That's a lot of emails—but not as much data as you might first think. Berkeley estimated in 2003 the average email size to be around 18,500 bytes. That's about 379 gigabytes of lost email, give or take a few Powerpoints attachments with slides missing in the "Find a reason to invade Iraq" section.

Mother Jones had details of the recovery process:

Restoration of missing emails promises to be the trickiest part of the settlement agreement. The White House first ran into archiving problems in 2003, but didn't begin to address the problem until October 2005. Only in the final days of the Bush administration did the White House begin working with contractors-including software giant Microsoft-to find missing messages.

Don't expect to see these for a while. The National Archives have to sift through the emails before they'll be released to the public. But expect a thousand Freedom of Information Act requests to let fly towards Washington in the meantime. [Telegram/AP]

Verizon's response:

A broad array of Americans who might not otherwise be able to afford broadband connections to the Internet with a home PC, or by paying full price for a smartphone, have an affordable way of participating in the online world when they choose a subsidized option.

Also noted is the fact that smartphones are available at full, unsubsidized price, although it's not mentioned that the monthly fee doesn't change with an unsubsidized phone and that said unsubsidized phones are incredibly expensive. Hey Verizon, haven't you heard that this is a recession? Have some consideration. [The Hill]

And before you dismiss the chart outright, check out your cable company's channel packages. Replace content provider fees with new network backbone charges, and cable packages with traffic or website packages, and hey, look, shit—this doesn't seem so crazy, does it? Click here for the full version. [Reddit via Crunchgear]

The app store will be managed by the General Services Administration, and in addition to business apps, will provide tools for storage, web hosting and social networking. Kundra hopes it will save both time, energy and money, while bringing the Government's IT infrastructure out of the dark ages. Somewhere a Vogon is shedding a tear.

Google Exec Sergey Brin was so excited that he drove over in his Tesla and promised to save a chunk of Google's cloud servers just for the government! Facebook, Vimeo, Microsoft, Adobe, and Salesforce.com are all providing services as well. Everyone wins! [Apps.Gov via White House via NY Times]

Proloquo2Go is a text-to-speech iPhone app that's meant to aid those with autism, cerebral palsy, ALS, Down Syndrome—pretty much anyone who has a disability that makes speaking a difficult venture. It costs $150.

But Medicare/Medicaid restrictions won't pay for this software or the accompanying iPhone because the iPhone is not a uni-functional device. (A person with autism might play games on it, after all! Or call a doctor!)

One family's alternative, as documented by the NYTimes, is a government-funded $8000 desktop computer that can have no other function than text-to-speech. No emailing doctors. No browsing the web for medical research. So, this pricey clunker sits at home while the family pays out of pocket for the iPhone app that can operate in their real, mobile life.

Medicare acknowledges the situation. They have heard of the iPhone, as they explain in their official statement on the matter: "We would not cover the iPhones and netbooks with speech-generating software capabilities because they are useful in the absence of an illness or injury."

But with the nation's eyes on our healthcare policies, there's never been a better time to reassess such archaic thinking. All things equal, a company like Apple or RIM will always make superior hardware to that of some boutique electronics company, and they'll do so for pennies on the dollar. Even more importantly, these better distributed hardware platforms will be rewarded with greater enthusiasm and expertise from software designers—the real innovators in today's design-heavy electronics industry.

I'm no health care expert, but it's obvious that reform in this sector would be a win-win. Taxpayers would save money. Government programs would aid more individuals. And those being helped would simply be helped better, with more options and ultimately in a way more specific to their particular problem.

But the government can't subsidize a semi-open platform that would drive both technological innovation and market competition. That's crazy talk! [Proloquo2Go and NYTimes]

Credit to Nicholas Thompson over at Epicenter, who spent some quality time with the bill:

[I]n its original form, did have some seriously bad ideas in it. For example, in an emergency, the president could "order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network."

And then, Senate procedure happened. The softened, pared-down language of the current bill would only entitle the President to, "In the event of an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network" help to "direct the national response" to a crisis, "in coordination with relevant industry sectors." As Thompson notes, nothing scary is granted here, and the President definitely hasn't been authorized to take over private networks, for malign ends, for fun, or otherwise.

In reality, the bill might actually aid transparency, oddly enough: Thompson highlights a theory that, by ensuring the government's digital emergency management powers are kept out of the less accountable hands of the NSA and in the public view, abuses are less likely. So there's that! [Wired Epicenter]

Several different teams have done research showing that texting while driving is at least as dangerous as drunk driving and significantly more dangerous than talking on the phone while driving. The most interesting conclusion found that someone texting while driving is about eight times more likely to cause an accident than someone not texting, while a driver with a blood alcohol percentage of 0.08%, the legal limit, is only four times more likely than a sober driver.

