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U.S. President Barack Obama wasted no time showing that he would continue to use technology to engage the public after reaching office.

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In Obama's highly anticipated inaugural address, he once again turned to technology to solve our problems, but failed to mention small businesses. bMighty.com dissects the speech and presents a slide show of what the new administration will mean to technology and smaller businesses.

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Amid unprecedented pomp and ceremony, Barack Obama will be sworn in at 11:56 a.m. Tuesday. But the honeymoon will be short-lived if America's 44th president is unable to translate vision into policy, and policy into results. The latter will to a great extent depend on the Obama administration's ability to manage information technology.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has decided, in a 5-4 vote, that police can use evidence obtained in searches resulting from erroneous information in databases, as long as the error was a result of negligence -- not "systemic errors or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements."

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The New York Police Department wants the ability to interrupt mobile phone service and other electronic communications during terrorist attacks.

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Much noise has been made in the past week or so about President-elect Barack Obama's creation of a governmental chief tech officer position. My question is: What will be their stance on open source? Will they lean towards it, mandate it, forbid it ... or ignore it entirely? I looked into it, and came away feeling we had much bigger problems looming.

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Technology policy took a front seat on political agendas Wednesday, even though President-elect Barack Obama hadn't named the nation's chief technology officer by late afternoon.

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A model has asked a court to require Google to turn over a name or other information that would identify an anonymous blogger who posted derogatory comments about her sexual behaviors, looks, and mental state.

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U.S. President-elect Barack Obama could name a CTO as early as Wednesday, but some people in the technology sector have complained about how long that has taken.

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There's a little more than a month before President-elect Barack Obama gets sworn in. Based on the hints he's provided so far about his economic stimulus plans and other programs, some pundits are predicting that demand for IT jobs will take off, especially in key sectors.

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President-elect Barack Obama's transition team is rumored to be having some trouble with NASA.

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Several technology giants have backed a plan to increase cybersafety. A group, whose membership includes AOL, AT&T, Cisco, Google, and MySpace, to name a few, has released a list of online safety recommendations for President-elect Barack Obama's administration.

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While the president-elect may not realize it's what he's working on -- he is. And savvy security vendors already should be revamping their marketing plans for the InfoSec Stimulus Package of 2009.

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Many opponents of offshoring, the process by which IT and other jobs are shipped to low-cost countries like India, have blamed the GOP for supposedly selling out the American worker. But there's evidence that Team Obama won't act much differently.

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President-elect Barack Obama has added an advisory group for technology and innovation to his transition team. The newly formed Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform Policy Working Group will draft an "innovation agenda."

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I don't remember when the Obama family strode on stage Election Night, but a review of traffic at the Clickabilty site shows a sudden drop just before 9 p.m. The drop deepens until about 9:26 and then, just as precipitously, traffic resumes at its previous level. It's a snapshot of how the Web can be trumped by traditional media.

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Less than two weeks into U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's transition toward the presidency, it has become clear I'm unlikely to get a job with the next administration.

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The Twitter Vote Report was subject to human judgment and technological error, according to two bloggers from Reno, Nev., who analyzed the network.

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All eyes in the tech community are watching to see who will become the nation's first chief technology officer. While there's plenty of speculation and uncertainty about who will fill those shoes, it's clear what the next president expects from the person who fills them.

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The presidential campaign ended last week, yet the Obama camp sent out another e-mail blast today asking supporters to fork over another donation -- this time to help pay off the debt of the Democratic National Committee. It makes me wonder if Obama will continue to use e-mail communications to get support, and money, from U.S. citizens well into his presidency to help fund federal initiatives.

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America voted for change this year in the face of huge risk and uncertainty. And though technology wasn't a major theme of the 2008 presidential race, there are lessons for today's IT leaders that we saw on the political stage.

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Talk about the courage of your convictions. Author Michael Crichton stood up to the Chablis-sipping, let-the-Third-World-eat-cake ecobullies while living right in their midst in Hollywood. Crichton died Tuesday, but his words live on and should be closely read by the incoming president and anyone else who cares about the economy and jobs.

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If you're an investor, now might be a good time to short stocks in the big tech companies. The Obama administration could make things rough on them.

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Everyone is worried about the economy. But surprisingly, the economy isn't the subject of the top three questions people are asking online at an "answer center" run by Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Visitors are most interested in whether Obama is a Christian and a patriot, and they want to know his position on women's issues.

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There's a lot of uncertainty out there in general when it comes to the economy, next week's elections, and other unknowns, but when it comes to the health care sector, the uncertainty runs a bit deeper, especially when it comes to investments in IT.

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A few weeks ago, I was at a news event with Mike McCurry and I asked the former Clinton press secretary for some perspective on the technology lobby. I wondered whether he thought tech companies were any faster than others in terms of advocating for themselves in Washington.

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Considering technology's colossal impact on our world in recent years, you'd think presidential candidates might talk a bit more about it. Lo and behold, information technology did get a mention in last night's presidential debate.

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While Bob Schieffer receives widespread praise for moderating the last presidential debate Wednesday night, supporters of both candidates have called for change. Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to demand tougher follow-up questions and more openness.

