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Recommended Reading: President Obama on science and innovation
Barack Obama: Now Is the Greatest Time to Be Alive President Barack Obama, Wired The White House Frontiers Conference took place this week to "explore the future of innovation here and around the world." President Obama is also guest editor for the November issue of Wired where he discusses science and other advancements in both essay and interview form. Above is the president's writing on technology and more. There's also a joint interview with MIT's Joi Ito where the two discuss AI, self-driving cars and and other futuristic topics with Wired's Scott Dadich.
The White House reveals proposals to research and fund AI
President Barack Obama's administration believes that artificial intelligence can be a positive force in the United States, vastly improving specialized areas within health care, transportation, education and policing over the coming decades. In two reports released today, one day ahead of the White House Frontiers Conference, the Obama administration calls for long-term investments in AI research and a broad range of investigation into the ethics, security and uses of AI.
Edward Snowden explains why Obama should pardon him
Edward Snowden laid out the reasons he should receive a pardon from President Obama in an interview with the Guardian, saying that while his actions as a whistleblower were technically illegal, they benefited citizens of the United States. "I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed," Snowden told the Guardian. "The Congress, the courts and the president all changed their policies as a result of these disclosures. At the same time there has never been any public evidence that any individual came to harm as a result."
ACLU and Amnesty International ask Obama to pardon Snowden
The American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, two of the highest-profile human rights organizations in the United States, are calling for President Obama to grant clemency to Edward Snowden. The "Pardon Snowden" campaign kicks off today with a petition to "let President Obama know that the American people stand with Snowden." It's seeking 60,000 signatures and is hosted by the ACLU, which has signed on as Snowden's legal adviser.
President Obama delivers an ode to America's national parks in VR
The first virtual reality film to feature President Obama is, not surprisingly, a love letter to some of America's greatest treasures: its National Parks. Together with Oculus, National Geographic and the VR studio Felix & Paul, the President filmed Through the Ages, a VR experience meant to celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service.
BuzzFeed: Twitter secretly censored tweets during Obama Q&A (updated)
As part of a larger piece examining Twitter and its widescale user harassment problem, BuzzFeed News has reported that tweets were secretly filtered out and censored for President Obama in 2015. Ahead of a "town hall" question and answer session, Dick Costolo -- then Twitter CEO -- reportedly ordered staff to develop an algorithm that would strip out abusive language directed at the President. It was perfected, BuzzFeed claims, after analysing "thousands" of vulgar tweets. Citing anonymous sources, the site says a media partnerships team manually censored tweets, due to a belief that the algorithm wouldn't be up to scratch.
You can now message President Obama on Facebook
President Obama is no stranger to social media, and now the leader of the free world is making it even easier to reach him on the world's largest social network. In a Facebook post today, the White House announced you can now send them a note via Messenger, exactly as you might send a message to friend.
Recommended Reading: President Obama, Commander in Nerdiness
Obama to leave the White House a nerdier place than he found it Gardiner Harris, The New York Times President Obama has accomplished a lot of things during his eight years in office. One of the causes he's championed is science and STEM education. The New York Times takes a look at how the commander-in-chief is leaving the Oval Office a much nerdier place than he found it with science fairs, advisory committees and more.
White House pledges $400 million for 5G research
Following yesterday's FCC vote to adopt new rules to guide the development of 5G technology, the Obama Administration is pledging support for research. More specifically, the White House announced a $400 million Advanced Wireless Research Initiative that will be led by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The project aims to build four "city-scale testing platforms" over the next 10 years. In the announcement, the administration reiterated that the US is the first to free up spectrum above 24 GHz for the high-speed networks that are said to be 100 times faster than the 4G we use today.
Tune in to watch President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg live at 1:45 PM ET
This afternoon, President Obama will meet with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a panel of other young entrepreneurs at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit on Stanford's campus in Palo Alto. While the discussion is scheduled to focus on business, Zuckerberg has recently been celebrating the power of live video to bring "more openness to the political process." Earlier this week, Facebook Live and its competitor Periscope proved invaluable for bringing a sit-in on the House floor to millions of people.
President Obama got rid of his BlackBerry
President Obama has had to use a BlackBerry since the moment he took office. However, he's finally moving on with less than a year left in his term. The Commander-in-Chief tells Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon that he was given a new (and currently unnamed) smartphone this year to replace his increasingly rare BlackBerry. Not that there's much reason to celebrate. The President notes that his phone is so locked down "for security reasons" that he can't call, play music, send texts or take pictures. It's like one of those "play phones" you'd give to a 3-year-old, he says.
