TownHall
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Facebook is trying to make clicktivism worth something
One of the problems with clicking Angry Face on a story about some kleptocrat earning a fast buck for themselves is that it has no real consequences. It's an issue that Facebook is looking to challenge by instantly providing the details of your local political representative. You can then append their contact details to your public post, enabling yourself (and others) to make your feelings known in a more meaningful way.
Facebook will remind you to vote in local elections
Facebook isn't limiting its get-out-the-vote initiatives to federal elections. The social network is now offering reminders to vote in local US elections, whether they're at the county, municipal or state level. You'll see these notices as long as you're in an area with over 10,000 people, and they'll include primaries in addition to general elections. It could be crucial to spurring interest in frequently neglected regional elections, especially in tandemn with Facebook's officially launched Town Hall feature.
Facebook adds an easy way to find your local government officials
In part of his 5,700-word manifesto last month, Mark Zuckerberg hinted at plans to make Facebook a more informed and civically engaged social network. Now, some of those ideas are getting a concrete solution with a new feature called Town Hall, which is rolling out to Facebook users in the US today. Found in the "Apps" tab on mobile or the "Explore" section of the sidebar on the web, Town Hall lets users easily track down their representatives in local, state and federal government.
Tim Cook focuses on charity during Town Hall meeting
Apple held an all-employee Town Hall meeting a little while ago after the earnings call, and The Verge is reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook took quite a bit of time during the meeting to point out Apple's charitable contributions to the world. He said that Apple has given $50 million to Stanford hospitals, and over $50 million to the Project RED effort (to help fight AIDS in Africa), making Apple that fund's largest contributor. It seems as if we've found one big difference between Cook and his legendary predecessor: Cook wants to make it clear that he's serious about giving, and letting people know about it. Cook has also pushed for an employee donation matching program at Apple, so he's got a history, even in his short tenure so far, of endorsing strong charitable contributions. Of course, all of that said, $100 million is still just pocket change for a company that has almost $100 billion in the bank. But every little bit counts, we suppose.
Tim Cook to hold January 25 'Town Hall' meeting with Apple employees
Apple CEO Tim Cook has scheduled a "Town Hall" meeting with Apple's employees to "review our record-setting results and discuss some exciting new things going on at Apple." The meeting will take place at 10 AM Pacific on January 25, and those employees unable to attend in person will be able to watch the event remotely via Apple's internal AppleWeb service. It should be stressed that it is virtually certain no product announcements will be made at this town hall meeting. Past meetings that Steve Jobs led focused on the company's overall strategy, and they were occasionally an arena for some choice words about Apple's competitors from the former CEO. This latest town hall meeting will likely focus on congratulating Apple's employees for the phenomenal results of the last fiscal quarter. The event was brought to 9to5 Mac's notice barely 18 hours before it's scheduled to take place, so it seems to have been assembled on quite short notice. This isn't unusual, however; previous town hall meetings within Apple following the introduction of the iPad and shortly before the original iPhone's launch happened on similarly short notice.
President Obama to appear at Facebook HQ for Town Hall meeting
Looks like President Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just can't get enough of each other. Just two months after his tech industry schmooze fest, the White House has announced the Commander in Chief's plans to hold a live streaming Town Hall meeting from Facebook HQ with Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. The event is set for 1:45PM PST April 20th, and already has 3,400 attendees lined up. Users are encouraged to submit their questions about innovation and the economy via the event's Facebook page, and the comments are already rolling in. Somehow, though, we don't think this is the sort question he's likely to answer: "Dear President Obama, could we please be friends?" Sorry, Carolina.
Apple has scheduled internal town hall-style iPad meeting
Just a day after the iPad's introduction, MacNN reports that Apple has scheduled an internal, town hall-style meeting for employees regarding the iPad. Details of the meeting's agenda are unknown to us outside of Apple, but it's a safe guess that attendees will receive a thorough overview of the device, both in function and philosophy, perhaps iPads themselves and a clear sense of what Steve Jobs called "the most important thing I've ever done." Shortly after the iPhone was introduced, a similar internal meeting was scheduled. At that gathering, employees supposedly received iPhones and asked questions of Steve. One attendee famously asked about the simultaneous existence of the iPhone and iPod, to which Steve said that if some company was going to cannibalize their sales, it might as well be Apple. Certainly meetings like these inform employees but also generate precious word-of-mouth. Apple is obviously deadly serious about the device and we're looking forward to its appearance on store shelves.
Apple schedules laptop event for Oct. 14; leaked photos abound
Our sister site Engadget received an invitation for a town-hall event in San Francisco about new Apple notebooks, featuring an image of what could be hinting at possible new aluminum enclosures for 13-inch MacBooks. tw.apple.pro purports to have images of new aluminum cases for the MacBooks. Judging from the height of the ports (and if the photos are authentic) the new MacBooks could be significantly thinner than their predecessors. In related news, AppleInsider claims to have confirmed that a widely-circulated spy-shot is indeed one from Apple's next generation of MacBook Pro, but is not fabricated from a single "brick" of aluminum, as 9-to-5Mac said. The top case, however, appears now to include the ports, rather than having them integrated into the bottom case. (This could make case disassembly easier.) The port arrangement appears to include many more ports on the left side of the bottom case, much like the current MacBook. Combined with earlier images of the back of the LCD and bottom case, the design retains much of the same look that MacBook Pros (and PowerBook G4s before them) have had since January 2001. Apple's notebook event is scheduled for next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time (1 p.m. Eastern).
Steve Jobs to make a rare company-wide speech tomorrow
No one really knows where Steve's going to appear on iDay, but we've confirmed with multiple sources at Apple that tomorrow morning at 11:00AM he'll be giving an all-hands "Town Hall" iPhone mini-Stevenote for employees only -- so obviously we're not invited. Some of our peeps remember the iPod Town Hall meeting (at which Steve offered up $200 iPods -- nothing to snub your nose at its 2001 introduction) -- so if it wasn't already totally completely driven home by this point, his Steveness seriously considers this week's big launch to be a turning point for Apple, and possibly the gadget industry in general. And whether or not the iPhone's even at all successful, we'd tend to agree. Memo published after the break.
