732 results found
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Make software and business methods unpatentable
Patents are a creation of statute, and can be removed by statute. Software and business method patents are a farce which have caused innovation to stagnate and companies to waste billions on lawyers. They are toxic to the development of free software. The very idea that an abstract idea can be monopolized and held to ransom is morally offensive. Software and business method patents have got to go.
21 votes -
Create national minimum standards for technology in schools
No matter if it is K-12 or higher education, our students need to learn how to use and accelerate technology. However, schools are all over the board on this, many for lack of funding, others have just not caught up yet.
Set minimum standards in equipment, software and technology curriculum for all schools and provide funding for those that are struggling. In standards testing for students, test not only for english, math and science but on technology usage and perhaps development as well.
5 votes -
End Iraq war, clos Gitmo; Repeal Patriot; Del Bu Exec Ordrs
End Iraq war; close Gitmo; Repeal Patriot Act; counter ALL of Bush's Executive Orders; Establish Department of Peace.
3 votes -
Encourage educated foreign citizens to stay/come to the U.S.
Increase the length of time a foreign born individual can stay in the U.S. on a student visa, and fast track visas for those who are skilled and educated. Allocate a percentage of the visas to be used for the most highly skilled applicants.
Also, reduce the uncertainty for the visa application process. Currently, employers sponsor an applicant (approx $5k) without any sort of guarantee that the applicant will recieve the visa. Employers, especially small-businesses, don't like spending $5k on someone with the risk that the applicant won't even receive a visa. Hence, the U.S. loses a skilled applicant who…17 votes -
Broadband speeds on par with S. Korea and Japan
FIOS is as fast as it gets for consumers and it still pales in comparison to data speeds found in the most wired countries.
Give us speed!
3 votes -
Restructure the legal penalties for convicted drug offenders
Review and reassess the current policies regarding the failed "War on Drugs". Develop a comprehensive, federal guideline for sentencing that incoroprates rehabilitation, follow-up treatment and community service in place of prison time for convicted drug offenders.
14 votes -
Create ubiquitous wireless infrasrtructure
Why is this country so poor at providing cell and internet coverage? Why can't i assume I can make a call in a suburban or downtown area? Why should I need to check a coverage map? We should not. I've talked to friends using skype from very remote parts of the world with better quality than we have here!
3 votes -
Volunteer built software for running government
Create a wikipedia type framework for the building of software projects for the government. The aim is to get volunteers to build the software needed for more efficient running of central and state agencies.
Software specs for sections of these projects, to be written using open standards, would be placed on the web. Volunteers could then create software to those specs and post versions of the software. Testing volunteers could test it out and list bugs. Software with the least bugs would be plugged into the working project code.
Permanent hidden links from the publicly used software to programmers home…
4 votes -
Create a central self service public application
Create a central self service public application where the public can go in to update all their information - census, tax payments, registrations, medicare & view information on their Soc security benefits etc..
Even if just 10% of the population takes advantage of it, this can still shave 10% off the cost of collecting and maintaining such information, and usage would grow with time and increased internet access.
2 votes -
"Technologies for Participatory Democracy" initiative
America's heritage and ideals are solidly associated with participation in democracy. This is found in our strong community associations, in our formal political systems, and in our collaborative research communities.
We need supports for carrying this tradition into the future with innovations and platforms for communication that can succeed in revitalizing our level of engagement. This initiative would both include a grant program and a strategic oversight component.
33 votes -
Universal Health Care
Health care for every citizen of the United Sates.
8 votes -
Don´t Follow Bush steps
Mr. Obama. You are the hope of our Planet. You will make history. I´m brazilian man that wish to you that God bless you in your decisions. I hope that you have a different way doead the USA. Do not make the same Bush´s mistakes.
7 votes -
Listen to the EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated to preserving the right to freedom of speech, such as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the context of today's digital age (see also digital rights). Its stated main goal is to educate the press, policymakers and the general public about civil liberties issues related to technology; and to act as a defender of those liberties. The EFF is supported by donations and is based in San Francisco, California, with…
15 votes -
100% digitization of healthcare records by 2014
Healthcare is one of the most-important aspects of our society. Digitization of healthcare records greatly increases the efficiency of care and level of care given to those in need of health assistance.
The government could do things such as: provide off-site data storage for regions at a cut-rate. Provide free-ware software to healthcare facilities. Create incentives for early-adoption of new technologies in the workplace.
Doing this will not only save lives, it will create jobs as healthcare facilities hire newly-trained technicians and data centers being built offer construction-related jobs.
24 votes -
Fix IT procurement so government uses lean, flexible systems
Lightweight, one-size-fits-all, off the shelf systems work better.
Government should be running on gmail, twitter, blogger, google calendars, salesforce.com, webex, wikimedia, etc.
IT should drive performance. Instead, it hinders it for so many agencies.
As someone who's been through the government IT procurement process, TONS and TONS of money is wasted with zero accountability. You have clever middle-managers who want to build a better mousetrap, IT vendors who take them along for a ride, and general contractors who layer on bureaucracy and cost markups. You get $11,000 laptops that take six months to get to your desk. And there is…
3 votes -
Reduce the term for non-biotech patents
Biotech requires a long patent period to account for the time to get to market-- outside of biotech (read: software) reduce the patent term.
Yes, there's also the idea of ending "software" patents and "business method" patents, but these solutions have obvious flaws because clever patent filers (and their attorneys) can convert software patents into hardware patents by adding a computer or chip. I know this personally, having filed 20 patents and gotten a half dozen issued.
Please vote on the idea of shortened patent term lengths outside of biotech or other fields with long times to market-- not on…
20 votes -
Fix identity theft vulnerability of Social Security Numbers
The use of then Social Security Number (SSN) as a unique identifier for US citizens causes many problems. Most significantly, it is a identity theft risk when it is exposed, but its widespread utilization means that it must often be revealed. The national CTO should determine a way to defuse the danger of exposing a social security number.
I lived in Denmark for a short time, and they addressed this issue by registering an address with the social security number. Banks and other financial organizations used the address registered with the SSN to communicate with individuals. This had the added…
23 votes -
Brings community networking to every community in Americaic
Instead of focusing on individual technologies, the CTO of government build technologies and tools to build a strong community networking across communities, so every community across America is strong, individual and participate in the democratic process on an ongoing basis, instead of democratic process being a point event during election year. A true democracy is established by the continuous participatory process of people of any country. This will completely mitigate the risk of lobby based policies as well as keep our congress men/women and senators true to their promises to constituencies. True Americanism has to be promulgated reflected, represented by…
1 vote -
Breaks up the monopoly that cable companies have.
Most cable companies operate in areas that there simply isn't any choice but to use their service (or not use the internet at all). This needs to stop. Allow me the choice to have other companies come in and provide service to the areas (or force them to if there is some price fixing happening). I'd like to be able to pick my provider and not have to resort to dialup.
17 votes -
Develop a secure web-based voting system for elections.
Encourage those with internet connections to vote via the web. The system would be run using social security numbers to ensure no voter fraud. This would provide voters with immediate web access to be an informed at the polls, would increase the "youth" vote and would reduce long lines at the polls. While additionally decreasing operational costs and reduce the "carbon footprint" of a paper-based election.
21 votes