The bill would force each state's highway department to institute a ban on texting within two years, or lose 25% of their federal funding each year, which is enough to cripple a highway department. Some weren't thrilled, pointing out that nobody's figured a way to enforce this kind of law, but we'll have to see if the Senate passes the bill to find out if anyone has real objections. [NY Times]

Laptop Mag points to this interview that shows that indeed, different divisions are merging and acknowledging each other's presence. VAIO is now under the PlayStation, Walkman and Reader group. VAIO notebooks are going to use PSN for movies and TV shows. Which is a step in the right direction, but turning a ship this size is like a group of ants trying to move a dumpster. [Laptop Mag]

The Death and Taxes poster shows every single expense according to the president's 2010 budget request. The circles you see here are proportional in size to their actual weight in the total budget. Each of the figures include the percentage change compared to 2009.

Defense spending is more or less the same, only increasing by 2%. And still, everything else looks minuscule.

Since your budget for buying posters is probably minuscule too, you can get a 50% discount if you buy two or more posters if you are a Gizmodo reader. Just enter "gizmodo" as your discount code when ordering. [WallStats]

Send your best Photoshops that would shock and shame the North Korean dictator to me at contests@gizmodo.com with "Kim Jong Il" in the subject line by next Tuesday morning. Save your entries as JPGs, PNGs or GIFs and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. On Tuesday, I'll pick the three best/most shameful entries as our winners and post the rest of the best in the Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

According to PC World, FCC Chairman Michael Copps hinted that if they do discover unfavorable effects as a result of exclusive handset deals, they won't be opposed to regulation. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar also rambled on, saying something about how if Microsoft and IBM had exclusive deals Google would have never existed. Um, what?

But there's a twist! AT&T's Paul Roth fired back at this line of thinking, mentioning that exclusive deals prevent the mobile handset world from completely devolving into a lowest common denominator mentality when it comes to new tech. Both sides have valid points, I suppose. So let the battle begin. [PC World]

We ask that you examine this issue carefully and act expeditiously should you find that exclusivity agreements unfairly restrict consumer choice or adversely impact competition in the commercial wireless marketplace [...] Whether exclusivity agreements are becoming increasingly prevalent between dominant wireless carriers and handset manufacturers.

According to Ian Paul at PC World, the underwriters—Senator Kerry, Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)—are mainly addressing the most successful smartphone out there in that note.

But why do this now? Only because the iPhone has been a raging success? Wasn't this as bad two or one year ago as it is today? And why is this an FCC concern? Why should the government make any company to do business or sell their products in a certain way? Maybe the reason is that Kerry has Verizon and he's pissed off he can't have the iPhone or the Pre (for now)?

I don't know about you, but as much as I would like to choose whatever carrier I want—you actually can, since you can buy the iPhone unlocked—this "concern" seems a a bit retarded to me. [PC World via Christian Science Monitor]

Moss, also known as Dark Tangent, founded both the DefCon and Black Hat hacker conferences in addition to legit security work—most notably at Ernst and Young, one of those giant corporations that provides auditors, attorneys, brokers, designers, and lots more to other companies. He's a sort of godfather of hackers, a pioneer who uses his underground skills in mostly above-ground ways.

As the Obama administration has been placing a heavier focus on cybersecurity, it's an extremely smart move to ask one of the world's foremost professional hackers to assist on the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. He's got enough expertise to really be able to offer some help, but he's also not a dangerous hacker—one analyst called him "as corporate as hiring someone out of Microsoft," meaning that for the hacking world, Moss is hardly a loose cannon. But that's exactly why it's also a smart political choice. Picking a hacker seems like an edgy choice, but Moss is a guy who's worked for Fortune 500 companies, not someone who's working in his basement to bring down the power grid.

We're looking forward to seeing cybersecurity finally advance, and this kind of guy is just what we need to get ourselves back on track. [CNET]

She's handed down quite a number of cyberlaw decisions during her career, some of which show the kind of technological awareness that's utterly foreign to our current geriatric court. According to Wired's Threat Level, she's ruled against companies with deliberately hidden or misleading EULAs, limited the powers of the executive to acquire user information and records from ISPs with National Security letters, and widened online publications' rights to resell freelancers' content without additional payment.

There's a catch: her penchant for tech comes from her experience as an intellectual property lawyer, meaning that—though this isn't conclusive—she could tend to side with organizations like the RIAA and MPAA should the court hear any filesharing-related cases during her tenure, which they almost certainly will.

Say what you want about her rulings, but there's something to be said for her being the first nominee to the court with any record in cyberlaw. That "internet" thing is getting to be a pretty big deal, I hear. [Wired]

The robot, which is headed to the Hall of Presidents, is the most advanced presidential robot yet. It also will give a speech recorded by the fleshbag Obama specifically for the bot, just like the last few presidents have done.

