Obama’s last budget calls for better infrastructure, cybersecurity

With President Barack Obama’s final year in office comes one last, contentious dance with Congress over a $4.1 trillion dollar budget for 2017. According to the New York Times, some $3 trillion of the budget the president proposed has been earmarked for so-called “mandatory” spending, and will be funneled toward federal assistance programs and combating interest on the nation’s debt. The president is pushing to use that remaining trillion-or-so dollars to build a foundation for future work he thinks the country desperately needs.

President Obama, for instance, wants to spend $300 billion over the course of a decade to fund incentives for clean-energy vehicles and improve America’s transportation infrastructure — think mass transit and light rail lines, among other things. A hefty expenditure like that would normally see our tax withholdings inflate at least a bit, but the president’s plan to pay for it involves a $10 fee that oil companies would pay on every single barrel of oil they move.

The budget proposal also earmarked $19 billion to ramp up the nation’s cybersecurity efforts, which proved more than lacking when Chinese operatives breached the US Office of Personnel Management and exposed the personal information of over 21 million US government employees. (China maintains criminal hackers were to blame, not state-sponsored attackers.) Part of the proposed fix also involves spending $3.1 billion to upgrade the crucial — and in some cases, ancient — systems that form the backbone of the United States’ most important computer systems and networks. The White House is also widely expected to put out a call for its first Chief Information Security Officer as early as today, emphasizing the need for a strong, top-down vision of security that we’ve arguably needed for ages now.

Other juicy tidbits in this last budget proposal include $19 billion for NASA (down slightly from the $19.3 billion the spacefarers got last year), and $1.8 billion to better understand and combat the Zika virus.

Verizon offering special half season deal for NBA League Pass

Through their Go90 platform, Verizon is making available a special deal for the NBA League Pass for the second half of the season. To help entice potential NBA fans to sign up for the Go90 service, Verizon is also making some free NBA previews available to Go90 subscribers. You may recall that last fall Verizon inked a deal with the NBA to become the exclusive service provider for the NBA and several related properties like the WNBA. Making games available via the Go90 service was big part of the new partnership.

If you are interested in buying a subscription to the NBA League Pass for the second half of the season on Go90, it will only set you back $50 and lasts through the remainder of the regular season. If you are not certain about jumping on board with the deal, Go90 users can watch up to 5 NBA games any time until the end of the regular season. Verizon, G090 and the NBA are also making some preview weekends available. Upcoming dates for these weekends include February 20th and 21st and then again on March 5th and 6th. During these weekends users can access all games available on the NBA League Pass. One benefit of the preview weekends is that the games watched on those dates will not count against the five-game preview option.

If you are a Verizon customer, the carrier is also shifting the business model for Go90 slightly so that video streaming through that service will not count against users’ data limits if they are on a post-paid plan.

To take advantage of the new deal, hit the source link for more information on the Go90 app and to sign up for the NBA League Pass.

source: Go90

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Intelligent Energy plans to develop hydrogen-based fuel cell for smartphones

Intelligent Energy Holdings Plc, a firm located in the U.K. that specializes in fuel-cell technology, has announced they have entered into an agreement with a smartphone manufacturer to develop a fuel cell small enough to fit inside a smartphone. Sources have not named the smartphone manufacturer, describing in only as an “emerging” producer. Intelligent Energy says the smartphone manufacturer is investing $7.6 million USD in the project that could result in a power source capable of powering a smartphone for a whole week between charges.

Intelligent Energy Consumer Electronics division acting managing director Julian Hughes says,

“Embedding fuel-cell technology into portable devices provides a solution to the current dilemma of battery life. With consumers demanding more and more from their phones, battery innovation has not kept up.”

Besides providing the “killer app” of battery life that could last seven days, the fuel cell technology is cleaner than many others as it converts hydrogen into electricity with only water vapor as a byproduct. Intelligent Energy has already achieved success in deploying similar technology into London’s black cabs to establish a fleet of “zero emission” taxis. They are currently working with Boeing Co. to develop the first manned aircraft powered solely by fuel cells. The company is also working to develop backup power systems for telecom towers in India and hydrogen-powered drones.

Intelligent Energy has more than 1,000 patents in their portfolio and over 25 years of experience in the field to backup their efforts on this latest project. CEO Henri Winand says the new solution could be ready within a couple years if things go according to plan. The smartphone fuel cell was already in development for possible use by people living in areas without access to a traditional power grid. The investment and partnership will help accelerate development and possibly bring it to a more mainstream audience.

source: Bloomberg

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