Finally a Tech Savvy White House

Let me in!

Does anyone over at CNN know how to use a computer? Certainly they do over at the new Obama White House. Perhaps CNN can get a tech assist from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now we all know that those Dell Laptops on the desks at CNN are just props, even if we hadn’t caught on from the mystery logo changes that occur as they are shifted around during coverage.

As if we needed more proof, in addition to choking on 1.8 million simultaneous streaming viewers during yesterday’s inauguration (see pic), CNN ran a grossly embarrassing feature called “The Moment”. The concept: Snap a pic at 12:00 when Obama became President, send it to CNN and miraculously an image would be produced by magical technology.

Through a number of clumsy segments CNN Chief National Correspondent John King poked and prodded a touch screen and, well, nothing happened.

The software they are using is called Photosynth, a really cool technology that showed up in a TED talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas in May 2007 and is being developed by Microsoft. While Blaise is using flicker images to photo map the entire world, CNN yesterday had trouble getting a good shot of the Capitol.

Stick to broadcast guys. This Web 2.0 thing isn’t going to work out anyway.

Or is it?

It sure worked down the street. Maybe CNN could take some lessons on technology implementation from the tech folks now running the Executive Branch. At 12:01, the moment (exactly) after Obama became President, WhiteHouse.gov was flipped to the new administration portal and it worked; not a trivial matter. On the site was the agenda for the new administration (even items like “mandatory community service” that were struck during the campaign, as well as the revised tax reduction plan). Very impressive.

Now if Obama can just keep his BlackBerry we may actually get some productivity out of the Federal Government. Yes, we can!

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