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In the face of the Wall Street meltdown, business owners need all the help they can get. So the bMighty Financial Crisis Survival Kit pulls together the latest news and analysis along with strategies, tips, and tricks to help your company weather the storm and emerge poised for the future.

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IT decision makers are split on which presidential candidate is most likely to help the technology industry, and 40% agree that the next person in the White House is likely to impact the information technology industry in several ways.

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I believe that U.S. Sen. John McCain supports business and innovation. However, a McCain staffer may have over-shot a little when he tried to highlight the impact McCain has had on technology and commerce. And, the misstep has caught the attention of the media.

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Is John McCain an out-of-touch dunderhead who doesn't know the Internet from a series of tubes? Or is he an Internet-savvy septuagenarian who needs someone else to operate the keyboard for him because of his Vietnam war injuries?

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After more than a week of getting pounded by Sarah Palin supporters, Barack Obama's forces are hitting back in a new campaign ad, playing on John McCain's admission that he can't send an e-mail or even use a computer. Obama says these points -- and others -- are evidence that McCain is "out of touch."

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Google runs special versions of its home page to mark everything from the Persian new year to the birthday of Diego Velazquez (who?). So what's on the search giant's Web site today--the seventh anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and UA Flight 93? As of Noon Eastern, nothing.

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The story of Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy has got McCain supporters riled up. They're angry at what they see as yet another conspiracy by the mainstream media to tear down a good conservative while giving liberal darlings like Barack Obama and John Edwards a free pass.

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After U.S. Sen. John McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate for the presidential campaign, I decided to look into her technology track record. I didn't come up with much.

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The publisher of the political blog Daily Kos took us to task last week for our coverage of the controversy over Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy. His letter raises a different issue: To what extent, if any, does the publisher of a site bear responsibility for the comments posted by a member of the site? Are the owners of Web communities obliged to control content posted by their members?

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The story of Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy is an example of the uneasy partnership between journalists and bloggers. The events make it clear what journalists' roles ought to be in the post-blogger era. But it's unclear whether journalists actually did their jobs here, because this is such an ugly story that it's hard to see past the sordid surface to find out what happened.

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Twitter users are having fun with the fact that GOP VP pick Sarah Palin was nearly unknown on the national stage before last week. Twitterers are sharing "little-known facts" about Palin, most of which are ... shall we say? ... of dubious origin.

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Joe Biden has a mixed record on privacy and Internet civil liberties issues. He often votes with the FBI and media companies against consumers and citizens. He sponsored legislation designed to make it illegal to circumvent copy-protection -- even on content and devices you legally own. He also sought to weaken encryption, and introduce a bill like the controversial PATRIOT Act long before 9/11. But in other areas he's defended privacy and cyber-rights.

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When I woke up Saturday morning, I found a text message waiting on my iPhone from the Barack Obama campaign, informing me that the candidate named Joe Biden as running mate. But I already knew that, because I'd already gotten the news the night before -- from newspapers. Old-fashioned journalism -- wordslingers working contacts inside the Obama campaign -- leaked the story in advance of your new-fangled text messaging. Score one for the old school.

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After reading how a John McCain staff blogger insulted Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts with a reference to living in their mothers' basements, I'd like to make a plea to mainstream America. This is on behalf of nerds everywhere: Will you please get some new jokes about us?

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As technologists, we're prone to fall in love with the latest new technology. We think we require the most powerful PCs, the fastest networks, and the smartest smartphones to get our jobs done. But The Daily Show reminds us that we can achieve excellence even when our tools are woefully out-of-date.

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Our next president is going to have a big job securing our nation's IT against criminals and foreign enemies. Our data networks are an important part of the national infrastructure -- and therefore tempting military targets -- along with traditional infrastructure such as dams, power plants, factories, and hospitals. Security expert Bruce Schneier has some short, sensible advice for what the next president will need to do.

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Barack Obama is active on social networks. He swaps e-mail with a Hollywood starlet. He's planning to announce his VP choice over SMS. But this election isn't going to be decided on the Internet. Old media, especially television, will deliver the messages that win the election.

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Sen. Barack Obama will likely become the first presidential candidate to announce his pick for vice president via text message. The Obama campaign announced over the weekend that supporters could sign up to receive e-mail or text messages "the moment Barack makes his decision."

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With the presidential election less than three months away, the missing piece of the puzzle is who will be the vice presidential nominees. Barack Obama recently said he'll be announcing his nominee in a way that might make some say OMG!

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This summer's presidential campaign is shaping up to be remarkably frivolous, and the Internet is providing the laugh track. While America deals with two wars and the possibility of a third, soaring gas prices, and a wobbly economy, the candidates and their supporters argue about flummery: Tire gauges, Paris Hilton, junk food, and biblical prophecy.

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The gropers at the Department of Homeland Security, not content with patting you down and rummaging through your underwear, now say that they can confiscate electronics brought into the United States for any reason, anytime, and share the devices and their contents with anybody.

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Kevin Martin added another brick to his legacy today, with the FCC's ruling against Comcast in the net neutrality dispute. And I use "brick" in the basketball sense, as in a comically misguided shot on goal.

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