President Barack Obama joins a toast with Technology Business Leaders at a dinner in Woodside, California, Feb. 17, 2011.

Reports that Jack Ma, a former schoolteacher and owner of one of China’s largest on-line portals, has expressed interest in purchasing the Internet giant Yahoo follow on the heels of earlier statements by Silicon Valley’s Chinese workers that President Obama is ignoring the issue of most concern to them — immigration.

According to the Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily, Chinese immigrant workers in Silicon Valley expressed disappointment following a visit by President Obama to the headquarters of the social media company LinkedIn.

The paper noted that during his town hall-style meeting in mid-September, Obama fielded a number of questions invited beforehand by the professional networking site. Despite their own questions having generated significant support among on-line users, however, Chinese workers told the Sing Tao that Obama steered clear of anything related to immigration. The reason, they claimed, was that as immigrants they do not have the right to vote and that they do not constitute a major source of fundraising for his campaign.

The group also said that the key to America’s economic recover lay in the housing market, and that they would have purchased houses themselves were it not for fear of losing their visa status in the country. The workers, therefore, urged Obama to increase the quota for high-tech migrant workers to the country and to allow them to more easily apply for residency status

Hadiah Steve Jobs untuk Presiden Obama: iPad2

Obama menggunakan iPad untuk membaca blog dan situs berita di dunia maya

Presiden Amerika Serikat, Barack Obama, mengaku senang mendapat kado istimewa dari petinggi Apple Inc., Steve Jobs. Hadiahnya berupa komputer tablet iPad2, yang baru diluncurkan Maret lalu.

“Steve Jobs memberikan iPad2 pada saya sedikit lebih awal. Ini keren, karena langsung saya dapatkan dari dia,” kata Obama dalam sebuah wawancara di stasiun berita ABC News, yang dikutip dari harian The New Zealand Herald, 4 Oktober 2011.

Obama menggunakan iPad untuk membaca blog dan situs berita di dunia maya. “Saya orang yang suka memilah-milah dari berbagai sumber. Banyak koran yang sebelumnya saya baca di edisi cetak kini saya bisa baca di Internet,” tuturnya.

Namun, Obama mengaku tidak mau menulis komentar di situs yang diaksesnya. “Saya tidak melakukannya. Saya kira jika mulai memberi komentar, saya tak akan berhenti. Saya punya hal lain untuk dilakukan,” ujar Obama.

Selain iPad, Obama juga dikenal sebagai salah satu pengguna gadget BlackBerry. Sebagai kepala negara, BlackBerry milik Obama memiliki sistem keamanan yang canggih