Bush: government research developed iPod

Apple has long boasted of its culture of innovation, and how this led to such products as the original Mac and the iPod. However, it turns out that, at least in the case of the iPod, Apple had a hidden ally: the US government. During a speech at Tuskegee University, President (and iPod user) George W. Bush told his audience, "the government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression. They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod." While we have to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of government agencies such as DARPA in some of the fields mentioned by the President, we also feel obligated to point out the accomplishments of private companies in the US and abroad, including IBM, Hitachi and Toshiba -- not to mention the Fraunhofer Institute, which developed the original MP3 codec, and codeveloped (with Sony, AT&T and others) the AAC format used by Apple in the iPod. Still, we have to bow down before his Steveness; we knew he was well-connected, but until now we had no idea of his level of influence in the area of government research. Hey, Steve, while you're at it, why not get the government to resolve the display problems plaguing the next-gen video iPod? We're sure they'll get their best minds on it and fix it in no time.

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Apr 20th 2006 12:27PM]

Well, if Bush is going to be in the pocket of corporate America, it might as well be Apple's pocket...

[weatherman @ Apr 20th 2006 12:33PM]

George Bush invented the iPod? What will he think of next!?

[Alex @ Apr 20th 2006 12:34PM]

Makes sense.
Gore invented internet.
Bush invented iPod.

but the gov't research helped a lot tof companies with microdrive players if this is the case...

[Jim Rapp @ Apr 20th 2006 12:34PM]

Well, Al Gore *is* on Apple's Board of Directors.

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/bod.html

[ron @ Apr 20th 2006 12:39PM]

You're kidding right?
He actually tried to take credit in the development of the iPod.

[Jonhimslf @ Apr 20th 2006 12:44PM]

And now we sit and wait for the "C'mon engadget, are you going to report on everything apple does" posts to come out. Interesting story nonetheless though.

[MICK @ Apr 20th 2006 12:45PM]

You guys need to learn to take a joke. You don't really think he was taking credit for the ipod, do you? He was just trying to get a laugh from his audience.

[KultiVator @ Apr 20th 2006 12:47PM]

Bush also is the architect of world peace.

Cough.

And in defining Environmental Responsibility.

Choking cough.


KultiVator

[Kurt Ramsauer @ Apr 20th 2006 12:47PM]

Does this strike anyone else as something that is taken out of context? It sounds like a joke to me. Anyone have the audio? I can almost here a little Bush chuckle afterwards...

[LC @ Apr 20th 2006 12:48PM]

"You're kidding right?
He actually tried to take credit in the development of the iPod."

Where did you get that? He said the government, not "HE" funded it, most likely sometime last decade.

[Paul @ Apr 20th 2006 12:52PM]

Since when Gor invented the Internet? It's so funny that Americans always think they invented everything, then if America invented the internet, how come it's one of the developped countries that has the worse internet services? (drops, and speed). It's an international collaboration that invented what we know as the net... No countries, nor preseidents created the internet but international researchers did in order to communicate knoweledge fast... So here is a little knoweledge.

"No one person invented the Internet as we know it today. However, certain major figures contributed major breakthroughs:
Leonard Kleinrock was the first to publish a paper about the idea of packet switching, which is essential to the Internet. He did so in 1961. Packet switching is the idea that packets of data can be "routed" from one place to another based on address information carried in the data, much like the address on a letter. Packet switching replaces the older concept of "circuit switching," in which an actual electrical circuit is established all the way from the source to the destination. Circuit switching is the idea behind traditional telephone exchanges.

J.C.R. Licklider was the first to describe an Internet-like worldwide network of computers, in 1962. He called it the "Galactic Network."

Larry G. Roberts created the first functioning long-distance computer networks in 1965 and designed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the seed from which the modern Internet grew, in 1966.

Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which moves data on the modern Internet, in 1972 and 1973.

By 1983, TCP was the standard and ARPANET began to resemble the modern Internet in many respects. The ARPANET itself was taken out of commission in 1990. Most restrictions on commercial Internet traffic ended in 1991, with the last limitations removed in 1995."

[Jack @ Apr 20th 2006 12:54PM]

Yes, he did fund it
and Al Gore did invent the internet...
Bob Dole was right when he said that internet was a great way of getting people on the net...
Bloody Geniuses there in Washington D.C.

We know he didn't and he's pretty much a fool for acting like it was him, but really, it's not such a
big deal because everyone knows he's wrong.

(and please seriously note the level of sarcasm [high] in that first part...)

[John @ Apr 20th 2006 12:55PM]

Bush also told us about weapons of mass destruction.

Do you believe ANYTHING he says?

[ClintEastman @ Apr 20th 2006 12:59PM]

Nobody going to say PortalPlayer?

[VQH @ Apr 20th 2006 1:01PM]

#11 Paul: Gore inventing the internet was something that was taken out of context, then became a joke around these parts. No need to type out the history of the internet.

Go research it on wikipedia or something.

