The New Republic

It's possible that no chief executive going before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has had a more friendly hearing room than Apple CEO Tim Cook. READ MORE >>

Silicon Valley is raising its voice in Washington these days. The tech industry has been interested in the federal government for decades, but now it’s demanding things more loudly: Google spent $18.2 million lobbying in 2012. Mark Zuckerberg and a pack of executives launched an advocacy group that’s tackling immigration reform. READ MORE >>

For championing a cause most techies and liberals agree with—reforming America's immigration system—Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sure has taken a lot of flak. READ MORE >>

After months of rumors about who’ll be the next leader of the Federal Communications Commission—or even whether the last head, Julius Genachowski, would ever leave—the White House has finally confirmed that Tom Wheeler’s the guy. READ MORE >>

It's been a rough few months for Foursquare. The four-year-old location-sharing app, best known for making you the "mayor" of a place if you "check in" there more than anyone else, generated only $2 million in revenue in 2012; a research firm pronounced in January it would be dead or purchased by the end of the year. READ MORE >>

On a sunny, freezing cold January at the main entrance to Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, with cabs jostling for position to drop passengers off, Travis Kalanick searched his pockets and black backpack for his iPhone—the same one that he, the CEO of sedan-hailing app Uber, had used to summon the black SUV that just dropped us off. Phone located, we forged past a scrum of people waiting for people to be paired with taxis. READ MORE >>

A year ago this month, Stanford Law School hosted a little-noticed meeting that may help decide the future of free speech online. It took place in the faculty lounge, where participants were sustained in their deliberations by bagels and fruit platters. READ MORE >>

The Driskill Hotel, a Romanesque brick and limestone hulk at the corner of Old Pecan and Brazos streets in downtown Austin, is the closest thing the Texas capital has to old-world glamour. The hotel also happens to be haunted, supposedly, by the ghost of the man whose portrait hangs at the stairs to the bar just off the lobby: Colonel Jesse Driskill, a cattle baron who made a fortune during and after the Civil War peddling longhorn to a famine-stricken region. READ MORE >>

As a tech reporter, I end up going to a lot of conferences. Illustrious figures from science and business gather for panels, keynotes, luncheons, and “fireside chats.” Mostly, they’re just glorified networking events that allow media outlets and trade organizations to score a few headlines and bolster sagging budgets. READ MORE >>

If there's one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days, it's that the Internet ought to be free. Both parties included an "internet freedom" plank in their 2012 platforms. READ MORE >>