Microsoft wants government to provide more transparency for security requests

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Microsoft is now joining fellow tech giants Google and Facebook in asking the U.S. government for more transparency in regard to government requests for national security information. Microsoft issued this statement a short while ago, noting that it would like to provide more information than what showed up in the company’s 2012 Law Enforcement Request Report published last March…. Read More…

Amazon noticeably (and admirably?) absent from cyber-spying controversy

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The revelations about the U.S. government’s cyber-spying program this week centered on reports that the NSA and the FBI are routinely accessing data from major tech companies to feed intelligence operations, leveraging the fact that much of the world’s online traffic flows through domestic servers. The reports by the Washington Post and the Guardian implicated companies including Microsoft, Apple,… Read More…

Data snooping: Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others stand by denials

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“What the …?” That’s the headline on a blog post by Google CEO Larry Page and legal chief David Drummond today, denying involvement in a government program called PRISM that allegedly gave the U.S. government broad access to tech company servers for purposes of U.S. intelligence gathering. They wrote, in part … “First, we have… Read More…

Cybersecurity: What businesses can expect from U.S.-China talks, amid brewing NSA controversy

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U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet at a secluded estate in Southern California starting today for two days of talks on a host of bilateral and global issues. Among them will be cybersecurity, which has quickly risen in prominence to the top of the Sino-American agenda. What can businesses expect… Read More…

WTF has McGinn done? Pinballers’ site touts Seattle mayor’s accomplishments

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You may recall the website whattheheckhasobamadonesofar.com (there’s also the R-rated version here) that was launched back in 2010 by Barack Obama supporters to remind people of the president’s accomplishments. Now, just as Seattle’s mayoral race kicks into high gear, two Seattleites are doing the same to show their support for Mayor Mike McGinn. Inspired by the… Read More…

Visual language: Stagecraft in Obama’s Google Hangout

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The President may be a master of the teleprompter, but Google+ hangouts ain’t television. You can replay yesterday’s hangout with Barack Obama here, though sometimes the visual language of a video event reads louder when you freeze the frames. So here is a collage of screenshots from the Valentine’s Day Google hangout with President Obama…. Read More…

3 ways to enhance your State of the Union viewing experience

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President Barack Obama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address tonight at 6 p.m PST with Apple CEO Tim Cook on hand. It will be interesting to see if Obama speaks about technology and/or entrepreneurship — if you recall last year’s speech, Obama sounded more like a venture capitalist than the president of the United… Read More…

Update: Obama wins debate on Xbox Live, but Romney sees positive trends

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[Update, 9:30 a.m.: Although the raw data on screen showed overwhelming support for Obama, Microsoft says a more detailed crunching of the numbers reveals positive underlying trends for Romney, more along the lines of the broader public reaction to the debate. See the company's statement below.] Public opinion polls following last night’s U.S. Presidential Debate… Read More…

Barack Obama meets Madden NFL: Political ads find a home in video games

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Don’t be surprised next time you see Barack Obama’s face pop up after your last game of online Battleship — the president is appearing in video games yet again. As part of an overall upswing in political video game ads, NPR reported that Obama’s advertisements will be featured in Madden NFL 13, Pogo.com, mobile Tetris and… Read More…

Xbox aims to reinvent debates (and TV) with live polling

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The first debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama on Wednesday will be a milestone in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, but Microsoft’s Xbox Live team hopes it will also be viewed as a watershed moment for interactive television. Microsoft is rolling out an interactive polling feature that will let people viewing the debate on… Read More…

Obama: American investment in the Internet allowed Facebook, Google and Microsoft to thrive

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President Barack Obama cruised into Seattle Thursday as part of his 2012 campaign, touting everything from jobs to foreign policy to immigration reform to his stance on gay marriage. Obama presented himself as a unifier at a time that the country is deeply divided. To make his point, the president turned to the innovation economy,… Read More…

Geek of the Week: U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel is on a mobile mission at CES

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Posting from Las Vegas: The last time we bumped into Steven VanRoekel at the Consumer Electronics Show, he was working for Microsoft, looking to transform the way people use computers in their homes. Today he’s working for President Obama, as the U.S. chief information officer — attending the show as part of his mission of… Read More…

Why Microsoft supports the overhaul to U.S. patent law

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President Obama today signed into law what’s being called the “America Invents Act” — described as the first major reform to U.S. patent law in six decades. A major focus is reducing the backlog of patent applications at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. “Right now, there are about 700,000 applications that haven’t even been… Read More…

Obama’s latest social media Town Hall: Will Twitter do better than Facebook?

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Twitter will be in the spotlight today, along with President Obama, as the company and the White House present a “Twitter Town Hall,” a live webcast in which Obama will answer questions on the economy and jobs, posed to him by the public via Twitter. It’s a significant nod to the continued rise of social… Read More…