Good Morning Tech: Free Press defends NPR, Obama meets with Apple CEO

Obama meets with Steve Jobs

On a campaign trip to California on Thursday, President Obama had a 45-minute meeting with Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple.

The discussed technology, education and job creation, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Later, at the Palo Alto home of Google executive Marissa Mayer, who hosted a $30,400-per-plate fundraising dinner, Obama addressed the attendees, according to the report.

"My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the structural problems in the economy that have prevented more Googles from being created, prevented more Hewlett-Packards from being created ... how do we unleash this incredible energy and dynamism that we know has always driven America, decade after decade," he said. http://bit.ly/b3tjN1

Free Press sticks up for NPR after Huckabee, Palin ask Congress to defund it

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called on Congress Thursday to defund National Public Radio (NPR) after it fired analyst Juan Williams for controversial comments he made about Muslims.

"If NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it's time for 'National Public Radio' to become 'National Private Radio,'" Palin wrote on her Facebook account. "It's time for Congress to defund this organization."

Williams was fired from the outlet after he said on a Fox News show that he gets nervous on planes when he sees passengers in Muslim attire.

Free Press stood up for NPR after the decision, arguing that "it is time top stop playing politics with out nation's public media system."

"Regardless of what you think about Juan Williams' dismissal, calling for the defunding of NPR is like asking for the death penalty in small claims court," Free Press President Josh Silver said.

Bloomberg to visit Facebook. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he will be visiting Facebook headquarters in California Friday to speak with employees and learn more about the social networking giant. The conversation will be webcast live on the mayor's Facebook page.

IG flags problems with IRS modernization program. The Internal Revenue Service has made some progress but still faces significant security and operational challenges with its 15-year effort to modernize the agency's computer systems, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. http://bit.ly/alY06O

Google testing high-speed fiber network at Stanford. Google has reached an agreement to build its first ultra-high-speed broadband network near Stanford University, the search giant announced on Thursday. The agreement with Stanford means the university's residential subdivision will be the first place to test Internet speeds of up to one gigabit per second, more than 100 times faster than the typical broadband connection in the U.S. The plan is to break ground early next year. http://bit.ly/aqCaKQ

Public interest groups, advertisers at odds over feasibility of 'Do Not Track' list. The idea of a "Do Not Track" database that would prevent digital marketers from following users' online activities is picking up steam in Washington, but public interest groups and the online advertising community remain split on whether the idea is technologically feasible. http://bit.ly/aXn7yu

N.J. state senator: Cablevision should reimburse viewers. New Jersey state Sen. Tom Goodwin, a Republican, provided a new tack on the Cablevision-Fox standoff on Wednesday, calling on Cablevision to reimburse viewers who have been unable to watch Fox Network channels as the two companies negotiate programming fees. http://bit.ly/aGChHU

Patton Boggs brings on former Kevin Martin aides. Patton Boggs has hired three new partners for its technology and communications practice, two of which previously worked with former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin. Martin also works at Patton Boggs as a partner and as co-chair of the communications practice. http://bit.ly/aeIkOz

Industry notes

Poll: Rich people sign up for social networks. Most wealthy individuals have signed up for social-networking sites, according to a poll released Tuesday by SEI, a wealth-advisory company. About 70 percent of such people have signed up, a rate that is considerably higher than the general population, according to the poll, which placed that number at about 61 percent. http://bit.ly/dcxMDK

244,000 Germans opt out of Google mapping service. "Google on Thursday said 244,000 people in Germany had asked the company to remove images of their houses and apartments from its Street View maps, but that the requests would not derail its plans to activate the service this year," The New York Times reports. "The figure was in line with what German data protection officials had previously estimated. The officials predicted that several hundred thousand people would opt out." http://nyti.ms/bhw7Jr

Networks block Web programs from being viewed on Google TV. "ABC, CBS and NBC are blocking TV programming on their websites from being viewable on Google Inc.'s new Web-TV service, exposing the rift that remains between the technology giant and some of the media companies it wants to supply content for its new products," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Google TV enables access to all the Web content you already get today on your phone and PC, but it is ultimately the content owners' choice to restrict their fans from accessing their content on the platform," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. http://bit.ly/agGTLe

Are Facebook ads outing gay users? "Facebook ads are guessing whether users are gay and targeting a broad range of products to them based on the answer, according to a research study making the rounds on the internet Thursday," CNN reports. "The research, by the Microsoft Institute and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, has some critics saying that by pushing ads toward those users and then registering whether they respond, the system could inadvertently be outing some users on the site." http://bit.ly/cLswNH