Obama launches iPhone app; US election good for Twitter

Obama Campaign launches iPhone app

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign launched an iPhone application on Thursday that turns the vaunted device into a political recruiting tool. You can learn more about this app at the Obama iPhone app Web site.

The most notable feature "organizes and prioritizes your contacts by key battleground states, making it easy to reach out and make an impact quickly," according to the software.

On my phone, the application ranked contacts in Colorado, Michigan, and New Mexico at the top; at the bottom was a friend whose cell phone has a Texas number, though she actually lives in California.

The application anonymously reports back the number of calls made this way: "Your privacy is important: no personal data or contacts will be uploaded or stored. Only the total number of calls you make is uploaded anonymously."

The software is the latest effort by politicians to capitalize on technology, joining other examples such as ads distributed through YouTube, Web-based fund-raising, Facebook pages and fan groups, and e-mail recruitment drives.

The Obama for America iPhone application is available for download through Apple's iTunes store, said Raven Zachary, an iPhone consultant who's directing the launch effort.

A "get involved" feature uses the phone's GPS-based location sensing to find the nearest Obama campaign headquarters, and "local events" likewise pulls up a list of activities sorted by proximity.

A "media" section provides links to video and photos, but beware: YouTube showed errors following some of the links. Perhaps the newer videos hadn't been prepared for iPhone display yet.

The application also shows Obama statements to the news media and a guide to Obama's positions on various issues.

Additionally, the application shows how many calls have been made nationwide and how many you made. Those statistics are the kind that can motivate people--they can feel like they're part of something bigger. That may sound a bit silly as a motivational tool, but consider that Smule's Sonic Lighter application for the iPhone is popular, despite the fact that it costs 99 cents more than its free competition, likely because people can see where else on the globe people are using it and because the longer you run the application, the bigger your own spot on the map becomes. It's a kind of competition.

Twitter benefiting from US presidential election debates:

Twitter usage and sign-ups received a healthy boost during last Friday’s first presidential debate for the 08 campaign. The official Twitter blog reports that, despite Friday traditionally being a slow traffic day:

• Friday updates jumped 18.5% from previous Friday.


• Updates during the debate increased 160% compared to same time last week.


• Signups on Friday were up 23%.


• Signups during the debate were up 135% compared to same time last week.

Although, as Wired notes, the shot in arm for Twitter also co-incided with the company’s launch of a dedicated politics tracker - Twitter’s new Election 2008 site - and the blog/mainstream media attention that followed. Of course the fact that this has translated into increased sign-ups and use suggests that chicken or egg, the strategy is paying off.

Google Pirate Search

Google Celebrates Talk Like A Pirate Day too!

Check out Google Pirate search !

Red Alert 3 Game Trailer: The Remix

Obama Campaign Reveals Science Advisors

Barack Obama has established a small but well-regarded inner circle of science advisors that includes a vocal critic of creationism, a Nobel laureate who has championed open-access research, and another laureate who used his prize money to defend academic freedom against the war on terror. Though their influence on the policies of a prospective Obama administration are unknown, they've played a prominent role in establishing his science platform to date.

Obama announced his science platform earlier this month in response to questions posed by ScienceDebate2008, a nonpartisan political education group. In response to a Wired Science follow-up, the campaign identified five people who helped draft Obama's statement: Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and former head of the National Institutes of Health; Gilbert Ommen, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Peter Agre, a Nobel laureate and ardent critic of the Bush administration; NASA researcher Donald Lamb; and Stanford University plant biologist Sharon Long.

Republican candidate John McCain responded to the ScienceDebate2008 questions on Monday, but his campaign ignored multiple requests for the identity of its science advisors.

On paper, both candidates have outlined a generally strong approach to science. There are differences -- Obama emphasizes basic-research funding and proposes moderately more ambitious greenhouse-gas cuts, while McCain supports a new wave of nuclear power and would outlaw some embryonic stem cell research -- but they are generally small. And at this pre-presidential moment, neither platform may provide more than a hazy indication of what each man would do as president.

Non-binding campaign rhetoric may be less important than the advisors they assemble when you're trying to divine the realities of each candidate's presidency.

"Neither of the candidates is a scientist to start with," said Thomas Murray, president of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan bioethics think tank. "We can presume that they're going to rely on experts in science and science policy. It is important to know who their advisors are."

In some ways, Obama's team is a mix of contrasting approaches: Lamb and Agre are both academics, while Omenn is a director of the biotechnology company Amgen and Long was a director at agricultural giant Monsanto. In other ways, their expertise is narrow: four of the five advisors come from the life sciences.

"There are a lot of excellent scientists in major fields that we're going to need research in," said Martin Apple, president of the Council of Science Society Presidents, a confederation of scientific societies whose membership spans more than one million scientists and teachers. "The inner circle would be much improved by increasing the range of disciplines."