Activists say Vietnam shut down Facebook during Obama's visit
During President Obama's three-day trip to Vietnam this week, authorities in the country blocked access to Facebook in an attempt to silence political dissidents, according to reports from two activist organizations. Digital-rights group Access Now and local pro-democracy organization Viet Tan collected reports from within the country and concluded that Facebook was fully blocked or restricted in Vietnam from Sunday through Wednesday, Reuters reports.
The White House wants to study the Earth's microbes
The president proved that he has big scientific dreams when he announced a new effort to find a cure for cancer. Now, the White House has launched yet another ambitious project called the National Microbiome Initiative, which aims to take a closer look at the tiny world of microbes. Microbiomes or microorganism communities that live on and inside people, animals, plants and just about everywhere might be invisible to the naked eye, but they a huge effect on the way we live. They can either make us sick or make us healthy, promote or stunt the growth of plants and contribute to climate change, among many other things.
Stop nuclear devastation at the heart of a never-ending Cold War
One of the most famous works of graffiti on the Berlin Wall is a depiction of former Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev kissing the ex-leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, full on the mouth. In the painting, called "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love," Brezhnev's profile commands a majority of the frame, as if he's sucking the life out of Honecker. It's based on a 1979 photo of the two statesmen locked in a fraternal kiss, a common form of greeting among socialist leaders at the time. Fast-forward to 2016, and artist Rafal Fedro of inbetweengames has updated this iconic painting to feature US president Barack Obama and Russian president Vladimir Putin sharing their own fraternal kiss. In the studio's latest project, a spy tactics game called All Walls Must Fall, the new painting represents a wide range of scenarios: heightened tensions between the two countries that were at the heart of the Cold War, fraying international relationships, or the subconscious desire to love our enemies, to name a few interpretations.
Drone flights will be banned during Obama's visit to London
Drones have been banned in parts of London while Barack Obama visits the UK this week. An advisory published by the National Air Traffic Service (NATS) and regulator the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has put restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other aircraft from Thursday evening on April 21st until the morning of Sunday April 24th. It's part of Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin's "overarching security plan" to keep the US president and First Lady safe while on British soil.
Obama backs FCC plan to open up cable box competition
Back in February, the FCC voted to fight cable's grip on pricey set-top boxes that come bundled with TV service. Part the so-called Unlock the Box initiative is a 60-day comment period on the commission's proposal. This week, President Barack Obama chimed in, urging the FCC to make a move that encourages competition and promotes innovation. Right now, customers have to rent equipment from a cable provider in order to get TV service. There are few choices and the cable companies set the prices, tacking on hundreds of dollars a year to monthly bills.
Put words in the President's mouth with 'Talk Obama To Me'
Anything sounds weighty when uttered by the President of the United States, which is why a new internet text-to-speech app called "Talk Obama to Me" is such fun. All you have to do is input whatever text you want to make the President himself read it back. According to developer and Stanford Linguistics PhD candidate Ed King, the program is a "video speech synthesizer that automatically chops up video of Barack Obama and puts it in order, so that he says whatever you want him to."
Obama forms commission to bolster US cyber security
The sad state of US cyber security was laid bare when attackers stole the sensitive data of 21 million government employees from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) last year. President Obama pledged $19 billion to fix the problem in February, and just unveiled a commission of private, public and academic experts to come up with a plan. Called the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, it will be co-chaired by former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Tom Donilon, the President's former national security adviser.
Google plans to bring internet to Cuba, Obama says
Google will be one of the first American companies to help open up Cuba to the internet, President Obama announced this morning during his historic visit. "One of the things that we'll be announcing here is that Google has a deal to start setting up more WiFi and broadband access on the island," he said in an interview with ABC News. It's still unclear what, exactly, Google plans to launch, but we've reached out for additional comment. The news comes more than a year after the US announced warmer relations with Cuba, which brought with it the possibility for American companies to do business in the country.
President Obama urges SXSW audience not to be 'absolutists' on encryption
South by Southwest managed to get a pretty good keynote speaker as it kicked things off today: President Obama. The president sat down with Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, for a quick but wide-ranging interview loosely focused on civic engagement in the 21st century. He also spent about ten minutes discussing the ongoing battle between privacy and security as highlighted by the battle between the FBI and Apple. As a practiced politician, Obama avoided coming down too hard on any one side, and he said he wasn't able to discuss the ongoing FBI vs. Apple case at all. But by and large his message was that sacrificing some degree of privacy for the sake of our safety has served the country well for hundreds of years, and he expects we'll figure out a way to do so digitally as well.
