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Watch President Obama's interview at SXSW Interactive
A US president is about to speak at SXSW Interactive for the first time. President Barack Obama -- who's known to be relatively tech savvy, at least as far as presidents go -- will participate in an interview during a keynote address today at the annual tech fest in Austin, Texas. He'll be discussing civic engagement with Evan Smith, the editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, though we're guessing the conversation will cover a whole array of topics (perhaps the current electoral race). If you can't be there in person, you can tune in for our coverage here or just watch the whole thing unfold in the livestream embedded below.
Obama's last budget calls for better infrastructure, cybersecurity
With President Barack Obama's final year in office comes one last, contentious dance with Congress over a $4.1 trillion dollar budget for 2017. According to the New York Times, some $3 trillion of the budget the president proposed has been earmarked for so-called "mandatory" spending, and will be funneled toward federal assistance programs and combating interest on the nation's debt. The president is pushing to use that remaining trillion-or-so dollars to build a foundation for future work he thinks the country desperately needs.
Electric car sales fell short of the President's goals
In 2008, President Obama set the lofty goal of putting 1 million plug-in cars on US streets by 2015. So, how did the country do? Not well at all, if you ask Reuters. It understands that only 400,000 electric cars are on American roads despite numerous incentives, including that well-known $7,500 tax credit. In fact, EV sales fell 6 percent in 2015 -- not exactly the sign of a burgeoning industry. There were 384,000 hybrids sold last year, but their sales dropped by 15 percent.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: The Detroit Auto Show, SOTU and more!
The North American International Auto Show kicked off this week in Detroit, and we hit the floor to bring you seven of the best green cars, including a hot hydrogen sedan and the world's first electric minivan. The Obama administration heralded the age of autonomous vehicles with a new plan to invest $4 billion in self-driving car technology. As usual, Tesla is ahead of the curve: This week Elon Musk announced that the automaker's first fully autonomous cars will hit streets by the year 2018. And Tesla also took honors as the Model S was declared the world's top-selling electric car of 2015.
President Obama is the White House's First Social Media Ninja
President Barack Obama will give his final State of the Union address tonight, kicking off the final 12 months of his time in the Oval Office. To mark the occasion, the president and his administration have jumped on board yet another social media platform, the rapidly growing Snapchat. If anything, it's more surprising that Obama wasn't already on Snapchat: The president has a presence on basically every social network of note, and his team is skilled at using them to campaign, communicate and entertain his millions of followers. With one year to go, we've pulled together a guide of Obama's vast social presence across the internet and some of the highlights from each platform.
Go behind the scenes of the State of the Union with Snapchat
The White House announced today that it had joined Snapchat ahead of tomorrow's State of the Union address, the last before President Obama leaves office. Snapchat is a social site where users' fleeting posts disappear after just a few seconds. It boasts over 100 million active users, most of which weren't even old enough to vote when he was elected -- that is, they're under 25. Users can follow the president's posts by adding WhiteHouse or scanning the snapcode below.
The NSA spied on Congress, too
Just because the United States said it stopped spying on friendly foreign heads of state like Germany's Angela Merkel, doesn't mean that Uncle Sam actually has. Eavesdropping has actually continued and the list of targets included Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Wall Street Journal reports. What's more, the National Security Agency was caught spying on members of Congress and American-Jewish groups as a direct result, according to WSJ's anonymous sources.
Bipartisan education bill makes computer science a priority
Yesterday, the president signed a new education bill designed to replace the 13-year old No Child Left Behind act, reducing federal controls on state education systems -- but it does something else, too. The Ever Student Succeeds act places computer science on the same level as other "well-rounded" subjects. Coding and computer literacy is now just as important as math and science.
Bill Gates is launching a multibillion-dollar clean energy fund
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is set to reveal a massive clean energy project on Monday, during the first day of the United Nations climate change summit in Paris. According to Reuters, which originally reported the news, the French government has confirmed that the ex-CEO-turned-philanthropist will launch the Clean Tech Initiative, a push to commit countries to double their budgets on clean energy tech research and developments by 2020. But Gates won't be working on this multibillion dollar fund alone: The US, Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Norway, Saudi Arabia and South Korea will all be backing the plan, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The President finally has a Facebook page
For all of the White House's efforts to join the internet era, it's been awfully slow at giving the President a Facebook presence. It's not dragging its heels any longer, though: President Obama (and presumably, any future President) now has an official Facebook page. Besides giving the political leader a chance to explain agendas, it'll help you share your thoughts and chat with other concerned residents. The move was virtually necessary when over a billion people use Facebook every day, but it's hard to knock something that puts you in closer contact with your government. Let's just hope that the President has someone keeping a close eye on the comments -- if you think the politically-charged discussions in your own Facebook feed can get bad, you can imagine what it'd be like for a head of state.