Apple was confident that Obama would be able to assemble such a team. "He's certainly the kind of person who tends to build larger consultation groups," he said. "All of [the advisors] have networks of people who would be able to put high-quality appointments together."

The Team:

Harold Varmus: President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He won a Nobel Prize in 1989 for breakthroughs in cancer genetics. Under Clinton, he directed the National Institutes of Health; the agency's budget doubled, but his legacy was tainted by his permitting NIH researchers to take excessive payments from pharmaceutical companies. A champion of open-access research, Varmus co-founded the Public Library of Science. He chairs the scientific board of Grand Challenges in Global Health, launched by the Gates Foundation and NIH to improve health in the developing world. Varmus was an advisor to the now-defunct Campaign to Defend the Constitution, launched to combat the political influence of the religious right. His political contributions and a list of industry ties are available.

Gilbert Omenn: Professor of internal medicine, human genetics and public health at the University of Michigan. Former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; during his tenure he denounced anti-evolution education laws, and has been a vocal critic of creationism. “The logic that convinces us that evolution is a fact is the same logic we use to say smoking is hazardous to your health or we have serious energy policy issues because of global warming,” he told reporters this year. “I would worry that a president who didn’t believe in the evolution arguments wouldn’t believe in those other arguments either. This is a way of leading our country to ruin.” Omenn is a director of Amgen, a biotechnology company, and served in the Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Carter. His campaign contributions and a list of industry ties are available.

Peter Agre: Director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. After winning a Nobel Prize in 2003 for discovering proteins that move water through cell membranes, he pledged to use the prize money to defend scientific freedom from the restrictions of the war on terror. He has been sharply critical of President Bush's climate change policies. "The Bush administration has been a disaster for the environment,"  he said in 2004. "If we wait until there's unequivocal proof that this is the cause of global climate change, it will be too late." Agre helped found Scientists and Engineers for America, a non-partisan science advocacy group. An advocate of increased government investment in science, he wants more scientists to run for public office. He has appeared twice on The Colbert Report.

Don Lamb: A University of Chicago astrophysicist and expert in stellar evolution, Lamb helped found the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which has been described as "the most ambitious astronomical survey ever undertaken," and recorded the most distant explosion ever. A Mission Scientist on NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer, he has fought to maintain NASA's research budget. "Science at NASA is disappearing — fast," he told the New York Times in 2006. Lamb has also argued against the privatization of commercial space flight. ''Space exploration,'' he told the Times, ''particularly manned space exploration, is just too expensive and risky to attract private enterprise, especially venture capitalists."

Sharon Long: Recently stepped down as dean of Stanford University's School of Humanities & Science to return to her research on the symbiosis of soil bacteria with alfalfa. Long resigned last year from the Board of Directors of Monsanto, an agricultural biotechnology corporation. A former MacArthur Fellow, Long is a member of the leadership council of the National Academy of Sciences. She has contributed to the campaigns of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Images: Chad Davis; Harvard University; University of Michigan; Johns Hopkins; Stanford University.

John McCain vs John McCain

Since it's always fun to listen to John McCain argue with John McCain, let's revisit McCain's two reactions to the Wall Street meltdown yesterday. First there was this:

And then, a couple of hours later:

Besides probably being the fastest flip-flop in political history, these two conflicting statements also provide some insight for undecided voters...they learned that that famous "straight talk" isn't all it's cracked up to be, and that John McCain is right...he really doesn't know too much about economics.

Former Virginia Governor's Comment On Science At Convention Lights Up Twitter

Reposted from Wired

It didn't ignite the crowd at the Pepsi Center in Denver Tuesday night in the same way as Hillary Clinton's speech did, but the 2008 Democratic National Convention keynoter of former Virginia Governor Mark Warner lit up the micro-blogging service Twitter as its geek community celebrated a throwaway line in Warner's speech.

Warner, a former Capitol Hill staffer for senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and telecommunications entrepreneur, focused his speech on creating an environment that keeps America competitive in the global economy.

In a one-liner, he quipped: "Just think about this: In four months, we will have an administration that actually believes in science!"

It was as if Warner were acknowledging a constituency that feels as if the Bush administration had thrown a Harry Potter invisible cloak over it for the past eight years. Many members of that online constituency poked their heads out from under the cloak on Twitter.

"In four months, we'll have an administration that actually believes in science. lol, but YEAH!" tweeted kmcg.

"My fav from 2nite: 'Just think about this: in six months we will have an administration that actually believes in science'-Mark Warner; YES!" agreed tujaded.

Those were just two of a slew of comments on Twitter reacting to Warner's remark. Here's a quick summary:

• jlangenbeck: "Warner's speech was fantastic. We have to fund and tech to save this nation and remain competitive,"


• epolitics: "Diggin' me some Mark Warner.  Science! (poetry in motion)"


• dagsalot: "I'm a big fan of former Gov. Mark Warner right now. 'Think, in 4 months, we could have a presidency that believes in science!' It'd be nice!"


