Elections

A new Congress, a new approach to technology?

Presidential elections may capture the public's attention, as Barack Obama's victory did last week, but the less glamorous work in the U.S. Congress tends to prove more important for technology topics.

In general, much of today's current congressional leadership will continue unchanged into the next, albeit with some complications such as Obama's departure and some narrow Senate races including Minnesota's. Whatever the outcome, Democrats are likely to be newly emboldened and may be eager to approve legislation that stalled in the 110th Congress, including spyware regulations and a shield law that would protect some … Read more

Agendas vanish from Obama's transition Web site

Last week, President-elect Barack Obama launched a Web site with detailed information about his plans for technology, Iraq, and health care policies.

Now they're gone.

The "agenda" Web pages on Change.gov seem to have mysteriously disappeared on Sunday. By Monday morning, they were replaced with a vague statement saying that Obama and running mate Joe Biden have a "comprehensive and detailed agenda" that will "bring about the kind of change America needs," with the individual pages deleted entirely.

A version of the now-deleted homeland security agenda recovered from the cache feature of … Read more

Schmidt not interested in tech czar job

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken himself out of the running to be the United States' first chief technology officer.

"I love working at Google, and I'm very happy to stay at Google, so the answer is no," Schmidt said Friday when queried on the subject by CNBC host Jim Cramer during an appearance on his television show. (In a New York Times interview published Saturday, he also said, "I am extremely happy serving the shareholders of Google as the CEO, so I have no interest in serving as a government employee.") Schmidt then quickly … Read more

Google, Xerox CEOs on Obama economic team

Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy will bring some tech experience to an advisory board for President-elect Barack Obama, according to press reports about an announcement from the organization.

The 17-member Transition Economic Advisory Board (TEAB) also will get a dose of technology experience from Richard Parsons, chairman of the board at AOL parent company Time Warner. Schmidt, who already had been an adviser to the Obama campaign, endorsed Obama in October.

The board is set to meet Friday before Obama's first press conference as president-elect. A report in The Guardian, among others, carried the full … Read more

Ballmer backs Obama, seeks 'sense of optimism'

During a whirlwind visit to Sydney, Australia, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer this week said he has confidence in President-elect Barack Obama's leadership.

Obama's decisive victory this week over Republican rival John McCain in the U.S. presidential elections has been broadly hailed by technology leaders as potentially beneficial to the country's technology and communications industries.

"I have a lot of faith in our system and our electoral process, and I think President-elect Obama understands that there's a deep set of economic issues, and I have confidence in his leadership," Ballmer said on the … Read more

Democratic win could herald wireless Net neutrality

SAN JOSE, Calif.--If you thought that federal regulators were upset at Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent, wait until they start scrutinizing what wireless providers are doing.

Comcast's offense was merely to slow or abort some BitTorrent transfers. AT&T Wireless goes much further and flatly bans all "peer-to-peer file sharing" and "downloading movies." Verizon Wireless' terms of service also single out P2P applications.

If those restrictions applied to wired Internet connections, there would have been Federal Communications Commission proceedings, congressional hearings, and plenty of outrage, real or feigned. Wireless providers' network management policies, … Read more

Government transition sites launched

Two new Web sites launched Wednesday that map out President-elect Barack Obama's transition to the White House.

Change.gov, Obama's official transition site, features a blog, a section with Obama's agenda, and a section that profiles the Obama administration. It also includes a jobs page for those interested in working in the Obama administration, a page titled "America Serves" that emphasizes the need for community service, and a section called "American Moment," where visitors are encouraged to share their stories or their vision for the country.

The front page on Wednesday linked to … Read more

Obama's search for a CTO

By naming some technology executives to his transition team--especially former IAC executive Julius Genachowski--President-elect Barack Obama is signaling that he's likely to follow through with his proposal to appoint a chief technology officer to the White House.

The person in this new position--and possibly a new White House technology office staff--could be given the directive to create new levels of transparency and access to government agencies, or to guide policies that spur innovation and growth. Technology experts within the Beltway warn, however, that a CTO would have to avoid potential pitfalls such as creating new spending for ineffectual projects, … Read more

Obama names tech execs to transition team

President-elect Barack Obama has named tech executives from Google.org and InterActiveCorp to his transition team, according to reports.

Google.org's Sonal Shah, and Julius Genachowski, a former IAC executive who also served as chief counsel to former Democratic FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, have both been named to the team, according to news reports.

Genachowski is a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, and is a founding partner of LaunchBox Digital, an early-stage investment firm based in Washington, D.C.

He attended law school with Obama, and helped stress the importance of high-tech issues in the campaign, … Read more