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Donald Trump hosting Reddit AMA during DNC on Wednesday
If you've ever seen Donald Trump on Twitter, you probably have questions for him. Questions like, "how do you plan to force Apple to make iPhones in the US," or "do you really think Edward Snowden deserves the death penalty?" Later this week, you'll be able to ask him yourself: the Republican presidential nominee is slated to host a Reddit AMA at 7PM ET on Wednesday.
Hillary Clinton's mobile game lets you run your own campaign
The Democratic National Convention opens today in Philadelphia and there has been some serious inner-DNC turmoil the past few days involving a ton of leaked emails. WikiLeaks published messages that show party officials rallying up against Bernie Sanders, and even making fake Craigslist ads to to target Donald Trump. But the Hillary Clinton campaign is moving full-steam ahead the only way it knows how: by releasing a mobile game.
GOP platform praises NASA's ability to foster innovation
The Republican party has officially adopted its platform (warning: PDF) for the 2016 election season. And inside is some slightly surprising praise for NASA and talk of investing in it as a means to foster innovation. Specifically the GOP called the agency (along with the Department of Defense) critical to maintaining the country's edge in space. Of course, the specifics of the language are very carefully chosen. The platform doesn't whole-heartedly embrace a government-driven path to space-based dominance. Instead it calls out the agencies, as well as their public-private partnerships with the likes of SpaceX, that it claims have saved tax payers money.
Tech leaders say Trump would be a disaster for innovation
While at least one notable tech billionaire is willing to openly support Donald Trump's presidential campaign, a whopping 145 other leaders from major tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yelp, Tumblr, Slack and even Steve Wozniak himself have banded together to publish an open letter denouncing Trump's "divisive candidacy." The list of names ranges from CEOs and founders, to VCs and law professors and they're making it clear they speak for themselves rather than their respective companies, but the message couldn't be more clear: some of the biggest influencers in tech believe a President Trump would kill America's innovative spirit.
C-SPAN will stream convention coverage on Facebook Live
Facebook inadvertently replaced C-SPAN during a Democrat sit-in on gun control, but during the Republican and Democrat national conventions, C-SPAN will stream on Facebook Live. The social network will also feature footage filmed by convention participants, delegates, politicians and the media, according to Politico. "This is the most engaged we've been at the convention and its highly correlated to the fact we have a lot of tools to offer," said Facebook Manager Crystal Patterson.
Apple won't assist the Republican convention due to Trump
Apple has made a number of firm political stands ever since Tim Cook took the helm, and it's not about to back down any time soon. Politico sources (backed by in-the-know journalist John Paczkowski) say that Apple won't provide funding or other support for the Republican Party's July presidential convention due to Donald Trump's policies. Reportedly, his attitudes toward immigrants, minorities and women are beyond the pale -- although Apple has been willing to court Republicans in the past (Cook met with House GOP bigwigs in 2015), Trump is just too extreme for the company's tastes. Apple has declined to comment to Politico so far.
DNC accuses Russian hackers of stealing opposition research
The Democratic National Committee reports that its entire database of opposition research into Donald Trump was compromised and accessed by Russian hackers. That includes all email and chat logs as well, according to security experts who responded to the data breach. Officials first noticed "unusual network activity" in late April and believe that the hackers may have gained entry through a targeted spearphishing campaign. What's more, this appears to be just one of a number of recent incursions by the Russians who, in recent months, have reportedly hacked Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's campaigns as well as a few GOP superPACS.
Google clarifies how search autocomplete works
In yet another odd development of the 2016 campaign season, Google's autocomplete feature -- not the actual search results, just autocomplete -- has come under scrutiny of potential bias. A YouTube video posted by SourceFed (with a followup, posted here) picked up attention after claiming that Google failed to link "Hillary Clinton" with "indictment" in its autocomplete, unlike competitors Bing and Yahoo (that Yahoo is powered by both Bing and Google seems to have gone unmentioned), even if you spot it the i-n-d. So, clearly Google is in the tank for Clinton, right? As it turns out, an alternate and more accurate explanation becomes clear with some knowledge of how Google's algorithms work.
ICYMI: Pennyfarthing reboot, ice box fridge and more
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: SnikkyBike wants to get folks on its electrified pennyfarthing of a bike, except that it doesn't even have pedals, only a place for people to stand. Surechill Technologies made a refrigerator that takes the best parts of old school, pre-electricity ice boxes and reimagines it to use low amounts of energy. The game Surgeon Simulator has a re-skinned version that lets users practice operating on Donald Trump, which looks just as uncomfortable as any presidential candidate being laid out an operating table should, party affiliations notwithstanding. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Look for Donald Trump's heart in 'Surgeon Simulator'
Surgeon Simulator is putting the life of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in your (shaky) hands. With the Inside Donald Trump expansion, you're tasked with performing a heart transplant on the priapic real-estate mogul turned politician. Players can choose from swapping in a heart of stone or one made of gold, and should your procedure be successful, which heart you chose will show up on a tracker site along with the choices of every other would-be doctor. What's more, a running total of the cost of the procedures will populate the tracker as well.
Where the candidates stand on cyber issues
It's a little difficult to nail down the US presidential candidates on cybersecurity. That's probably because none of the candidates actually has a cybersecurity plan. What little the candidates have said about cybersecurity is as bizarre as the entire reality-TV election process spectacle itself. They each think cybersecurity means one, or possibly two, things. Bernie Sanders is obsessed with the NSA. Donald Trump said that Edward Snowden should be executed and wants to hack-attack China. Hillary Clinton just seems unsure about what exactly she should say.