The Intercept publishes massive leak on America's drone strike program
The Intercept published a huge trove of secret documents Thursday morning that extensively document the Obama administration's secretive and controversial drone-based assassination program. This program sought to kill high-value enemy targets throughout Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. These documents, obtained from an anonymous whistleblower, cover an enormous breadth of subjects. Documents on how the legal and logistical architectures behind the program were constructed, details on how people wind up on President Obama's "kill lists", revelations of startlingly regular intelligence flaws, internal analysis of collateral damage and the strategic limits of the program are only part of what's included in the cache. You can begin reading through the documents at The Intercept, we'll have a deeper analysis of this leak for you tomorrow. [Image Credit: The Washington Post/Getty Images]
ICYMI: Cameras on Cops, VR beam onto Enterprise and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-467571{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-467571, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-467571{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-467571").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: The Department of Justice just announced it will give $23 million to 32 states to help buy more body cameras for police officers. A virtual reality tour that would create all 42 decks of the Starship Enterprise is being crowdfunded. And an overfunded IndieGoGo campaign for a lamp that is exactly modeled on the moon is still available for your bedtime with tots enjoyment.
US wants the world's fastest supercomputer by 2025
President Obama has signed an executive order demanding that the US build the world's fastest supercomputer by 2025. The National Strategic Computing Initiative has been implemented to get the country building an Exascale machine and not fall behind rival nations in the technological arms race. This supercomputer will be developed by arms of the federal government and then be harnessed to speed up research into a wide variety of topics. One example is that the hardware will be used to help NASA better understand turbulence for aircraft design, while another is to crunch the numbers for medical researchers.
President Obama welcomes telepresence robots into the White House
If you can't greet the president in person, don't worry... as of now, you can send a robot in your stead. President Barack Obama has welcomed a telepresence robot into the White House for the first time, letting Disability Visibility Project founder Alice Wong attend a celebration and say hello to both Obama as well as Vice President Joe Biden. It's not going to replace a handshake and a photo op, but it beats staying at home. It certainly won't be shocking if you see more of these robotic stand-ins at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in the future -- they could help dignitaries show up at important events when traveling to Washington just isn't an option. [Image credit: Pete Souza, Instagram]
Recommended Reading: Roku's plan to take on Apple, Amazon and Google
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. TV Wars: Inside Roku's Plan to Beat Apple, Amazon and Google by Jared Newman Fast Company Ever wonder how a smaller company like Roku can keep pace in the streaming war against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Google? Fast Company takes a look at all the ways Roku is keeping pace, what makes its version of streaming video unique and why the company's survival is important.
White House secretly expands NSA power to collect US internet data
The Obama administration expanded the NSA's ability to collect Americans' internet data in 2012, with absolutely no notice to the public, The New York Times reports. The Justice Department issued two memos, in secret, to the NSA allowing the agency to gather and search Americans' international internet traffic without a warrant, ostensibly to find foreign hackers or malware. The secret memos allowed the NSA to track IP addresses and cybersignatures that could be tied to foreign governments. However, documents provided to the Times by Edward Snowden show that the NSA tried to target hackers that weren't tied to any foreign authority.
Google Maps: offensive search results came from 'online discussions'
Google is constantly scraping the internet to fill out its search results, but apparently using crowdsourced information can have its drawbacks. Over the last couple of days word spread that searching for certain racial slurs (guess) showed the White House as the top result, and now Google is offering an explanation why. Unlike the MapMaker-inserted Android/Apple logo prank, Google says the results popped up "because people had used the offensive term in online discussions of the place." Other than blaming the internet, the team is updating its algorithm to fix the issue and is updating its ranking system to address "the majority" of those searches. Marketing Land found a few entries that led to the White House, none of which worked when we tried them today. It looks like certain offensive terms are now being blocked from showing results at all, although creative minds may be able to poke holes in the filter.
Apple and Google push Obama to prevent encryption backdoors
Apple, Google and other major tech companies have urged President Obama not to give the FBI backdoor access to smartphone data, according to the Washington Post. The publication obtained a letter signed by no less than 140 major tech players, security specialists and privacy groups stating that "strong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy's security." All of the players feel that it's impossible to build a backdoor for governments in email, cellphone encryption and other communications without creating vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers or hostile nations. Obama previously said that while he's in favor of stronger encryption, "the only concern is our law enforcement is expected to stop every (terrorist) plot."
President Obama gets his own Twitter account: @POTUS
The President of the United States of America is one of the most powerful people in the world. Now, whoever holds that office also has a Twitter account to match. The White House announced today that @POTUS is the official handle for the commander in chief. As you're probably well aware, President Barack Obama already has a Twitter account that's quite active, however his campaign manages that feed. With this new username, updates will come directly from the president himself as he continues working to make "his Administration the most open and participatory in history." The new account goes nicely with @FLOTUS and @VP, and all three will get new owners in 2017 as the next election cycle approaches.
Obama's 2013 'BRAIN' initiative results in remote-controlled mice
The first results to stem from President Barack Obama's 2013 "Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies" initiative are in, Reuters reports. As noted in the journal Neuron, scientists were able to manipulate the brain circuitry of lab mice, making them move, stay still, eat or leave their bowls of food behind. This was accomplished through the use of DREADDs, "designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs." The DREADDs system uses genetically engineered brain neurons to create custom receptors that lock into manmade molecules, activating whichever neuron scientists target. The DREADD method is a noninvasive form of behavior control, first introduced about a decade ago as a way to turn neurons on or off -- the newest DREADDs are the first to be able to do both.
