July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

During Tuesday’s State of the Union addresses before Congress, President Obama repeatedly stressed the importance of new “research and technology.”

Arguably the overarching theme for tonight’s address was innovation: the President applauded Apple for its plans to manufacture Macs in America, referenced new technologies like 3D printing, and called for levels of research and development on par with the 1960s during the “Space Race.”

“Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing,” the President said. “If we want to make the best products, we also have to invest in the best ideas,” he continued.

There are things we can do, right now, to accelerate this trend. Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio. A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything….Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race.” (President Barack Obama, State of the Union ’13)

The State of the Union (#SOTU) address touched on a variety of important issues, including bi-partisanship and the relationship with Congress, alternative energy, the War, and gun control. But we pulled out the key moments that are most relevant to the tech community:

Teaching kids to code

The President said that our children aren’t being educated with the requisite skills to fill the high-tech jobs of the future. He stressed that schools that worked with employers and colleges to create classes focused on science, technology, engineering, and math, would be rewarded. Obama referenced schools like P-Tech in Brooklyn, which collaborated with New York Public Schools, the City University of New York, and IBM, to ensure students graduated with a high school diploma and an associate degree in computers or engineering.

Obama stressed that college is over-priced and out of reach for millions of students and families. He said that taxpayers could not subsidize the rising cost of higher-ed and asked that colleges do their part to keep costs down. He asked Congress to alter the Higher Education Act so that “affordability and value” determine which colleges receive federal aid.

Key quotes:

• Tonight, I’m announcing a new challenge to redesign America’s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy.”
• “Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on — by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime.”

The President’s proposed solutions: 

• Working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.
• A new “College Scorecard” that parents and students can use to compare schools based on simple criteria: where they can get the most bang for your educational buck.

Encouraging foreign-born entrepreneurs

Obama stressed that immigration reform would help technology companies to attract skilled entrepreneurs and engineers to the U.S. He said that “real reform” involves cutting wait periods and reducing bureaucracy.

But commentators pointed out shortly after the speech that the President didn’t offer concrete solutions to this issue, beyond a vague call for “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Key quote:

• “Send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months, and I will sign it right away.”
  

The President’s proposed solution:

• Comprehensive immigration reform and stronger border security.

Bolstering our cyber defenses

Obama said that America faces a growing threat from cyber attacks; “hackers” who are stealing people’s online identities and accessing sensitive information behind firewalls. The President referenced the executive order signed today that would strengthen cyber defenses through the development of a set of best practices.

The President stressed that we need to protect our infrastructure, especially with the recent rash of hacker attacks against major U.S. newspapers, banks and federal agencies. Just a few weeks ago, the Washington Post joined the growing list of publications whose computers were penetrated by Chinese hackers.

Key quotes:

• “We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets. Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems.
• “We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.”

The President’s proposed solution: 

• Obama called for Congress to pass legislation to give government “greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks.”

The indomitable rise of healthcare-technology

The President was particularly strong when making an appeal for affordable healthcare. He repeatedly referenced the Affordable Care Act, and said that one of the biggest drivers of long-term debt is the rising cost of healthcare for the aging population.

Med-tech entrepreneurship received a boost last year when Todd Park, cofounder of Athenahealth and Castlight was was promoted from CTO of the Department of Health and Human Services to CTO of the United States. Already, Park has been instrumental in launching a Presidential Innovation Fellows program, which invites innovators from outside government to work with the powers that be to solve socio-economic problems, particularly those facing health providers and hospitals.

On the topic of Medicaid, Obama proposed reforms that would “achieve the same amount of healthcare savings by the beginning of the next decade as the reforms proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.”

Key quote: 

• “Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of healthcare costs.”

The President’s proposed solution: 

• Obama proposed reducing taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies and asking more from the wealthiest seniors. He said medical bills shouldn’t be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital — “they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive.”

Read the full text of the State of the Union address here. 

Much like its response to the public petition to build a Death Star, the latest video uploaded to the official White House YouTube channel once again proves that presidential administration is at least somewhat in tune (or perhaps in step?) with today’s popular culture.

Rather than release a string of boring press releases and interview spots on leading cable news channels, the White House released a dubstep video to get every one pumped for tonight’s State of the Union address. For those of you who don’t follow politics even a little bit, this is where the president of the United States talks about the current state of our nation and what we have planned in the year ahead.

But while the video is pure dubstep, its actually part of the administrations effort to make citizens aware of the new enhanced livestream available on the White House’s official Website and mobile apps, which will feature charts and graphs while the president gives his address tonight.

Check out the video (embedded above) and let us know what you think in the comment section.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has a busy day ahead of him tomorrow.

After heading up the keynote at Goldman Sach’s technology conference in San Francisco Tuesday morning, Cook will head to Washington, D.C., to sit beside First Lady Michelle Obama during the State of the Union address, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

This isn’t the first time the Obama’s shined a light on Apple. Last year during the State of the Union, his administration invited Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, to sit alongside Michelle. The First Lady also invited NASA’s Bobak Ferdowsi, a member of the Mars Curiosity Rover team, to attend the address this year.

Cook was originally scheduled to speak at the tech conference at 1:15 p.m., but this afternoon Goldman issued an updated agenda that pushed his keynote to 7:15 a.m., according to Barrons. It’s not unusual for tech conferences to book their speakers for later in the day, but with the scheduling change Cook will end up being the first speaker of the day.

Apple will stream Cook’s keynote via its website tomorrow, and we’ll be following along to report on any juicy tidbits. He may end up addressing Greenlight Capital’s lawsuit against Apple as well as the company’s recent spectacular success in China. Just don’t expect Cook to say anything about rumors like the bigger iPhone and the iWatch.

