We mostly use YouTube for clips of things like a cappella renditions of John Williams songs, but this address is helped by the familiarity of YouTube: it treads the line between casual and formal without ever becoming either. Yeah, we're a bunch of durn lib'rals here at Giz, but this is an important milestone in how we interact with our elected leader, and Obama made his weekly debut in the right way. There was no mention of the medium, nothing garish like, say, a holographic Will.I.Am.. YouTube is simply the easiest, most widespread, and most accessible way to directly address the people, and that's why it doesn't feel forced or stilted. Well, that and the way I just get lost in the music of his voice. [Change.gov]

To make matters worse for McCain, Thompson points out that France, the scourge of Republicans and veterans alike, now has broadband that's four times as fast—and half the price!

Admittedly, there's a bit of fuzzy matching required to join McCain's vehement opposition to the 1996 Telecommuncations Act and his subsequent statutory castration of its powers with the slow increase of our cable modem's actual download speed. However, there's no disputing the fact that McCain has done nothing to grow broadband penetration. (Even that comedic allegation that he helped invent the BlackBerry doesn't do anything to support any kind of breaching of the digital divide.)

In fairness to anyone who thinks we're reporting this lopsidedly, we have previously shared reports about Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden's opposition to net-neutrality legislation, and his Hollywood-backed war against citizen-pirates. And the reason we haven't discussed Sarah Palin's stance is simple—she's a clean slate, baby. Not a word on any of this.

But as you might imagine, Thompson uses his main point—McCain's consistent and ongoing hampering of the kinds of technological innovation that are commonplace in other countries—as a good reason to repeat what we have also recorded on Giz, that Barack Obama's attention to these matters will not be so blas&#233, that in fact he has interesting ideas, not just that America needs a cabinet-level CTO or that there should be true neutrality on the internet, but that, for instance, rural-phone subsidies are used to provide rural broadband (which would basically includes free phone service anyway).

Thompson makes the point that Silicon Valley has gone O, saying that 555 employees of Google have donated to Obama, compared to 26 for McCain. He says the market freedom that McCain wants is "freedom for his country to fall further and further behind as AT&T and the other telecom leviathans sit back, ignoring your customer service calls and just watching the $90 monthly checks roll in." That's harsh, Nick, but it also sounds pretty damn accurate. [Washington Monthly]

When Todd placed McCain and Obama bobblehead dolls on the Surface, the national map would change colors to show each candidate's specific chances. Put on the Obama bobblehead, and the map turns varying shades of blue. Use McCain, and it turns red. Then he turned Dark Helmet and made the bobbleheads fight each other, revealing the true reason he ordered them up in the first place. The off-screen newswoman didn't seem too impressed, quipping, "Now the five-year-olds are glued to the television," but I'm 22, so the joke's on her! [MSNBC]

Improvements include:

• 3,344 miles of fiber optic
• 140 miles of copper and coaxial cable
• 2,600 additional data lines
• 3,400 voice grade circuits
• New "video equipment" in both venues capable of handling 130 simultaneous feeds
• AT&T and Verizon both "upgrading coverage" in area
• And network security from Qwest, Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec

In many cases, workers simply laid the new data lines beside the old ones. The Democratic National Convention's new data network will drive 50 billion bits per second, or pass around an entire HD movie in just moments. We'll have to wait and see if the Democrats get as technologically pwned on stage as they did by the Republicans in 2004 who used a massive rear display to look about a century ahead in gadgeteering. [CNET][image]

• He asked Congress to spend $1 billion to monitor peer-to-peer activity. (In fairness, much of this is to prevent child pornography, but the tactic is apparently a little blunt.)

• Two Biden bills have been explicitly anti-encryption, because you know, encryption makes it hard for the FBI to read people's e-mails.

• He has expressed support for internet taxes and internet filtering in schools and libraries.

• The RIAA seems to be one of his best buddies: Biden sponsored a bill that would restrict recording of songs from satellite and net radio, and another one that would make it a felony to "trick" a computer into playing back unauthorized songs or running bootlegged videogames. That latter one died when Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay and Yahoo all argued against it.

• Biden was one of just four senators invited to attend a celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti and the RIAA's Hillary Rosen, two of American file-sharer's most wanted.

• When he was asked in 2006 about proposing net-neutrality laws, he said there was no need, since any bit-filtering violations would provoke such a huge public ruckus they'd have to hold congressional hearings anyway—and they'd be standing-room only. (Wonder if Biden reads Gizmodo.) [CNet]