whitehouse
Latest
White House teams with Uber and Lyft on free rides for veterans
Uber and Lyft are doing a rare team-up to offer "tens of thousands" of free rides to veterans who need transportation to seek work, according to a message from the White House. Uber pledged to donate 10,000 rides worth around $125,000, while Lyft told Techcrunch that it's giving away "thousands of rides" in total. The White House pointed out that the rides will be particularly beneficial to the estimated 50,000 homeless veterans, two-thirds of whom don't have access to transportation. In addition, Uber will today offer riders a chance to donate $5, which it'll use to offer additional rides.
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.
White House streams time travel talk for BTTF Day
The White House jumped into the Back to the Future Day hooplah by hosting a panel discussion on the feasibility of time travel. Tom Kalil, director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, hosted the half-hour talk, which also featured University of Queensland physicists Tim Ralph and Martin Ringbauer. The trio discuss a variety of topics including quantum mechanics and recent accelerated particle experiments, though they don't dive particularly deeply into any one subject or even get to the part about the self-lacing Nikes. Check out the full discussion below. [Image Credit: Denver Post via Getty Images]
Watch the White House's Astronomy Night live at 7:35PM ET
In 2009, the White House held an Astronomy Night to get students dreaming big and pursuing careers in science. Well, that event is back -- and this time, you can tune in. The White House will livestream parts of its second-ever Astronomy Night starting at 7:35PM ET, including President Obama's statements. It won't be the same as stargazing on the South Lawn, but it might inspire you (or your kids) to learn more about space. Importantly, the government is backing up this event with action. NASA is teaming with students and enthusiasts to find targets for the James Webb Space Telescope, and there are projects underway to foster math and science education beyond the classroom. [Image credit: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images]
White House helps you find the right college through open data
It's more than a little late to choose which college to attend this fall, but the White House might have the tools you need to make an informed decision next year. It just launched a redesigned College Scorecard website that relies on open data (a big deal in government these days) to help you evaluate schools, whether you're a future student or a researcher. You can not only find out which colleges produce the most successful graduates, but also the typical debt loads, average SAT scores for newcomers and other factors that aren't always easy to track down. You can even drill down to very specific criteria, such as students who received Pell grants.
White House Demo Day focuses on diversity
When the White House hosts a Demo Day, tech entrepreneurs come out to play. The Obama administration kicked off its first ever showcase for startups today. It isn't your typical day of demonstrations and matchmaking that brings entrepreneurs closer to prospective funders. Instead, it's about pushing for much-needed diversity in the largely homogenous tech world. As such, the innovators showcasing their stories directly to POTUS come from diverse backgrounds. According to the site, "these stories exemplify how we can 'grow the pie' by including all Americans in our innovation economy."
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.
White House speeds up (and opens up) online petitions
The White House's We the People site is supposed to help the government hear your calls for change, but that isn't quite how it worked out: backlogs meant that it took ages to respond to petitions. You'll be glad to hear that the service is getting a much-needed tune-up, though. As of today, the White House plans to respond to any petition that hits the 100,000-signature goal within 60 days "wherever possible." There's also a new team dedicated solely to making sure that the right people see a petition, which should help cut through some of the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Pentagon shuts down Joint Chiefs' email network
The Department of Defense reportedly shut down an unclassified email system on Tuesday after detecting "suspicious activity" over the weekend, according to CNN. The network served General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as a number of civilian contractors. The Pentagon refused to release many details about the attack, even what the "suspicious activity" was; instead downplaying the hack as a run-of-the-mill cyber attack that caused minimal damage.
