barackobama
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President Obama's official portrait: the first ever taken with a digital camera
You're now gazing at President Barack Obama's just-released official portrait -- the first of a U.S. president ever taken with a digital camera. That means we can peek at the EXIF data -- this fine specimen of portraiture was snapped with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II on January 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm with no flash, using a 105mm lens stopped to f/10 at a 1/125 exposure, with an ISO of 100 by newly crowned official White House photographer Pete Souza. Nice work, Souza -- but we think it could use a few lens flares.[Thanks, Penny]
NSA-approved smartphones give Obama some ugly choices
Next week's US presidential inauguration of Barack Obama will have one sour note for the Illinois senator. Sure, he's gonna be the leader of the free world, but the notorious BlackBerry addict will have to give up his smartphone -- and frankly, if given the choice, we'd probably choose cellphone over country. There is hope, however, as CNET outlines two Windows Mobile devices that met the NSA's seal of approval for governmental use back in 2007: General Dynamics' Sectera Edge and L-3 Communications' Guardian. Unfortunately, both options look about as dated as the Treo 650, with exceptionally large antennas to boot. Hey NSA, any chance we can get something a bit sexier on the approval list?
NSA-approved smartphones leaves Obama with some ugly choices
Next week's US presidential inauguration of Barack Obama will have one sour note for the Illinois senator. Sure, he's gonna be the leader of the free world, but the notorious BlackBerry addict will have to give up his smartphone -- and frankly, if given the choice, we'd probably choose cellphone over country. There is hope, however, as CNET outlines two Windows Mobile devices that met the NSA's seal of approval for governmental use back in 2007: General Dynamics' Sectera Edge and L-3 Communications' Guardian. Unfortunately, both options look about as dated as the Treo 650, with exceptionally large antennas to boot. Hey NSA, any chance we can get something a bit sexier on the approval list?
Caption Contest: unofficial Obama MP4 player is officially awesome
Friendly tipster and man about town Ben spotted this Obama-branded MP4 player ("with built-in speaker!") in Washington D.C. recently. Paul: "Yes we can buy cheap Chinese iPod knockoffs!"Chris: "Introducing the iPod hussein."Tim: "Sadly the John McCain gramophone was deemed too risky for today's economic conditions."Laura: "There's not a Zune America and an iPod America. There's a United States of generic Obama MP4 player America."Nilay: "They would give it an African name, DIGITAL MP4 PLAYER, believing that in a tolerant America a terrible interface and weird format support are no barrier to success."Joe: The Audacity of KIRFRichard: "Whew, for a second people thought he was using a Zune again"Josh: "On Obama's Digital MP4 Player, it's not shuffle. It's change."Ross: "Next on the O'Reilly Factor: is president-elect Barack Obama funneling funds through a Shenzhen, China-based shell company?"Sean: "Who is that black bald guy anyway?"**Sean is Canadian, we can't take responsibility for him or his silly little country.
Even robots love Obama
You know you've tapped into a cross section of America when even the robots come out in your support. The $250 ObamaBot stands 6-feet tall and regurgitates stump speeches by the president-elect while presumably cleansing the Earth of any naysayers. ObamaBot's University of Florida creators see the world as so imperfect, that they'd prefer to pal around with robots who would target their own planet. Run little girl, run... change is coming. [Via The Wired Campus, thanks Egloskerry]
Obama goes for the shut-in vote in Second Life
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama continues to revolutionize politics by making an appearance in controversial virtual world Second Life on March 31. A simulated (but still totally dreamy) version of Obama will mimic the motions and posture of the real deal as he chats up a small group of Iowans.This gig wasn't organized by the Obama campaign, but by a "virtual event and promotions" company. Do you think Obama's handlers have any idea that he might be ambushed by e-penises?
Obama: 'Stop playing GameBoy'
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is fired up to win this election like it's 1999. Stopping in Texas, Obama spoke to a group of youths about recruiting their friends for his campaign and said, "I want you to tell them, 'It's time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing GameBoy' ... We've got work to do."A good first step is for Obama's speech writer to learn this is the 2008 election. If we're going to be hip and cool, let's learn what the kids are actually playing. Words to use in the future are: Wii, PlayStation, Xbox, DS -- and N-Gage.[Thanks Obo]
