first political campaign to do so.

Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular customers will be able to donate via text starting this week; the donations will be billed to their monthly cellular bills. All you have to do is text GIVE to 62262 and you can donate $10 at a time. Yes, 62262 spells out OBAMA.

It is limited to $50 per billing cycle right now. Standard text messaging rates also apply.

Previously the Obama campaign had accepted donations via text, but you had to register your credit card and phone number on the campaign’s website. Now customers will be able to make small donations without signing in. The campaign plans to run ads with the information, making it easy for people to donate.

Mitt Romney’s campaign is expected to offer the same text donations soon, says Reuters. Donors to the Romey campaign will be able to text 466488, which spells out GOMITT.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com