Technology has changed how we communicate, watch television and travel the globe. This morning, Capitol Hill staffers got to enjoy how technology has upgraded their Snickers bar experience.

The National Automatic Merchandising Association introduced a "digi-touch" vending machine for congressional officials in the Cannon Caucus Room this morning.
 
The digi-touch looks and acts like the Apple iPad, and while the touch-screen vending technology debuted several months ago it has yet to make its way into businesses across the county.
 
After making an initial selection on the giant screen, users can read the nutritional information of the selected goodies before making their purchase. (And perhaps feel guilty enough to choose something more nutritious than a candy bar.)
 
Final selections twirl around on the screen before dropping down to the bottom like a normal vending machine. Does this guarantee that your snack of choice won’t get stuck in the machine? Not exactly, but hey, it’s an upgrade.
 
A NAMA spokesman told us that the company that makes the digi-touch would be thrilled if the machines were installed on Capitol Hill. In the meantime, they’re content just to give lawmakers and staffers a chance to interact with the next wave of snacking technology.

Facebook's DC office introduced itself to Washington media on Tuesday night at a party at the W Hotel's J&G wine bar, the cozy basement arm of the more formal Jean Georges steakhouse upstairs.

The food was delicious, and the young, well-connected crowd was a jaunty combination of tech, gossip and social reporters who enjoyed the bar's signature cocktail, the ginger margarita, before heading out into the downy snow.

Facebook's Tim Sparapani's take on the role of Facebook in the mid-term election cycle: "In order to best utilize Facebook, campaigns are going to have to learn how to let go of control [over content] while still staying on message. It's not easy, but it's incredibly powerful if you can do it."

For photos of Facebook's new friends in town, visit The Hill's Washington Scene.

Last night, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning the recent cyber attacks against Google in China.

The resolution was introduced by Senators Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Jim Webb (D-Va.), Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). Read more...

To coincide with the Grammy awards, two dozen recording artists signed a petition last week encouraging Congress to pass the Performance Rights Act, which would require radio stations to pay royalties to singers in addition to the songwriters who already get paid.

Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Josh Groban, Fergie and Mary J. Blige are among the singers who signed the petition.

"In speaking with these talented artists, I heard three constant refrains," said Daryl Friedman, vice president of advocacy and government relations for The Recording Academy. Read more...

Say you're hanging out in a new city and want to get online with your smartphone or laptop using empty airwaves known as "white spaces."

But you don't know which airwaves are available for you to use.

Well, there's an app for that.  (Even though it's not very useful yet.)

"White space" networks don't exist yet in most of the country. The FCC is still working out the details of how a such a network would work and how to avoid interfering with neighboring broadcasters on those airwaves.

But Spectrum Bridge, a firm that created a test network in rural Claudville, Va., is trying to get ahead of the game. They created an iPhone application, called Show My White Space, that lets you find empty frequencies that can be used for wireless broadband access. Read more...

Hackers are stealing sensitive information from government and private networks in the U.S. on a daily basis, the director of national intelligence said Tuesday.

“Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey,” said Dennis Blair, the director of National Intelligence.

Blair made the revealing remark at the Senate Intelligence Committee’s annual threat assessment hearing on Tuesday.

The music industry's sales have been chopped in half over the past decade, due to changing consumer tastes and business models.

A report by Forrester Research shows total revenue from U.S. music sales and and licensing fees plummeted to $6.3 billion in 2009. That's down from $14.6 billion in 1999.

The growth of digital music--and consumers' reluctance to pay for it online--is the biggest culprit for the industry's staggering losses. Napster, the free file-sharing site, debuted in 1999, followed by others such as Kazaa and LimeWire. Read more...

I tend to cringe when I watch myself being interviewed on TV (or YouTube), but nonetheless, I'll post my latest chat.

Yesterday I did a quick interview with Focus Washington's TechView. I talked about the major policy issues for 2010 and we touched on the mega-merger between Comcast and NBC Universal, which will be the subject of two hearings on Capitol Hill Thursday.

Check the interview out here.

There's also a fair amout of other tech-related material on the site for all of you policy wonks out there.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday sent letters to 30 technology companies seeking information about their human-rights practices in China.

The letters were sent to Apple, Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Durbin, who is chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, also said he will hold a hearing on global Internet freedom next month. He expects Google and administration officials to testify.

The interest in Internet freedom was sparked last month when Google said it was the target of a massive cyber attack originating from China. Google threatened to pull out of China altogether unless the country stops censoring communications.