obama

Apple CEO to sit with first lady at State of the Union address

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, a man who typifies American innovation, will have the best seat in the house at President Barack Obama's Statue of the Union address tomorrow evening.

The executive will be joining Michelle Obama in the first lady's box, CNET has confirmed with a White House official.

The first lady also extended special invitations to victims of gun violence, immigration reform advocates, and middle class families whose lives will benefit from the policy proposals the president plans to discuss tomorrow night at the White House.

Last year, Laurene Powell Jobs, the wife of late Apple … Read more

U.S. target of sustained cyber-espionage campaign

China is the top cyberthreat to the U.S. and has been intensifying attacks on U.S. businesses to identify data that will help the country gain economically, according to a recently obtained national security document.

Over the past five years, the Chinese have focused their efforts on businesses operating in finance, technology, and aerospace, among others, according to the Washington Post, which published information from the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a document that includes data and analysis from all U.S. intelligence agencies. The Post obtained information related to the report from unidentified individuals.

The cyberwar between the U.… Read more

Obama backs immigration reform for skilled tech workers

Tech companies may score a victory in their hopes to get immigration reform passed for skilled tech workers.

President Obama urged Congress today to work on immigration policy that would allow foreign-born startup founders to stay in the country. At the same time, several U.S. senators introduced a bill focusing on the same. As U.S. immigration policy currently stands, U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers could be deported once finishing school.

"Right now in one of those classrooms there's a student wrestling with how to turn their big idea -- their Intel or Instagram -- … Read more

Crave Ep. 106: DIY laser cannons

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This week on Crave, we take a look at the deadly do-it-yourself Iron Man Laser Gauntlet and monkey around with Apps for Apes. After playing with monkeys all day, maybe we should consider washing our hands with ManHands manly scented soaps. Our favorite one: Urinal Mint.

… Read more

Bieber squeaks past Gaga with most Twitter followers

Justin Bieber has wowed his way to the top of the Twitter ranks.

The teen singer now has the highest number of followers in the Twittersphere, according to data from Web site Twitter Counter. Wooing 33.38 million fans to follow his every tweet, Bieber has shot past fellow singer Lady Gaga with 33.36 million followers.

Gaga's reign as the queen of Twitter lasted two and a half years, a spokesman for Twitter Counter told Reuters yesterday.

Bieber is also high on the list for the sheer number of tweets posted at 20,545 so far, an average … Read more

Gigapixel shot shows a whole lotta inauguration

When it comes to yesterday's inauguration, forget about high-def videos, transcripts, images from space, and all that jazz. The best glimpse of the ceremony resides in a gargantuan panorama that lets you zoom around the action that took place on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

The image, captured while Obama gave his inaugural speech, required 13 minutes of straight shooting using a dSLR and the Gigapan Epic Pro panorama-capturing device. To create the stunning mosaic, the Gigapan shot 305 high-resolution photographs of different areas in the scene, which were then stitched together to make the zoomable picture. … Read more

Ralph Nader: Video game firms are 'electronic child molesters'

Not one to keep his opinion to himself, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader has come down hard on video games. In fact, he has gone as far as to call the companies that make them "electronic child molesters."

In an interview with Politico yesterday, Nader blasted President Obama's gun control package that was unveiled last week. The two-time Green Party presidential candidate said that the president's plan needs to go further in regulating video game creators that add violence to their games.

"Television program violence? Unbelievable. Video game violence? Unprecedented," Nader told Politico. "… Read more

Clouds ruin GeoEye's satellite image of inauguration

Aw, shucks: imaging company GeoEye could not capture a super high-resolution image of Obama's inauguration today from space.

Using its GeoEye-1 and IKONOS satellites positioned 423 miles above the Earth, the company tried and failed -- due to clouds -- on two separate attempts to capture the image of the inauguration, a GeoEye representative told CNET. GeoEye planned to release an interactive map of the ceremony with a built-in zoom and a slider that would have let the user compare this year's image to the one captured four years ago. Feel free to zoom around in the 2009 Inauguration image embedded below.… Read more

Where to watch Obama's inauguration online

President Obama was sworn in for his second term today in a quiet ceremony at the White House. But it was a simple prelude to the festivities that will take place tomorrow when Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are sworn in outside of the U.S. Capital before hundreds of thousands of spectators -- and countless more who will be tuning in online to watch the event.

The last presidential inauguration ceremony in 2009 was considered by many to be the most interactive ever. But thanks to multimedia content -- including the return of high-resolution satellite imagery from GeoEye … Read more