[vypergts @ Apr 20th 2006 1:04PM]

In the words of dubya himself: "Do what?"

[Bill @ Apr 20th 2006 1:04PM]

#11: Good job calling Americans ignorant when you yourself don't even know how the saying "Gore invented the internet" originated from.

[Ron Smith @ Apr 20th 2006 1:05PM]

#11, DARPA invented the internet.

[Tsunamii @ Apr 20th 2006 1:07PM]

" Since when Gor invented the Internet? It's so funny that Americans always think they invented everything"
Hey Paul, DARPA did invent the net my friend. If you have never heard of the Al Gore story then this whole post is way over your head.
Envy of the US is common so I understand that you can get angry at how great we are.

[Brian @ Apr 20th 2006 1:09PM]

does anyone else feel their brain melting every time bush makes a joke?

[Sean @ Nov 2nd 2007 2:57PM]

No, but I do feel that sensation everytime the usual band of ignoramuses suddenly become armchair political pundits.....I thought we techies were supposed to be intelligent.

[Nick the Greek DJ @ Apr 20th 2006 1:09PM]

To post #11

If it wasn't for us Americans, all of Europe would be sprechen Sie Deutsches

[Asian Voice @ Apr 20th 2006 1:14PM]

Yes and I would like to add that all of Asia would be under Japanese rule.
Thankfully America stopped that by being the first to develope the atom bomb, before the evil Nazi's did.

[Nick the Greek DJ @ Apr 20th 2006 1:16PM]

mind you though I don't care or support for Bush.

[Jamadatme @ Sep 24th 2007 3:48PM]

Bush is useless.

[Paul Kierstead @ Apr 20th 2006 1:17PM]

Wow, first I have ever defended Bush I think.

The commentary is way out of line. The government did (and continues to do so) fund basic research that is used in many many consumer products, certainly including the iPod. Bush did not take credit for inventing it, nor did he give the goverment credit for inventing it, but simply pointed out that some of the core technology was funded by the government. ANd that was long, long before MP3. He also did not say he did it at the behest of Mr. Jobs; hell, a lot of the core research done on compression was done when Jobs was a kid.

This is a sad piece of work.

[pj @ Apr 20th 2006 1:20PM]

his comment was meant as a joke! please, before blindly falling into bush-bashing, learn to read

[Jordan @ Apr 20th 2006 1:24PM]

This might be the most useless comment I've ever posted, but...

O...M...G...

[LTM @ Apr 20th 2006 1:24PM]

Oh give it a rest about if it wasn't for America.....America wouldn't have survived the Nazi war machine either if wasn't for everyone contributing to the cause to stop them.

# 11 is right. America is lagging behind the developed world as the internet leader and probably will continue to do so if it doesn't get its finger out its ass.

If George Bush wants to take credit for anything, it should be about that Fiasco they call Iraq and what a Cluster F(#* he's created over there, but what's the odds in him doing that.

I am an American, so this isn't about bashing Americans.

[willyjsimmons @ Apr 20th 2006 1:25PM]

al-CIAduh t-shirts coming SOON!!!

Hilarious!!

[Michael @ Apr 20th 2006 1:34PM]

Definitely sounds like he was making a joke to me.

[Jack @ Apr 20th 2006 1:36PM]

People, it was a joke. The President jokes about things. Can't you people recognize a joke when you see one.

Oh, I forgot, to liberals, everything a conservative says is evil and wicked.

[Isaac @ Apr 20th 2006 1:36PM]

Wow... it's too bad these things aren't moderated... if they were, I'd be roughly post #...5. Instead of 22, heh. (watch, some Engadget wise-ass is going to pull my comment just to give me crap, hehe).

Anyway, why do people just quickly scan over an article or paragraph and immediately just post whatever useless garbage that coagulates in their tiny little minds without any real coherent thought? Read... then read again... then comprehend... then read again... understand... the formulate your words carefully... if you still think that Gore *really* believed he invented the Internet or that Bush *really* thinks he or the government actively invented the iPod... get in your car... get on the highway/freeway... drive really fast... really really really fast... now jerk your car into a tree. PLEASE. If you survive, hopefully the brain damage will either A) make you smarter, or B) leave you a total and complete vegetable so we don't have to read your innane tripe.

Paul, #11, you may skip all of my instructions and go to the very last part starting with getting in your car. Geez. Listen to #18, go read Wikipedia or play in traffic or something.

[John Stracke @ Apr 20th 2006 1:44PM]

I don't think Dubya meant that the government set out to enable the invention of the iPod; he meant that government funding opened up possibilities that nobody knew were there.

'Course, that doesn't mean he's going to support such funding in the future.

[D @ Apr 20th 2006 2:00PM]

Bush is an idiot, he can't take credit for that.

And as for Yadi who pointed this article out to me, you're nuts if you truly believe this crap.

[Foof @ Apr 20th 2006 2:09PM]

I bursted out laughing before I even got to the ipod part"

"The government funded research in microdrive storage, electrochemistry and signal compression..."