Anonymous declares 'total war' on Donald Trump
Donald Trump is in the sights of hacktivist collective Anonymous again. On March 4th the group posted a video declaring "total war" on the presidential candidate. It hopes to not only bring down many of Trump's sites, but also halt his presidential bid by uncovering and exposing embarrassing information. "We need you to shut down his campaign and sabotage his brand," said a Guy Fawkes-masked individual in the video.
Google grants presidential hopefuls a digital podium
Google is giving this year's crop of US presidential candidates a pretty big stump to stand on: Search results. Mountain View is opening up a new platform, dubbed "Google Posts," that hopefuls for the highest office in the land can use to publish everything from text to photos and videos. These brief bits will appear in search results whenever you look for one of them by name, just above official tweets. From there, the posts can be shared via your social media platform of choice.
DeepDrumpf: The Donald Trump AI spoof bot America needs
"I'm what ISIS doesn't need." That may sound like a quote from Republican presidential candidate/real estate tycoon Donald Trump, but it's actually from an AI-powered Twitterbot named @DeepDrumpf. Developed by Bradley Hayes, a postdoc student at MIT's Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab (CSAIL), the bot pores through Trump's speeches and debate transcripts, using deep learning techniques to recreate his language one letter at a time. (Engadget's Aaron Souppouris used similar methods to build a neural network that recreated this site's writing style.) The results are sometimes incoherent, but that only makes DeepDrumpf seem more like the real thing.
Cram for Super Tuesday with Engadget's election guide
On March 1st Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia will cast their votes in the primaries and caucuses. Plus Alaska and Wyoming are having Republican caucuses and American Samoa is getting in on the action with its own Democratic caucus -- there's a reason they call it "Super Tuesday." And from here on out things start moving pretty fast. In the next seven days nearly two dozen states and territories will have their say in who should be the nominee for the two major parties. Yes Primary season is really hitting it's stride. But don't think you're done with the debate drama. Thursday, March 3rd, the Republican candidates still hanging on after Super Tuesday will face off in Detroit. You can watch that showdown at 9PM ET either on Fox News or at foxnews.com. Then on the 6th, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton will face off in Flint, Michigan, site of the disastrous water contamination scandal that has put the local government under sharp criticism. The two remaining Democrats will take the stage at 8PM ET on CNN and at CNN.com. And, of course, before those showdowns kick off, make sure to get caught up on the candidates positions on the most pressing tech and science issues of 2016 in our election guide. And make sure to join in the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Ello, Google+, BBS or semaphore using the hashtag #engadgetelectionguide.
The 2016 presidential race according to Facebook 'likes'
The data-minded folks over at FiveThirtyEight have teamed up with Facebook to find out what parts of the country support which candidate via an interactive map. While FiveThirtyEight stresses that this is in no way a representative sample (Facebook users skew heavily younger, low-income and female, for instance), it's still interesting to see where candidates stack up in terms of page likes.
Prep for the debates and primaries with Engadget's election guide
Last week Iowa voted and there were surprises all around. Ted Cruz became the front runner in the Republican race and Marco Rubio made an excellent showing by coming in a close third. Plus Hillary Clinton only narrowly avoided an upset from Larry David impersonator Bernie Sanders. Add to that the rather contentious (and meme-inspiring) debate between the Republicans on Saturday and this week is looking to be a decisive one for the Candidates.
How to watch this week's presidential primary debates
Primary season is officially underway, but don't think that the deluge of debates is over. There will be many, many, many, more chances for the candidates to face off on stage. Tonight at 9pm ET Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will follow up their razor thin race in Iowa by bringing their sales pitches to New Hampshire. With Martin O'Malley officially out of the race, it will be down to just the two front runners. You can watch the debate live on MSNBC and at MSNBC.com. Saturday night, at 9pm ET, its the Republicans turn to put on a debate for the citizens of New Hampshire. You'll be able to watch that on your local ABC affiliate or online at abcnew.go.com/live. And, of course, before those showdowns kick off, make sure to get caught up on the candidates positions on the most pressing tech and science issues of 2016 in our election guide. And make sure to join in the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Ello, Google+, BBS or semaphore using the hashtag #engadgetelectionguide.
Prep for the Iowa caucuses: Check out the Engadget Election Guide
Tonight the process of selecting the nominees for president from the Democratic and Republican parties officially gets underway in Iowa. The citizens of the Hawkeye State will gather and physically organize themselves into groups supporting each of the candidates. And at the end of the night delegates will be awarded to the candidates accordingly. As the first contest of the primary season the Iowa caucuses garner a lot of attention. They have not always, however, been a reliable indicator of who the eventual nominee would be. That being said, they can give candidates an early boost in the polls. If you're wondering exactly how a caucus works and how it's different from a primary, check out the excellent video from CPG Grey after the break. But before you go out and cast your vote tonight, make sure to read up on the candidates' positions on the most important tech and science issues facing America this election year.
The After Math: These numbers are 'yuge'
The GOP holding a debate without the overcooked sweetpotato that is Donald Trump wasn't even the week's biggest news. We found the world's biggest solar system, US Customs confiscated an enormous number of knockoff hoverboards and CERN began rewiring the LHC for added atom-smashy fun, to name a few.