It's probably the closest you're ever going to get to the guy, so if you're interested, you know where Disney World is. [NY Times]

I believe it is not in our American character to follow—but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development... This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history.

Obama plans to funnel money into new initiatives such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), which is to be a cousin of DARPA, the agency that had a large hand in the development of the internet.

The bottom line is that if you're a fan of new technologies being developed on US soil, you should be pretty damned excited. [Salon via Purns]

The CTO position is linked with that of the Chief Information Officer (the recently-named Vivek Kundra), but they are two distinct jobs. The White House explains:

The responsibilities of the CIO are to use information technology to transform the ways in which the government does business. The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn.

Essentially, the CIO is responsible for the general strategic aim of information technology, whereas the CTO is the one who really gets his hands dirty with the specific architecture. In particular, Obama has listed health care and education in today's YouTube address as the two areas most requiring the efforts of the CIO and CTO, and we (along with most others) think Chopra is the right guy for the job. Here's why.

Aneesh Chopra is not a CEO. He's not a thinker like Negroponte, or a businessman like Gates, or a showrunner like Jobs. He's a governmental agent. This is important because the CTO is, after all, a government job, and Chopra won't have to adjust his strategies to work within a governmental system. Right now, he's the Secretary of Technology for Virginia, and has shown huge success in the field. Last year, Virginia was ranked 1st in Technology Management, a direct reward for Chopra's work.

Further, he's made significant achievements in health care and education, which, you remember, is just what Obama wants. He's gotten the nation's first open-source textbook approved, initiated competitions for the state's students to create iPhone apps, and designed a social network for physicians in remote areas.

Most importantly, Chopra's achievements are forward-looking (Web 2.0, social networking, open source) but fervently grounded in the practical. He's not pushing for the sake of pushing, he's using the best tools we have in the best way he can.

Here's a video of Chopra at the State of the Net conference this year.

We're really looking forward to seeing what Chopra can do with the resources of the federal government at his disposal. [White House, O'Reilly Radar]

As you can see in my highly detailed diagram, Obama wants to use a climate degenerating replic—I don't have any idea what im talking about. The truth, according to the AP, is that the smog shooter was called an "extreme last resort," but Obama is looking at radical measures to ensure we don't all broil at 500 degrees for 35-40 minutes. CO2-absorbing artificial trees were also listed as a possible way to fight The Warming.

While the above ideas may not be the most realistic, it is interesting that we're looking to climate engineering (or geoengineering) to directly control the larger climate trends. Maybe we'll someday control the weather...or just say screw it and move into domes. [AP via BreitBart]

Wired's Ryan Singel says the FCC is taking input from average Joes (but probably not plumbers), public interest groups and telecommunication corporations. So far, Obama has dished out 7.2 billion in grants, bogged down in vague stipulations like only being used for "under-served" areas.

But fingers are crossed that the FCC will hammer out this net neutrality plan and roll out a network as powerful as our foreign counterparts, much like Australia did today. Singel mentioned they rolled out a $31 billion plan to provide 100mbps broadband internet that can reach to all citizens. C'mon, FCC! [Wired]

In a New York Times op-ed piece, Dr. Anne Armstrong-Coben expresses concern that the modernization of medical records may not be as obviously beneficial as it seems. For one thing, there's no unified system yet, and the likeliest candidate (Google Health) isn't subject to the now-outdated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the national privacy statute. Creating an easy-to-learn and effective system is a huge undertaking, from construction to installation to training, and not everybody is confident it can be done properly.

A buggy or confusing system could result in more mistakes, not less, as Dr. Armstrong-Coben points out. "I have seen how choosing the wrong box can lead to the wrong drug being prescribed," she writes. Older generations of doctors may have trouble adjusting to a totally digital system, and there are bound to be mistakes made by even the computer-savvy before digitization becomes ubiquitous.

On the other hand, Dr. Armstrong-Coben complains that full digitization may make the doctor-patient relationship less personal, a point not likely to hold much water with digitization proponents. The potential money and lives saved far outweigh the loss. She reminisces, "I loved how patients could participate in their own charts - illustrating their cognitive development as they went from showing me how they could draw a line at age 2 and a circle at 3 to proudly writing their names at 5." Unclear, however, is why she can't just keep a notebook in which her young pediatric patients can draw.

Obama's plan will cost about $100 billion, a huge chunk of the stimulus package, but some experts claim it will save two to three times that yearly. Those savings could go toward universal health care or simply flow back into the hospitals for better equipment.

Doctors like Armstrong-Coben bring up an interesting point: this is a new frontier and a massive project, and it won't be as simple as handing doctors a new iMac and watching the savings roll in. But it's a necessary step; just because it's going to be hard doesn't mean it's not worth the effort. [NY Times and CNN]