How important were technology issues in last week’s Congressional election? Not very – at least according to Bruce Mehlman, the former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy in the George W. Bush administration and a prominent Washington DC based Republican expert on technology policy.
As Mehlman, who is currently Executive Director of the Technology CEO Council and… → Read More
There’s just no hope anymore. The GOP, one of the two great political parties in the United States, recently requested people submit ideas to be incorporated into the party’s platform this fall. A Web site was created. And then, predictably, people starting trolling the site. “A ‘teacher’ told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need… → Read More
The iPad is a huge hit in the United States Congress. I mean, passing any sort of meaningful banking reform is apparently out of the question with these guys , but there’s always time for the iPad. Just amazing, really. → Read More
Probably the name needs to change, but Sweden’s Pirate Party has its heart in the right place. It doesn’t aim to give everyone the right to download the latest Modest Mouse album from privatetorrents.com all willy nilly (as the Huffington Post implies), but rather to reform copyright laws so that they accurately reflect the 21st century. And as you may already know, the party had its first… → Read More
A bunch of granola chewing hippies freedom loving technologists sent a letter to President Obama, encouraging him to consider open source software. Signed by representatives from Novell, Red Hat, Unisys, and a bunch of other open source solutions companies, the letter is well-written piece of advocacy. Of course, not everyone supports the initiative. → Read More
Don’t you just hate young people? With their good looks, sharp tongues and lack of respect for the law. They listen to stupid music. Oh, and they also used the Internet to help get Barack Obama elected. But, once the “fun” of “being a part of something,” will America’s youth go back to using the Internet for selfish pursuits—sending Facebook flair to one another, gambling on… → Read More
Did John and Cindy McCain use their telecom industry connections to have a cellphone tower built right by one of their many houses in order to improve signal strength? That’s what the Washington Post implies. It seems the McCain’s Sedona, Ariz. ranch didn’t have the best cellphone reception in early 2007, so Cindy—what was that word John called her? Begins with a… → Read More
So you’re racing down the road in Burnout Paradise and you’re all, “Was that an Obama ad?” Yes, yes it was. EA has confirmed that the Obama campaign is running ads in several of its video games including Madden NFL 09, Need For Speed: Carbon and, as you see here, Burnout Paradise. The ads appear only after having connected to Xbox Live—it’s not like these ads are… → Read More
Call: Barack Obama has so much money… Response: How much money? Call: He has so much money that he can buy a channel on Dish Network, where he’ll pump his campaign messages 24/7. If you’re keen to check out Obama’s channel, tune in to channel 73. It runs through November. And no, it’s not Dish Network endorsing Obama or anything. It’s merely a paid… → Read More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26610613#26610613 Remember that Election 08 iPhone app I wrote up a couple days ago? Looks like Microsoft Research has been thinking along the same lines and in honor of the voting season has unleashed some election-orientated applications for the Surface. And because of the “M” in “MSNBC,” they got a pretty extensive little segment… → Read More
Now that convention season is over and the candidates have about eight weeks before they find out who will lead the United States for the next four years, it’s time we compare each candidate’s attention online as we head into the final stretch.