Anybody else wonder if Bush has any clue what these three technologies even are?

"Sure. Signal compression. It compresses. Compresses signals. Gets 'em real packed in there. Part of our stratgery. Always was."

[Justin @ Apr 20th 2006 2:17PM]

Another post to #11: Shut the fuck up, trick. The problem with you foreigners is that you're not read-up enough on the stupid thing our politicians say, resulting in posts like yours.

Plus America did invent the 'net. ARPANET, bitch.

And the reason we have some of the worst access infrastructures compared to other countries? Because our country is huge, our corporations are greedy and slow-moving, and our consumers are lazy and love to settle for the lowest-common-denominator.

Blah.

[Sean @ Apr 20th 2006 2:22PM]

It was a joke, he was saying that we (taxpayers) spent all this money to help develop technologies only to find out later the developers just wanted to make the iPod. It was a compliment and nod to Apple for their innovation and a JOKE. You people need to get a life, this is nothing like Gore's assertion that his bill was a direct cause for the creation of the internet.

[Dave @ Apr 20th 2006 2:31PM]

Way to be a blind anti-American, #11.

We (americans) all know that Gore didn't invent the internet, and we generally tend to mock him because he claimed that he did sometime around the 2000 Election. Thanks for the history lesson, though.

[minus_273 @ Apr 20th 2006 2:48PM]

#17
Gore did claim that he invented the internet. The full quote from a CNN interview is :

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system"

[felonious.monk @ Apr 20th 2006 2:53PM]

"our corporations are greedy and slow-moving"

Not always. They tend to be fast moving when there is a ton of cash to be made... Look at Iraq and Haliburton. They didn't exactly sit on their asses and did nothing for years did they?

[Joe @ Apr 20th 2006 3:06PM]

As noted above, Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. He clumsily made a reference in which he said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet", by which he meant taking the legislative initiative. As noted in this linked article, he certainly did that.

The pundits around the time of the 2000 election took his statement and blew it totally out of proportion, missing his point (and his true, and real, influence in this area).

Bush's comments? Probably a joke, but undoubtedly spoken with little knowledge of any of the fields he mentioned.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[NeoteriX @ Apr 20th 2006 3:15PM]

I'll believe Bush invented the iPod as soon as I believe he's intelligent enough to actually use one.

[Jargon @ Apr 20th 2006 3:18PM]

It's pretty obvious he was just making a goofy joke.

[Ben Hobbs @ Apr 20th 2006 3:24PM]

Thought a Brit invented the WWW, which of course is what made the internet actually usable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

[amos @ Apr 20th 2006 3:33PM]

This is no surprise. Much of the innovation and research that the private sector taked credit for (and profits from) was done by the government. For example in bio-medical sciences, the majority of pharmaceutical products would not be around if it were not done for the foundational research done by groups like NIH. Big pharma takes credit for developing HIV cocktails and the recent HPV vaccine (sorry, NIH did all the important research for both of those, and pharma companies simply paid relatively tiny fees to then do clinical trials on the drugs and reap mega-profits).

[Desides @ Apr 20th 2006 3:34PM]

These comments are hilariously bad. Oh, fellow Engadget commenters, are you so wrapped up in blind partisan rage that you don't realize that Bush was delivering a joke? Do you actually believe he was seriously saying that the government enabled the creation of the iPod?

Well, I guess if you're angry enough with Bush to instinctively hate everything that comes out of his mouth, you don't really care whether or not you're accurately representing the context of his statements.

#15, you must've missed US troops fishing chemical weapons out of the Euphrates River, and the currently-released contents of the Baath Party archives, not to mention the Saddam tapes. You also miss the point that the entire point of the invasion was to prevent Saddam from obtaining WMD.

#27, those countries were almost entirely supplied by the US. The British used Sherman tanks, and the Lend-Lease shipments to the USSR were the only thing keeping the Red Army surviving during the early days of Barbarossa. And let's not forget that the design of the T-34 was based on a conceptual American design that a few American tankers, like Patton, contributed to.

And what is this crap about America lagging behind in Internet penetration? Compared to what, small-area countries? Well, gee, yeah, you compare the per capita penetration of a country some 4000 miles across to a country 1/30th the size, you're going to see a disparity in the statistics. Don't forget geography, too--it's difficult and expensive to wire remote farms and mountainous areas. Geography is the reason Intel is pushing WiMAX so hard.

Engadget, you are really degenerating here.

[Tommy Mang @ Apr 20th 2006 3:39PM]

George W. Bush is the new Messiah... well that's what he thinks anyway ;-)

[o rly @ Apr 20th 2006 3:50PM]

@ 38 / minus_273: "#17
Gore did claim that he invented the internet. The full quote from a CNN interview is :"

You might want to read up on http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[VQH @ Apr 20th 2006 4:10PM]

#39 minus_273: It seems the media has brainwashed you a bit. I wouldn't rely on one source for all information, especially CNN.


Try reading up on #48's link

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp