3.10.2016
Good to Know: It’s almost festival season … Super cool tech and music festival South by Southwest kicks off this weekend. Even, U.S. President Barack Obama is making a cameo. #Jelly
THE SKINNY
When You’re Trying to Get Your House in Order …
These days, we’re used to hearing about the Googles and the Facebooks of the world trying to bring Internet access to emerging and underrepresented areas. But, this week, President Obama is keeping things closer to home. The Administration announced new broadband plan for the U.S. called ConnectALL.
When Things Aren’t As They Seem …
Over the past 15 years, Internet access has been growing like gangbusters in America but is still very much out of reach for some households. ConnectALL intends to bring broadband access to underserved communities.
When You Need to Move, NOW …
The Administration is wasting no time and plans to kick off an immediate effort – a new digital literacy pilot project. Calling all, Americorps volunteers to help people step up their computer skills at libraries, museums, and other community centers located in these areas.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
When You Haven’t Over-Stayed Your Welcome …
The Obama Administration is coming out strong this week with yet another announcement. This time, it’s talking immigration policy for highly-skilled, foreign-born workers – always a hot topic in tech sector. Good news for foreign students studying science, technology, math, or engineering (STEM). After snatching up their diplomas, they’re now welcome to stay in the country for 3 years to get jobs and get their hands on those sometimes elusive H-1B visas aka work visas to stay state-side legally. But of course, not everyone’s happy on account of the counter-argument that this will take jobs away from Americans and all.
Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda …
Billionaire media mogul and former New York City Michael Bloomberg bowed out of getting into the U.S. presidential election as an independent. It’s unfortunate for some, including sharing economy companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, AirBnB, etc. The word is Bradley Tusk, who led Bloomberg’s NYC campaign, would’ve incorporated these services into Bloomberg’s would’ve-been campaign. Tusk figured since there’s no blue print to run as an independent, the sharing economy would’ve been the perfect match to get things going for field operations (e.g., hiring Ubers to get people to the polls). Oh, what would’ve been!
Real Quick …
While we’re on the election, former HP CEO and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has officially backed Senator Ted Cruz in his bid … In case you didn’t get that. That’s Fiorina telling Cruz: Hello? It’s me. I was wondering if after all the months, I could be your potential VP.
QUICK POLL – RUN THOSE NUMBERS …
About 47% of Americans surveyed are #TeamApple, and we’re not talking Apple Martin aka the daughter of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and rocker Chris Martin. Most Americans in a recent Pew survey are siding with the smartphone manufacturer in its beef with the U.S. government over encryption.
THE STREETS ARE TALKIN’
Not an astronaut? No worries, Amazon CEO and owner of space startup Blue Origins Jeff Bezos is working on test flights for regular folks beginning in 2017. The goal is to make things offisch by selling tix for short suborbital flights to us in 2018. Your move, Elon Tusk & SpaceX …
Anonymous messaging app Yik Yak is probably getting tired of always being in the middle of controversy. User names are now a thing for the app.
Facebook and Google want to share their data center designs with you via the Open Compute Project. It’s a win-win … People get to give these companies a hand in advancing Internet hardware and the companies get to keep their hardware costs low, low, low, low …
BTW, Facebook isn’t back down from competitor Snapchat. The OG social media platform (relatively speaking) just bought video filter app Msqrd.
It’s getting’ hot out there … You know what that means? Let the trip planning begin. Not sure where to go? Google it, duh! The search engine’s got a new feature called Destinations to help with your planning needs.
Instagram just pulled the kill-switch on “Being,” its app intended to give users an inside look into another user’s Insta for discovery purposes. Probably for the best on account of all its technical problems.