There may not accept been any tech assembly on FLOTUS’s coveted bedfellow account at the State of the Union abode Tuesday, but technology had the spotlight in Admiral Obama’s speech.
“Today in America … an administrator addled on the lights in her tech startup, and did her allotment to add to the added than 8 actor fresh jobs our businesses accept created over the accomplished four years,” said Mr. Obama.
And that was aloof the additional sentence.
Innovation has consistently been a above talking point in the anniversary SOTU speech, but aftermost night Obama wove technology into several of the overarching capacity of his message: employment, education, and the all-around economy. But whether these mentions were aloof talking credibility in a accent or area for absolute change abide on a case-by-case basis.
Science, technology, engineering, and algebraic (STEM) apprenticeship has been the activity cry of education-oriented politicians as of late, but in the SOTU, Obama affected on a altered aspect of education: wireless access.
“Tonight, I can advertise that with the abutment of the [Federal Communications Commission] and companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sprint, and Verizon, we’ve got a bottomward acquittal to alpha abutting added than 15,000 schools and 20 actor acceptance over the abutting two years, afterwards abacus a dime to the deficit,” he said.
Last year, Obama apprenticed to get 99 percent of acceptance admission to accelerated Internet in schools, and it turns out this is one swear he can accomplish afterwards aldermanic support. The FCC already pays for Internet admission at schools through a affairs alleged “E-Rate”, and FCC administrator Tom Wheeler says in a account that the FCC will administer “business-like administering practices” to accomplish the funds go added this year.
“In the Internet age, every apprentice in America should accept admission to advanced educational tools, which are added interactive, individualized, and bandwidth-intensive,” Mr. Wheeler says.
However, there were no added capacity appear on partnerships with tech companies. The White House says it will absolution added advice about the role of these companies in advancing weeks.
The admiral apprenticed that added good advancing acceptance would additionally advance to added able advisers for growing sectors, such as high-tech manufacturing. Obama acicular out that his administering has opened two high-tech accomplishment hubs, one in Raleigh, N.C., and one in Youngstown, Ohio, and will be aperture six added in the advancing year. He said auspicious addition is key to befitting America on par with growing addition sectors overseas.
“China and Europe aren’t continuing on the sidelines, and neither should we,” he said. “We apperceive that the nation that goes all-in on addition today will own the all-around abridgement tomorrow. This is an bend America cannot surrender. Federally adjourned analysis helped advance to the account and inventions abaft Google and acute phones.”
Though it seems that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Verizon, and the added tech companies alleged in the SOTU were about lauded, Obama wasn’t absolutely agog on the tech industry. Specifically, he alleged out tech companies for assiduity apparent wars, and Congress for absolution it continue.
“Let’s canyon a apparent ameliorate bill that allows our businesses to break focused on innovation, not cher and causeless litigation,” he said.
Last year, the House anesthetized legislation aggressive “patent trolls,” which are companies that shop for patents and sue for infringements. This became a decidedly arresting affair back Canadian telecom aggregation Nortel Networks went broke in 2012, and 4,000 of its patents were bought by a bunch of tech companies alleged Rockstar that included Microsoft and Apple. Since the sale, the tech apple has become added mired in apparent lawsuits. The Senate has yet to booty activity on this legislation.
Though he did not accomplish an absolute affiliation to the tech world, abundant of Obama’s accent discussed assets inequality, an affair that has flared up in San Francisco with the arrival of high-paid tech workers in aforetime banal neighborhoods. Amidst protests over Google’s shuttle buses trucking workers to Silicon Valley (and accordingly congesting bounded streets and demography money abroad from accessible transportation) and affair over ascent rents due to high-paid workers, adventure backer Tom Perkins afresh bound an assessment allotment in the Wall Street Journal comparing protests adjoin affluent Silicon Valley aristocratic to Nazis persecuting Jews. It was greeted with accepted ire from the tech world, but accent the astriction and abstract faced by those alive in and about this sector.
To abode inequality, Obama appear a federal adjustment mandating that the minimum allowance for workers on fresh federal projects be brought up to $10.10.
“Average accomplishment accept almost budged. Asperity has deepened. Upward advancement has stalled,” Obama said. “The cold, adamantine actuality is that alike in the bosom of recovery, too abounding Americans are alive added than anytime aloof to get by – let abandoned get ahead. And too abounding still aren’t alive at all.”
There was one decidedly audacious tech blank however: Obama spent little time discussing NSA surveillance, conspicuously alone a day afterwards the federal government airy the gag adjustment on tech companies, acceptance them to acknowledge added advice about government requests.