Starting a new job is always a challenge. You have to learn where your office is, where the coffee machine is, and the best route from each to the bathroom. Now imagine how complicated it must be when an entirely new administration starts working in the White House! In addition to the normal challenges, President Obama and his staff suffered through a number of surprising headaches. → Read More
Apropos of the ongoing ruckus about President-elect Obama’s BlackBerry — the so-called “BarackBerry” — an interesting question is coming to the fore: why is the President, or even a prominent Senator for that matter, using a civilian mobile phone? With matters of national security, policy, and locations of our most powerful citizens being beamed through the air, it behooves us as a… → Read More
So Apple is facing opposition to putting up one of its gigantic glass-everywhere stores in one of Washington D.C.’s historic neighborhoods, the complaint being that it’d be too big and too modern to fit in with all the other quaint, cute buildings in the area (see our artist’s rendition above).
I propose, however, that the complaint is a cover-up for a much more massive and sinister… → Read More
There’s a lot of money going out the door for the auto makers (well, maybe) and more so for the finance business, so I think it’s wise for some of the less bubble-orientated sectors to point out now just how little they need to establish or reinvigorate themselves. Public radio could use a boost, space programs are comparatively cheap, and now a consortium of battery makers is asking… → Read More
Round of applause for Best Buy, which aims to educate you all about the upcoming digital TV transition. (Remember the big day: February 17, 2009.) The lastelectronics retailer left standing will hold a series of workshops at 25 of its stores to “educate consumers about the transition to digital television broadcasting and help them choose the best solution for their television needs.” Here… → Read More
Really, who puts secure login codes for a government agency website on an unencrypted USB key? This is approaching a CSI level of computardation. Although it didn’t result in the breach of, say, the UK’s secret UFO files (that would have been a coup), it has potentially exposed the tax, ticket, and financial records of some twelve million UK residents — not to mention the source… → Read More
Lawrence Lessig, a noted legal activist and futurist if you’re not familiar with him, theorizes an “i-9/11″ (inside job or otherwise) after which the Government would expand its control and supervision over the internet substantially. I think he’s hit the nail on the head and actually I’m surprised it didn’t happen years ago. It’s a bit conspiracy… → Read More
The Senate has passed the Higher Education Act (the House passed it earlier this year), which, among other things, provides for federal monies for student loans. What’s most interesting to us here is a provision in the bill, which it’s expected that President Bush will sign into law, that tells college campuses to rein in wanton P2P downloading. To that end, the MPAA will provide… → Read More
A more perfect union~! How much do you trust the Department of Homeland Security? Like, a lot, or a lot lot? Doesn’t matter, really—it now has the right to riffle through your laptop, iPod and other electronic (and non-electronic) devices and documents when you cross a border coming into the U.S. To Liberty! Yes, the DHS now has the right to riffle through your junk at the border, all… → Read More
Oh me, oh my! The most vulnerable segment of our population, the old and useless, don’t seem to know much about the upcoming transition to digital TV. Some simply don’t know what’s going on—chalk that up to the horrendous ad campaign the government has run so far—while others, like 69-year-old ray of sunshine Bertha Graham, refuse to acknowledge the transition on… → Read More
Y’all have probably heard of FISA, the part of the U.S. Code that deals with electronic surveillance and the like. We care here because good ol’ AT&T more or less bent over backwards for the federal government, letting the NSA eavesdrop on certain telephone calls. (Wikipedia has a tremendous amount of information on the subject.) Well guess what—the House of Representatives… → Read More
Since about 2002, the Department of Justice has had a special “Technical Committee” overseeing the development of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The committee’s main job was to monitor the implementation of the Microsoft-owned middleware products that get (or used to get) installed by default on new computers like Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Messenger, and Windows Media… → Read More
Apparently the US government is above paying early termination fees. I’m not going to sit here flailing my arms around and pounding my fists on my desk, because I’m sure that every single government agent with a state-issued cell phone is walking around with a Nokia 6110 with duct tape over the battery cover. Ha! Because the government is slow to adopt change, get it? Anyway, the story is that… → Read More
