Car Tech, Cell Phones, Computers, Celebrities, BlackBerry, TV, Green Tech, Visionaries
Obama's Address Filled With Techie Promises
We know that some of you don't have the time to read through the hundreds of pages in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or even to sit through the hour-long speech, so we've done the heavy lifting for you and broken down how your tax dollars are going to be spent on technological advancement.
- $7 billion for mass transit, including $750 million for high-speed trains
- $7.2 billion for improving broadband infrastructure and penetration
- $650 million for the transition to DTV
- $2 billion to improve IT services for the health care industry, focusing on a shift to electronic medical records
- $1 billion for NASA programs and research
- $3 billion for the National Science Foundation
- $2 billion for research at the Department of Energy
- $220 million for research and grants at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- $2 billion for the development and manufacturing of advanced battery technology, particularly for vehicles
- $15 billion a year for clean or renewable power research, including wind and solar power, biofuels, clean coal technology, and increasing the fuel-efficiency of cars and trucks
Clearly, the stimulus bill represents a huge public investment in technological research and development. The money is geared at not only improving U.S. standing in the global science community, but also at jump starting new industries, saving energy dollars, and weaning us off fossil fuels and foreign oil. While it's clearly too early to tell whether or not these investments will have the intended effect, it's still comforting to see science and technology return to the forefront of domestic policy.
As is often the case with these sorts of things, delving into the finer points of the policy could easily fill a book, so we'll have to keep it short. That being said, one resource not mentioned in the speech was the Recovery.gov Web site. Recovery.gov was created to let the American public track how every dollar of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is spent. While currently there is very little information available at the site, as the money is doled out, data will be made available. The administration has even promised to make the data available in an easily exportable format, such as XML or RSS, so that folks can take the data to perform their own analyses and create mashups. As far as we know, this is a first for any government agency.
Not all of the technology on display yesterday was hidden in a bill or contained in a speech, however. Many members of Congress took to Twitter (and, in at least one case, the video streaming site Qik) to share their take on the stimulus package and President Obama's address. While politicians' presence on Twitter is nothing new, the number in the audience tapping away on their BlackBerrys was truly surprising. CNN counted at least ten actively tweeting congressmen. For the record, that number didn't include the biggest-name Republican on the micro-blogging service: John McCain. [From: Gearlog and CNN]
Related Links:
As is often the case with these sorts of things, delving into the finer points of the policy could easily fill a book, so we'll have to keep it short. That being said, one resource not mentioned in the speech was the Recovery.gov Web site. Recovery.gov was created to let the American public track how every dollar of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is spent. While currently there is very little information available at the site, as the money is doled out, data will be made available. The administration has even promised to make the data available in an easily exportable format, such as XML or RSS, so that folks can take the data to perform their own analyses and create mashups. As far as we know, this is a first for any government agency.
Not all of the technology on display yesterday was hidden in a bill or contained in a speech, however. Many members of Congress took to Twitter (and, in at least one case, the video streaming site Qik) to share their take on the stimulus package and President Obama's address. While politicians' presence on Twitter is nothing new, the number in the audience tapping away on their BlackBerrys was truly surprising. CNN counted at least ten actively tweeting congressmen. For the record, that number didn't include the biggest-name Republican on the micro-blogging service: John McCain. [From: Gearlog and CNN]
Related Links:
_thumbnail.jpg "Vintage Keyboards")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
MyKisa said 5:36AM on 2-26-2009
woopie...maybe we can get one of those , ever so convenient bio-chip implants sooner than later!
Reply
paul said 3:52AM on 2-26-2009
Its about time a president put our money into wise choices! Thank you, Mr. President
Reply
billyjoe777 said 12:12PM on 2-26-2009
all i see here is PORK, and as i see it there is nothing beneficial here for me. This thing is full of shit and rewards for the special interest groups (read lobbiests)
Reply
elidet said 10:32AM on 2-27-2009
You must not be a Millenial.
Someone is going to benefit from that and most likely than not, it's going to be all those teens who grew up on the internet.
If you don't see that innovation is recession proof and we are way behind in it, then you don't understand the economy.
SPARKY said 4:18AM on 3-26-2009
"COP WATCH" in Oakland, shares the blame for the 4 Cops killed this past weekend. "COP WATCH", watch's law enforcement instead of the cold blooded killers in that city with camcorders etc. They bear the blame for the cops initial reluctance to kill that dirty bastard Larvelle Mixon like they should have.
Obama just appointed the person in charge of "COP WATCH" to a position in his administaration!!!
Glad to see you are on the criminals side Barack!! You are an idiot President!!
Reply