Photo: Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat

Twitter has previously reported moments of unusually high activity, such as pop singer Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement during MTV Video Music Awards, a tense U.S. women’s soccer team game, and Japan’s New Year’s Eve 2010 celebration. The most frequently cited metric Twitter uses during these events is “tweet’s per second” (TPS), which is determined by measuring the number of times the world mentions a specific subjected over the course of a single second in time. Although during President Barack Obama’s address, the company thought it more relevant to use a Tweets per minute (TPM) metric.

According to Twitter’s analysis, the most frequently tweeted minutes included a mention of Education / College Tuition (12,870 TPM) at 9:35 p.m. ET, Innovation / Steve Jobs (13,956 TPM) at 9:38 p.m. ET, and — oddly enough — a joke mentioning “Spilled Milk” (14,131 TPM) at 9:51 p.m. ET.

The core themes mentioned in Tweets during the address included education (35, 972), energy (27,215) and jobs (22,502). Also, Twitter counted 548 total tweets sent by members of congress during the address.

While the data is definitely interesting, I’m more impressed with Twitter’s quick turn around as well as the relevant metrics identified. The company is definitely planning to use its real-time data to show genuine behavior, and the demonstrations presented from the State of the Union address are likely barely scratching the surface.

Following the data results, Vice President Joe Biden announced that he would participate in his first Twitter discussion tomorrow (Jan. 26.), undoubtedly with the aid of a tech-savvy intern or administrative aid.

For a more detailed look at the data, check out the infographic from Twitter embedded below. (Click image to enlarge.)

It will always be with you

Google made some sweeping changes to its privacy policies yesterday. It let users know it will be combining data from all of its services, from search to email to photos. This will give Google a much more detailed picture of its users, allowing it to deliver more relevant services, and of course, more targeted advertisements.

People have a right to be angry about this. Faye Kakia, a fashion designer who creates virtual clothing to sell in Second Life, used Google’s blogger service to showcase her outfits. She was upset when Blogger began leading people back to her Google+ profile, revealing her true identity. By combining its services, Google makes anonymity more difficult.

But for Google to survive in the long-term, the company had to make this change. Google’s revenue comes almost entirely from advertising, and advertisers are increasingly turning to Facebook, because it enables them to target users based on their personal information and social graph.

That’s why Larry Page has reportedly been telling employees who are unhappy about integrating social results into search, “This is the path we’re headed down, a single, unified, beautiful product across everything. If you don’t get that, then you should probably work somewhere else.”

As I wrote over the weekend, Google has the raw material to build a powerful social network. There are hundreds of millions of people who use Gmail. The service can already recognize the difference between my friends, my family and my co-workers. Through Picasa, it can automatically recognize them in photos, just as Facebook does. And with Android it is beginning to chart the most intimate social graph, the people we call and text with.

It’s important to remember among all this hysteria that Google won’t be getting rid of its original search product, which is completely agnostic when it comes to social relevancy. With a single click users can turn off all the social mojo and have the old-fashioned search results they are used to. And as Kashmir Hill points out, since 2005 Google has stated in its privacy policy that it combines information from different services to get the best picture of users.

Google will be in for some major headaches down the road. Just like Facebook, it will experience intense public backlash every time it deepens its collection of people’s personal data. Idealistic alternatives like Diaspora have appeared, but so far no one has created an alternative business model for the social web, one that leaves users personal data alone, and also grows a profitable business at scale.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama recognized startups and entrepreneurs for innovating and creating new jobs, while calling for reforms that would support everyone who “aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.”

The speech focused heavily on leveling the playing field between the U.S. and other countries so that America’s economy could be more competitive, and included key calls to action that would directly affect the startup community. He asked for an end to regulations that prevent entrepreneurs from getting financing, tax breaks for small businesses creating jobs, immigration reform, and more training for technology jobs.

There were some Silicon Valley notables in the audience. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger was a guest, mostly likely invited to drive home the dual points that startups create jobs and responsible immigration reform creates startups. Also in the First Lady’s box was Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow. Obama name-checked the Apple co-founder while talking about the importance of encouraging talented people in business:

An economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country… we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs.

Obama wasn’t the only one to drop the late Steve Jobs’ name for dramatic effect. In the Republican response immediately following the State of the Union, Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana used him as an example of the kind of businessman Obama is supposedly against.

Contrary to the President’s constant disparagement of people in business, it’s one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs, what a fitting name he had, created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.

On the topic of startups and innovation creating jobs, Obama had this to say:

Innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses. So let’s pass an agenda that helps them succeed. Tear down regulations that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from getting the financing to grow. Expand tax relief to small businesses that are raising wages and creating good jobs.

Obama cited the need for job training to meet our current needs, applauding existing partnerships, like those between companies such as Siemens and community colleges, that provide specialized job training:

Growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job.

Obama asked for immigration reform for non-citizens already in the country, especially children and educated immigrants with skills and ideas that could contribute to the economy. The solution, a law that allows them to earn citizenship, isn’t a new idea. The DREAM Act, which would give some immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors a path to citizenship, was reintroduced to the Senate in May 2011.

Hundreds of thousands of talented, hardworking students in this country face another challenge: The fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else.

The President also announced the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit to crack down on practices by other countries that he feels have negative impact on the U.S. economy. The unit will focus on counterfeit goods and monitoring unfair trade between the U.S. and other countries, with a special focus on China.

It’s not right when another country let our movies, music, and software be pirated.

No mention was made of the recent pushes by lawmakers to crack down on pirating of American movies, music, and software with the SOPA and PIPA bills.