SiliconBeat

Now that John McCain is back on board for the debate tonight, it’s time to start making plans for watching. Some folks may gather with friends for debate parties, which is great.

But if you’re looking for alternative ways to gather with folks virtually, consider watching the debates at Current TV, either on your cable system or online here.

Current TV has teamed up with Twitter to create a stream of tweets that will appear on the screen throughout the debate. If you’re familiar with Twitter, all you need to do is include the #current hash tag in your tweet to get it into the Current TV stream.

During the conventions, I had Twitter running on my laptop and really enjoyed the interactivity and running commentary throughout the evening keynotes. Since real interactive TV appears to be years away, I found this to be a great substitute. So I’ll be watching tonight and posting my thoughts on Twitter. If you want me to see your tweets, also include @sjcobrien in your tweets.

It appears unlikely that we’ll get a full fledged debate focused on Science and Technology. That’s too bad. But fortunately, the folks behind Sciencedebate2008 have received responses from both major presidential campaigns to a list of 14 science questions. By way of background, Sciencedebate2008 sought to have a debate among candidates, first in the primaries, and then the general election, on science and technology issues.

Along the way, the group garnered support from hundreds of academic, industry and scientific leaders, both individuals and institutions. When it became clear that a debate was not in the cards, the group drew up the list of 14 questions from 3,400 that were submitted online. The questions cover climate change (both agree that exists and is problem); science education; global competitiveness; pandemics (Hell, Avian Flu); genetic research; and stem cells.

This last one represents perhaps the biggest contract between the two candidates, and that’s no surprise.

Of stem cell research, Obama writes:

“I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations. As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.”

And McCain writes:

“I oppose the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes and I voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.”

You can find the full list of questions and the candidates’ responses here.

Some other resources:

The McCain campaign technology policy is here.

Obama’s is here.

And if you’re really interested in this area, then reading techPresident is a must.

My column this Sunday will ask that question. I’ve got a few ideas of my own. But I’d like to hear yours. Please post them below and I’ll use them in a future column.

In the meantime, there was a lot of focus this week on the candidates and Silicon Valley. Read the rest of this entry »