Yesterday, President Obama signed an executive order to establish the National Strategic Computing Initiative, intended to advance American research efforts that require high-capacity computing (HCC). The main thrust of the program, according to a blog post from the White House, would be to create the world's fastest supercomputer, which would be 20 times faster than today's fastest supercomputer, China's Tianhe-2. The machine would be called an exascale computer--capable of making a billion billion—or one exaflop—calculations per second.
With no threat/promise of re-election hanging over his head, President Obama is using the remainder of his time in office as a chance to talk about a political minefield, climate change. He mentioned it last week at the Coast Guard commencement exercises, and today he took to his newly formed twitter account to answer questions about climate change.
In a move that surprised no one, President Obama vetoed legislation that would have permitted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Four months after President Obama asked the Federal Communications Commission to adopt strict net neutrality measures, the agency has come up with a plan. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that he will submit a proposal to the agency's commissioners later this month that would impose tighter regulations on how broadband providers can manage their traffic.
President Obama wants to give NASA's missions a big boost. Monday afternoon, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden updated America on the state of its space agency, noting that the Obama administration is proposing an $18.5 billion budget for NASA for the 2016 fiscal year. That's about $500 million more than the agency received for 2015.
In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama mentioned drones exactly once. Out of respect for human dignity, he said, our use of drones should be “properly constrained.” When he said “constrained,” Obama was referring to military drones, not toy drones, but now, he might have a personal interest in constraining smaller ones. Early this morning, while the president was away visiting India, the Secret Service found a crashed drone on the south lawn of the White House.