Obama calls on Congress to pass bill aimed at helping startups

A day after showing his techno savvy with an appearance in a Google+ hangout, President Obama is calling on Congress to pass new legislation that would aid startups, and put them at the center of an agenda, “Startup America,” focused on creating new jobs.

“The president has made small businesses and particularly start-ups a key aspect of his economic growth agenda because he understands how much the newest and fastest-growing small businesses drive job growth … Continue Reading

Law firm threatens to shut Twitter down for allowing terrorist groups to tweet

Israeli legal center Shurat HaDin has threatened to sue Twitter for allowing alleged terrorist groups to use the service.

In a letter to Twitter, Shurat HaDin executive director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner called Twitter’s allowing Hezbollah and Al-Shabaab (a group affiliated with Al Quaeda) to use the service “illegal” and threatened both the company and its executives with civil and criminal lawsuits.

Hezbollah is a Shi’a Muslim militant group and political party based in Lebanon. Many Western … Continue Reading

How Washington went social in 2011

Politicos have been warming to social media since the 2008 Obama campaign, and 2011 saw more online activity than ever before from U.S. government leaders.

On Facebook specifically, the past year has brought us quite a few memorable highlights — especially as Republican candidates were put through their primary paces and the country geared up for another election year.

But it wasn’t all about political campaigning and self-promotion. Facebook was also a strong platform for … Continue Reading

UK Prime Minister is getting his own iPad app to help run the country

Leading a nation is a tough gig, but soon there may an app for that, too.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, a huge iPad fan, is having a special iPad app made for his particular country-running needs.

According to a report in The Times, the Prime Minister (and someday soon, anyone else) will be able to use the app to get broad and detailed information about Great Britain’s vital signs.

The Times’ sources say the … Continue Reading

Bradley Manning, alleged WikiLeaks leak, finally gets his court date

PFC Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier who was arrested in May 2010 for passing information to WikiLeaks, has finally been given a court date.

Manning’s hearing will begin December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and is expected to last around five days.

The majority of the proceedings will be open to the public, except when classified information is being discussed.

The accused’s lawyer says the hearing is being held “to evaluate the relative … Continue Reading

China shrugs off U.S. accusations of cyber espionage

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said a new U.S. government report on cyber espionage was “unprofessional and irresponsible”. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the statement today at a press conference in Beijing.

The Foreign Economic and Industrial Espionage Report, which was delivered to Congress yesterday by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX), stated that China and Russia have been using cyber spying tactics to steal U.S. secrets, including our technology.

Implying that … Continue Reading

Google shows how governments are getting information about you

Google has released a report on how governments and police agencies are accessing information about web users.

By showing how many requests Google gets for user information — and exactly how many users and accounts are under some kind of surveillance — the company hopes to have a positive effect on public policies around government access to citizens’ online activities.

“All too often, policy that affects how information flows on the Internet is created in … Continue Reading

Facebook teams with U.S. government to help in jobs crisis

Facebook is partnering with the Department of Labor and other government agencies to help unemployed Americans get back to work, the company announced today in Washington, D.C.

The Social Jobs Partnership, as the initiative is properly called, will “help to close the gap between people and employers, said Facebook’s VP of global public policy Marnie Levine.

The partners in this initiative realize that people are already using social media to find jobs and that companies … Continue Reading

World’s newest country, South Sudan, liveblogs its own birth

The new nation of South Sudan celebrated its birth with flag-waving, street celebrations and an official liveblog.

“FREE at last!” proclaims the website goss.org, which states it is the official website of the South Sudanese government.

Scroll down, and you find regular updates from the streets of Juba, where the blog notes that jubilant citizens are gathering to celebrate the creation of the new South Sudanese state. The blow-by-blow account records what was going on … Continue Reading

White House CIO Vivek Kundra quits

The White House on Thursday said the first-ever chief information officer of the federal government, Vivek Kundra, will leave in August after two-and-a-half years of service. No successor to Kundra has been named.

In a blog post, Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew said Kundra had “cracked down on wasteful IT spending, saved $3 billion in taxpayer dollars, moved the government to the cloud, [and] strengthened the cybersecurity posture of the nation while … Continue Reading

Forget piracy, U.S. government is going after Bitcoin

Not satisfied with eliminating digital piracy from the world, two U.S. senators want to crack down on Bitcoin, an open-source digital currency.

Senators Charles Schumer and Joe Manchin are pressing officials to take action against Bitcoin, which Gawker recently claimed is being used on underground black markets to purchase illegal drugs. The senators expressed their concerns in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart, Reuters reports.

Unlike other … Continue Reading

Chinese Gmail hack targeted White House staff

White House staffers were among those targeted by Chinese hackers that recently tried to break into hundreds of Gmail accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal. The hackers were hoping that senior administration employees would be using their private email accounts for official business.

Google previously indicated that the hackers were attempting to hijack accounts using “phishing” scams, where users are tricked into giving up their passwords. The attacks were also aimed at Chinese political … Continue Reading

Cleversafe scores $31.4M to pull governments securely into the cloud

Cloud storage platform provider Cleversafe said today it had closed an extended fourth round of funding to the tune of $31.4 million, as it further expands into target markets such as government and public safety where storing sensitive data is increasingly critical.

The Chicago-based startup’s technology breaks data apart and stores it in multiple locations.

That makes it cheaper and more secure than traditional data storage methods, Chris Gladwin, CEO and founder of Cleversafe, told … Continue Reading

Apple looks to Unisys for help with enterprise, government sales

Apple is seeking to further increase its reach to businesses and U.S. government agencies with the help of enterprise technology and service company Unisys, Bloomberg reports.

Apple has signed a deal to have Unisys provide maintenance and other services for its products to businesses and government agencies — a bold new move for a company unused to relying on others for support.

Apple has traditionally focused on consumer sales. It makes sense for the company … Continue Reading

New York, New York: A heckuva tech platform?

Already the most successful tech entrepreneur in New York City’s history, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration are hard at work transforming government into a platform where the tech and social media communities can create solutions to problems facing the nation’s financial hub.

Last week, in the Bloomberg administration’s most recent monthly strategy workshop, staff from a number of city agencies discussed technology and social media strategy with a panel of city leaders including Deputy … Continue Reading

SunPower lands sweet array of government contracts

Solar energy company SunPower Corp. has landed a sweet array of installation contracts for U.S. government entities, amounting to about 20 megawatts’ worth of new solar projects for groups such as the Navy and Marine Corps.

The company declined to release how much these contracts are worth financially, but to give some idea of their impact, SunPower is saying the new business will generate 1,000 local jobs during their construction.

One of the plums SunPower … Continue Reading

CTO Aneesh Chopra says technology can't be siloed in government

Solar energy company SunPower Corp. has landed a sweet array of installation contracts for U.S. government entities, amounting to about 20 megawatts’ worth of new solar projects for groups such as the Navy and Marine Corps.

The company declined to release how much these contracts are worth financially, but to give some idea of their impact, SunPower is saying the new business will generate 1,000 local jobs during their construction.

One of the plums SunPower … Continue Reading