Apple, Google join White House pledge to fight climate change
Some of the US' bigger tech firms have already made conspicuous efforts to embrace clean energy and otherwise tackle climate change, but they're reinforcing that commitment today. Apple, Google and Microsoft are among the 13 corporate giants helping the White House launch the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, which encourages companies to cut pollution and use sustainable resources. The tech industry members aren't really changing course (they're already using or moving to 100 percent energy, for example). However, they're definitely showing how their bread is buttered -- they're "setting an example" for others, and pushing for good results from the climate negotiations in Paris this year. Think of the pledge as both a publicity grab as well as a formal acknowledgment of ongoing work. [Image credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]
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]
Google Fiber joins the White House's low-income broadband efforts
Google Fiber has a few inroads into less fortunate homes, such as its not-quite-free 5Mbps service, but it's still largely aimed at more affluent households. That's going to change very shortly, however: the White House has revealed ConnectHome, an effort that will bring free or inexpensive ($10 per month) broadband from Google, Sprint and other providers to over 275,000 low-income families in public housing. In Google's case, the service will be available in four of the 28 communities covered by the initiative (Atlanta, Durham, Kansas City and Nashville). All current and future Fiber cities will eventually offer similar service, too.
White House may find more data breaches following security 'sprint'
When investigators discovered that the US Office of Personnel Management had suffered a massive data breach, the White House kicked off a 30-day cybersecurity "sprint" in hopes of boosting its defenses and checking for vulnerabilities. Well, that mad dash is over -- and the government might not like what it found. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott tells Reuters that there's a "realistic chance" that the feds will have word of more intrusions when they share details on July 20th. That kind of discovery won't be completely surprising given how much the US has come under attack, but it could make the OPM breach just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
White House wants to expand people's access to solar energy
The solar industry's apparently doing really well in the US right now, but the White House wants to broaden its reach even further. That's why the administration has launched a new initiative designed to give more people access to solar energy and to create more jobs in the industry. To start with, the government wants to install 300 megawatts of solar and other types of renewable energy in places with federally subsidized housing. Some organizations in over 20 states also promise to conjure up 260 solar projects in an effort to help low-income families.
Thanks, Obama: Now you can take selfies in the White House
We've seen President Barack Obama take a few selfies in the White House before, but until now the practice has been strictly forbidden for visitors on the public tour. Well, today that 40-year-old ban has been officially lifted. From now on, you can use a smartphone or a compact camera with a lens no longer than three inches to take photos inside the building. (Yes, this includes selfies.) While the rules have been relaxed somewhat, there are still plenty of gadgets on the "Prohibited Items" list. These include selfie sticks, tablets, GoPro-style action cameras and any snapper with detachable lenses. Texting, calls and livestreaming are also forbidden -- so no Periscoping while you walk down the entrance hall.
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.
White House launches the Police Data Initiative
Following the police-shooting death of Michael Brown and subsequent riots in Ferguson, MO, the Obama administration assembled a task force charged with somehow easing the adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the citizenry. The White House released those findings this morning and also announced that it is launching the Police Data Initiative, a 21-city pilot program designed to fast track solutions to the task force's suggestions.
White House to announce it's buying 50,000 police body cams
According to The Hill, President Obama is reportedly set to announce a nationwide body camera program on Monday. This pilot project will purchase 50,000 body-worn police cameras at a cost of $20 million and distribute them to law enforcement agencies in a dozen cities. Over the following two years, that figure will balloon to $75 million as the program expands to additional agencies and police departments.
Russian hackers scooped up the President's unclassified email
Russian hackers may have had more success in breaching the White House network than first thought. New York Times sources understand that intruders who got into the White House's unclassified system managed to collect some of President Obama's email. They didn't compromise the account itself, and they didn't snap up the classified messages passing through the President's BlackBerry. However, these messages likely included some "highly sensitive" material, like policy discussions, schedules and staff changes -- the data could have been abused in the worst circumstances.
House passes bill allowing corporations to share your data
If you wanted to explain the dilemma of privacy versus security to a curious relative, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act would be a good place to start. The bill has just been passed by the House of representatives (voting 307-116 in favor), and is designed to prevent future cyber attacks by allowing corporations to share information with each other and the government. Civil liberties groups claim the bill tramples on the privacy of the customers, and opens the door for agencies like the NSA to access their data (not that it needs much help, it seems).