Well today’s the big day. Here’s are some quick facts and figures about the auction, should you find yourself in the position of having to regale the guests at your next dinner party with tales of the FCC’s invisible goldmine. → Read More
While I’m sure this won’t effect most CG readers, hop online and get your $40 certificate for a digital to analog converter for Grandma’s old CRT TV or Dad’s TV in the garage. The Essentially, all analog television broadcasts will cease on February 17. 2009 and this box with convert digital signals to analog and many even add closed-captioning and other cool features that… → Read More
The FBI of the USA is busy building the world’s largest photo database of people’s faces, fingerprints, and palm prints. It’ll be used for crime fighting and terrorist wrangling but it can also be used as part of a plan "under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees’ fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are… → Read More
Police in New Carrollton, Maryland are among the first in the state to use the magic of modern technology to issue tickets to motorists. Information about the driver in question is pulled from the Maryland motor vehicle database and then printed out in the squad car. Sounds very simple, no? Before this system, "officers would write out 5 copies of each citation by hand" and about 10-15… → Read More
Well look at that. Chevron throws its hat into the ring for the January 24th 700MHz spectrum auction. Analysts believe this to be because "oil companies and utilities are big wireless users" but you and I both know that Chevron would use the spectrum to unveil its super secret over-the-air alternative energy source that’s been hidden from the public since the Roswell incident to… → Read More
I’d be lying if I said that a politician’s technology policies didn’t weigh heavily into my decision whether or not to vote for him (or HER, God bless America!). Thankfully, Popular Mechanics has broken all the respective candidates science and technology policies down into bite-size digestables. The categories include Auto, Digital/Tech, Energy/Climate, Environment, Gun… → Read More
Two bills passed in the House yesterday concerning ISPs’ responsibilities for reporting child pornography. The first bill dictates that "ISPs would have to inform the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of the Internet identity and geographic location of suspected sex offenders and the time child pornography was downloaded." → Read More
Reuters is reporting that the Singaporean government lifted its recent ban on the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect that we told you about this week (twice). The game will now carry an "M18" label so that only people of legal age can bear witness to a scene containing an alien female and a human female expressing their strong feelings for one another by doing grown-up things like "kissing… → Read More
Okay, we learned something here today. Singapore’s government isn’t down with stuff like a scene in Mass Effect "showing a human woman and an alien woman kissing and caressing each other." Good to know. Good…to…know. Apparently gamers both locally and internationally are upset by the banning and claim that the government ruling is too strict. Just last month… → Read More
First, a disclaimer that I neither support nor oppose any particular candidate blah, blah, blah, here’s something interesting. Barack Obama’s technology plan includes the creation of a Chief Technology Officer position that "would ensure government officials holds open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to… → Read More
Okay, remember a little over a week ago when the CEO of Mandriva François Bancilhon sent an open j’accuse! letter to Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer saying that Microsoft convinced the Nigerian government to use Windows on its computers instead of Mandriva Linux even though Mandriva and Nigeria already had a deal? Well apparently "the government agency funding 11,000 of… → Read More
Sure, you could build your own similar device for far less than $4.4 million (Australian) but would it look nearly as awesome as the vest that the bad mamma jamma on the left is wearing? My position is “no, it would not.” The aforementioned money was given to Australia’s national science agency as a grant in the hopes that it could develop an “electrojacket” that… → Read More
For some, February 17, 2009 is going to be a frustrating day, as it marks the end of the line for American analog television broadcasts. Those with old-school wood-paneled TVs are going to either need to go out and buy a new set or purchase a converter box to be able to view the new digital channels. If I wasn’t already gadget-obsessed, I’d be mad as hell if someone forced me to… → Read More
I’m not sure if this is a case of “IT department losing stuff” or “someone ganking government laptops” but it looks like the Department of Commerce has lost 1,100 laptops since 2001, with 250 from the Census Bureau alone. These laptops contained sensitive information including names and Social Security numbers. While we all know what happened – Joe Blow took his… → Read More
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