According to Google Trends data, Republican candidate John McCain is quickly gaining ground on Barack Obama and witnessed a spike in searches the day he… → Read More
After so long in gestation, the 2008 election season has actually kind of snuck up on me. And what with the App store being released, I thought there would be a ton of politically-orientated apps out there. Incredibly, there are virtually none, and certainly none this cool. You can track polls, electoral vote estimates and so on based on live data, and organize it by state, candidate, percentage… → Read More
Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s running mate, is not your friend when it comes to technology. Well, he could well be your friend, if you’re the RIAA or MPAA. The vice presidential nominee has sponsored bills over the year that were championed by both the music and movie industry. He was one of the main forces behind the Perform Act, which is what the RIAA used to sue XM Satellite Radio for… → Read More
Cuba is set to get broadband internet access in the year 2010 and you can sure as hell bet that CrunchGear will more than happy to provide Cubans everywhere with half-cocked news and reviews that may or may not pertain to the world of technology. Apparently, some documents have been leaked (site is currently down, unfortunately) detailing an undersea cable to be stretched between Cuba and… → Read More
Flickr’d “But if the FCC will no longer approve mergers without Congressional blessing, why does it even need to exist?” So asks the Wall Street Journal, and so ask the good boys and girls—shareholders—who are tired of this charade. The Wall Street Journal wondered aloud yesterday just why it has taken 450 days since the merger was first proposed for it to given the… → Read More
So a Michigan congressman is accusing Google of “gaming” last month’s spectrum auction. The congressman, Michigan’s Fred Upton, who is a Republican, says Google bid just enough to trigger those pesky open access rules. He also called the way the auction was set up a big exercise in social engineering. Isn’t “social engineering” just a fancy way to say… → Read More
Dmitri Ivanovich Golubov aka Script has started the Internet Party of Ukraine and is running for office in Kiev. Script, 24, was arrested in 2005 for creating carderplanet.com, a forum dedicated to sharing credit and debit card numbers. “I belong to a rare category of people who go into politics is not for the profit, but for the sake of ideas,” Golubov wrote in a (rough… → Read More
[photopress:CaucusAudience.jpg,full,center] So we were in a room in the basement of a church. There were more people stuffed in there than should have been. There was no place to sit, lean, or kneel. We stood rigid as we got our instructions on how to caucus, and it turns into a popularity contest. The worst part is Newsweek is calling today “Significant Saturday”, to counter… → Read More
Here at CrunchGear, we try to stay clear of political debates; after all, our mandate is hardware, gadgets, and technological goings-on. So usually, on all the sticky social and foreign policy issues, we stay mum. But when the outcome of the race could affect the entire tech sector, I feel a responsibility to throw our weight behind some candidate or another. In this case, the choice is clear. The… → Read More
[photopress:vgpac.jpg,full,right] The video game industry is getting even more involved in politics. Good luck, bro. The Entertainment Software Association has approved the creation of a political action committee, or PAC. The PAC, which will be functional by the end of March, will actively lobby candidates, including writing big, fat checks, for favorable legislation. The ESA expects to donate… → Read More
Like World of Warcraft? Like Ron Paul? Happy day, then! On New Years Day, supporters of everyone’s favorite libertarian will march from Iron Forge to Stormwind on the Whisperwind server. Supporters have even formed a guild called RP Revolution, complete with their own Web site. I can see why people would be averse to politics “invading” their favorite games, but, right now… → 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
OK, Slashdot, we get: you don’t like the RIAA. I don’t like pickles, but do you see me writing every other day that Dill is the root of all evil? No. Alas, in today’s edition of “The RIAA Causes Appendicitis,” we learn that the music cartel argued in court that copying MP3s from your own legally purchased CDs is a form of copyright infringement. The court filing… → Read More
There’s nothing particularly cavalier about hating the telecoms—we essentially get paid for it here—but there’s something almost noble in hating them for kowtowing to the Bush Administration, handing over private data for the good of the War on Terror. We may not have to hate much longer, since the Electronic Frontier Federation yesterday won a court ruling mandating that… → Read More
Now banned in Syria, Facebook is getting into U.S. politics. Woooohoooo!. Facebook signed a deal with ABC News, apparently giving the site an air of credibility beyond the “look how drunk we got last night” crowd. Users will be able to follow off-air ABC reporters as they cover all the excitement of the campaign, from candidates dodging answers in Des Moines to professional handlers… → 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
We get it: everyone loves Stephen Colbert. Now the New York Times gets it, too. It interviewed the 16-year-old who started the Facebook group “1,000,000 For Stephen T Colbert,” and boy oh boy did the kid have tons of insight. What amazed me the most was how [Barack] Obama’s 1 Million Strong Group took more than 8 months to get about 380,000 members, but Colbert’s 1 Million Strong… → Read More
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