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Republicans attack Biden with a fully AI-generated ad
The RNC's latest attack ad features AI-generated depictions of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris with far too many teeth.
Google will once again apply Gmail spam detection to political campaign emails
Google plans to end a pilot that let political ad campaigns dodge Gmail's spam filters.
Russian hackers breached a GOP contractor
A GOP contractor known as Synnex was breached over the weekend by Russian government-backed hackers.
House Democrats adopt encrypted messaging after last year's hack
In light of last year's hacking troubles, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has begun using end-to-end encrypted software for a large chunk of its messaging. For communication both internally and between the DCCC and 20 of its House incumbent campaigns, the committee will use Wickr.
GOP-hired data company leaked information on 198 million citizens
Data from the largely conservative Deep Root Analytics, a company that strategizes how to target audiences for political advertisements, was exposed this month. Information on nearly 200 million US citizens, over 60 percent of the population, was contained in the leak.
Trump's most senior staff use a private email server
Donald Trump's senior White House staff including Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner, Sean Spicer and Steve Bannon all use a private RNC email server, according to a Newsweek report published Wednesday. This is the same RNC email server that mysteriously disappeared 22 million messages during George W Bush's administration and the one that US intelligence services believe was compromised by the Russians at the same time as the DNC's, earlier this year.
Unverified report says Russia has dirt on Trump (updated)
In a new political development, the US intelligence community reportedly briefed the White House that Russian spies hacked not just the DNC, but the Republican party, too. Not only that, US intelligence told both President Obama and President-elect Trump that an unverified report has been circulating with claims that Russia may have compromising personal or financial information about Donald Trump, according to CNN.
Trump wants Russia to hack the US government (updated)
Late last week, thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee were released by WikiLeaks, the contents of which have caused plenty of controversy at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this week. The FBI is investigating and Russia is believed to be a prime suspect in the hack that led to these emails getting leaked. Naturally, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has had plenty to say about the hack and some of the messages themselves. But what he said today is yet another level of crazy from an already audacious candidate. "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said today, reports The New York Times. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." By "find," it's pretty clear Trump was advocating for another hack to uncover more emails, specifically those from Hillary Clinton's private email server when she was Secretary of State. Regardless of whether those emails were on a private server or not, hacking emails sent while she was Secretary of State would amount to hacking the US government. The emails in question were deemed personal and private and deleted by Clinton.
FBI to investigate Russia's involvement in DNC email leak
On Monday morning, the FBI confirmed it is investigating the Democratic party's email hack that made its way onto WikiLeaks in advance of the party's national convention in Philadelphia this week. Although WikiLeaks has not identified a source, previous reports claimed the emails to and from top DNC officials were leaked by Russian hackers to bolster Donald Trump's campaign.
The 2016 RNC was celebratory and friendly, both online and off
Donald Trump has, whether knowingly or not, tapped into some deep-seated bigotry still lurking just beneath the surface of this country. I do not know if Trump agrees with the openly racist people he retweets or if he's merely aping the language and memes of the alt-right for political gain. As many have discovered, though, Trump's most vocal supporters on Twitter are often unabashedly anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and racist. The question for me as I prepared for the 2016 Republican National Convention was, would these newly invigorated hate groups suddenly feel as safe expressing themselves face-to-face as they do online? I'm happy to report the answer is no -- mostly, anyway. The 2016 RNC certainly wasn't without incident or ugliness, but by and large the crowds were peaceful and respectful, and the hate groups did not find the Republican Party waiting for them with open arms in Cleveland.
GOP and industry agree: Tech has a messaging problem
The government and the technology industry agree: They need to do a better job educating the public. During a policy forum hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) at the Republican National Convention this week, members of Congress and several industry veterans admitted they have not done enough to dispel myths around technology, nor have they found the proper way to push Americans toward degrees in STEM fields. Congressman Blake Farenthold from Texas said "everyone still wants an MBA," even though you'd probably make more money with a degree in engineering.
ICYMI: Mercedes makes a self-driving bus for the masses
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Mercedes made a new class of vehicle to take on mass transit systems by autonomously navigating city streets with GPS, radar, dozens of cameras and data links to local networks. It was tested outside Amsterdam; no word yet on when they will roll out for real. Some Michigan engineering students are creating a huge and playable Rubik's Cube, that video is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Republican party embraces next-gen wireless and IoT
In 2012 the GOP's official platform didn't say much about broadband. In fact, in the 62-page, roughly 30,000-word document detailing the party's various policy stances, the word "broadband" only appeared once. In 2016, things are a little different. The platform dedicates far more space to talk of expanding internet access. It even calls for reforms that would help the Internet of Things "thrive."
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.
BuzzFeed and Washington Post turn to robots for RNC coverage
Both the Washington Post and Buzzfeed have sent robots to cover the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Call it forward thinking, call it a gimmick, inventive, desperate... doesn't matter. But it's happening, and both outlets couldn't be prouder of their efforts to modify their news gathering process and bring additional interactivity to their reporting.
Facebook and ABC team up for live DNC and RNC coverage
Your options for livestreaming the Democratic and Republican national conventions just got even wider. ABC and Facebook are partnering on 24-hour live online coverage of both the DNC and RNC, whether it's speeches on the floor or protests outside. And importantly, this isn't just reusing TV programming onilne -- there will be in-depth coverage that wouldn't be practical in conventional broadcasting. Your comments and questions on Facebook will also influence the coverage.
Peter Thiel to speak at the Republican National Convention (updated)
Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor and PayPal co-founder, is set to speak an the upcoming Republican National Convention. According to a list of speakers and guests obtained by The New York Times, Thiel is scheduled to appear on the fourth night of the GOP's event -- the same evening as Donald Trump is expected to accept the party's formal nomination. The two will be joined on stage that night, Thursday, July 21st, by Republican Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, Florida Governor Rick Scott, former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow and others. As always, the list is subject to change before the event.
Twitter will livestream the Democratic and Republican conventions
Twitter isn't limiting its livestreaming to major sporting events. The social network has revealed that it will stream both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, which respectively start on July 25th and July 18th. The coverage (technically provided by CBSN) will be available through both the web and Twitter's official mobile apps, and won't require an account to start watching.
Obama, Romney get chiptuned in battle for presidential seat
The battle for the White House is an epic, intense drama to rival those of legend and myth, so of course it makes a great chiptune video game. The Gregory Brothers, creators of Autotune the News and all those viral videos about burgers and bed intruders, songified Barack Obama and Mitt Romney from the Democratic and Republican national conventions (respectively, in case you get those two mixed up).The video is titled "Patriot Game" and presents the presidential candidates side-by-side, comparing their talking points as if they were literal points in an 8-bit video game, set to an upbeat tune. Watch the piggy banks, (bleeding) hearts and American flags stack up over at The New York Times, and see who wins to be the fictional, autotuned President of Earths and Moon. It might surprise you.
Republican National Convention features LED video wall, HDTVs by LG
One of the biggest issues of the 2008 Presidential campaign will certainly be how much high definition does your candidate have? Next week in Minnesota the Republican National Convention will feature HDTVs from LG throughout the Xcel Energy Center, but the highlight will certainly be the 51- x 30-foot Hibino Chroma LED video wall behind the podium area. Stacked against an array of Panasonic projectors and plasmas from the DNC's show in Denver, we expect single issue (resolution, compression, plasma vs. LCD) voters will have a lot of thinking to do over the next few months.Read - A First Look at the 2008 Republican National Convention PodiumRead - 2008 Republican National Convention Names LG Electronics Official HDTV Provider