• twitterdoug: "Best line of Warner's speech so far -- In four months we will have an administration that believes in science."

During his talk, Warner also pointed to the importance of broadband rollout, education and job training to keep jobs from migrating to India, referring to his own efforts as governor to revive small towns in Virginia.

"We delivered broadband to the most remote areas of our state, because if you can send a job to Bangalore, India, you can sure as heck send one to Danville, Virginia, and to Flint, Michigan, and to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and to Peoria, Illinois," he said. "In a global economy, you shouldn't have to leave your hometown to find a world-class job."

The Democrats have made broadband rollout part of their party platform, and both Obama and Warner have expressed support for net neutrality.

Mozilla Labs' Ubiquity: Firefox becomes Quicksilver

Lots of talk today across the web about Mozilla Labs' new project, Ubiquity.

If You Want To Create a Mashup, Just Ask Your Browser. Mozilla Labs Launches Ubiquity

Ubiquity prototype lets users take command of Firefox

Ubiquity: Firefox Gets its Quicksilver On

This blog has a nice writeup: Ubiquity In Depth

Quoted from Ars Technica:

Mozilla Labs has released the first working prototype of Ubiquity, a natural-language command-based shell for the Firefox web browser. Although the Ubiquity project is still in early stages of development and the software still has some serious bugs, it already offers some useful functionality and exudes an enormous amount of potential.

The Ubiquity prototype, which is implemented as a Firefox extension, offers an unobtrusive and extensible command interface that enables users to interact with the browser and a number of remote web services. The user can launch the Ubiquity command interface with a configurable keyboard shortcut and then type in an instruction. The command interface has an autocompletion mechanism which attempts to guess the rest of the user's command string and then displays available results.

The command interface is conceptually similar to desktop launcher tools like Enso, Quicksilver, and GNOME-Do. Unlike those tools, it places a strong emphasis on web content manipulation and web services. In many ways, it's like an interactive mash-up system. Ubiquity can respond to user instructions in several different ways. It can directly alter the contents of a web page, it can manipulate the browser interface, it can load a page in a new tab, and it can display output in a notification pop-up.

New commands can be implemented natively in JavaScript, so it is trivially easy to extend the system and bring it new capabilities. The developers have even created a simple Ubiquity command editor that allows users to input new command implementations directly into the browser. Mozilla provides a detailed tutorial that explains how some of default Ubiquity commands were implemented. It is even possible to use popular third-party JavaScript libraries like JQuery to simplify development of new commands. The Ubiquity developers aim to eventually create a tool that can automatically convert Ubiquity commands into full Firefox extensions.

One of the commands that particularly impressed me performs in-place translation of selected text blocks. The user selects a bit of text, initiates the Ubiquity command system, and then begins typing the word "translate" to select the translation command. Ubiquity will use a remote translation web service to automatically detect the language of the selected text, translate it into English, and display a preview of the English translation in the Ubiquity results listing. When the user hits enter to complete the command, the foreign text in the page itself will be replaced inline with the English translation.

Ubiquity offers some very compelling functionality in its current state, but it still has a lot of limitations. The biggest weakness is its lack of support for pipelines. Modularity and support for combinatorial command chains are the greatest strengths of the conventional Linux command-line shells. Ubiquity would be far more powerful if it provided a way to supply the output of one command as the input to a subsequent command.

Ubiquity is largely an experiment in user interaction, but it is likely that some of its functionality will eventually be streamlined directly into the Firefox browser itself. One potential integration vector is the Firefox AwesomeBar, a rich autocompletion system that matches user input against fragments of URLs and page titles and offers the best results based on how frequently a page is visited and how long ago it was last viewed. Many enthusiastic fans of the AwesomeBar have speculated that the system could be expanded to encapsulate more functionality and potentially even a full command system. Perhaps the AwesomeBar could converge with the search box and the Ubiquity command system to form a next-generation Firefox UberBar.

One of the principal developers of the Ubiquity extension is Aza Raskin, the founder of Humanized and son of the celebrated Macintosh luminary Jef Raskin. Aza and several of his colleagues from Humanized were hired by Mozilla earlier this year to work on experimental projects that could shape the future of the web. I've had the pleasure of meeting Aza at several open-source software community events and I've always been immensely impressed by his excellent presentations on software usability. He has bold ideas and very intriguing solutions to seemingly intractable usability problems.

Aza advocates creating software that conforms to the Taoist notion of Wu Wei, which is to "act without doing." The Ubiquity extension, which clearly builds on the experiences that the Humanized developers cultivated while creating Enso, is a profoundly elegant articulation of that Taoist concept.

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