Now Dell's Board Is Voting On A $24 Billion Buyout Backed By Microsoft

via businessinsider.com

A $24 billion deal to take computer maker Dell private faces one last hurdle: The company's board is voting on the offer tonight, Bloomberg reports.

According to multiple reports, Silver Lake, a buyout firm will invest $1 billion or more; Microsoft will invest $2 billion; and founder Michael Dell will contribute his 16 percent ownership of the current company and $700 million for a majority stake.

The deal will also be backed by $15 billion in debt.

Besides Michael Dell, who's the board chairman, Dell's board includes Facebook investor Jim Breyer, former American Airlines CEO Don Carty, and Ross Perot Jr., among others.

Silver Lake is known for doing big technology deals like the 2000 leveraged buyout of hard-drive maker Seagate Technologies.

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Vote On Facebook's New Policy Changes, Or You'll Never Get Another Chance

via gizmodo.com

In response to user feedback, Facebook is proposing a set of clarified governance and privacy policy changes, and they want you, the Facebook enthusiast, to vote on them once again!

But this is still a Zuckocracy. In the very likely case that less than 30% of the site's 1 billion users don't vote and a majority don't reject the proposal, Facebook will revoke users' voting rights on any future policy or administrative changes. If over 30% vote, the verdict will be binding.

In addition to deciding the fate of the Facebook suffrage movement, users will be voting on whether Facebook can share data between its affiliates (Instagram being the major one). Also on the chopping block is the site's ability to decide who's able to send you private messages and whether users will be prevented from using personal profiles for "commercial gain," which will be strictly relegated to a Facebook fan page.

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How To Vote

via gizmodo.com

The right to elect one's public representatives is the foundation upon which our democracy is built. So if you think Hurricane Sandy is going to stop Americans from choosing the next leader of the free world, demand a recount. Here's a look at the technology everyone over 18 can expect to find in a voting booth on November 6th, 2012.

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New Jersey to allow registered voters to vote by email

via digitaltrends.com

Definitely helpful for anyone in New Jersey displaced by the destructive power of Hurricane Sandy, registered voters can vote electronically this year.

Detailed within a press release from the office of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the New Jersey Department of State has enacted a new directive that offers the ability to vote electronically to New Jersey registered voters that had to relocate due to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. In addition to making it easier to vote for Sandy victims, this new directive also gives emergency relief workers the opportunity to vote without have to make a trip back to their home area of New Jersey. In addition to voting by email, sending a fax is also a valid method of voting for New Jersey registered voters.

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Fake Letters Inform Florida Residents They Can’t Vote

via newsfeed.time.com

For some Florida voters, last weekend started on a low note — literally.

Last Friday, letters that questioned registered voters’ eligibility began appearing in mailboxes across the state, NBC News reported. The letters, which resemble an authentic message from the Florida Division of Elections with a letterhead and contact information, notify recipients that the department has gleaned “information” concerning “citizenship status, bringing into question your eligibility as a registered voter.” The document also informs voters that they must complete a Voter Eligibility Form and return it to the Supervisor of Elections Office within 15 days or else they will surrender their eligibility to vote. Chris Cate, a spokesperson for the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, told NBC that as of Oct. 24, state officials have received reports of between 50 and 100 of these letters from individuals in at least 28 counties. Cate also told NPR that although voters in both parties have received the mailings, most of which were sent from Seattle, Republicans constitute the bulk of the addressees.

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How the Obama Campaign Uses Your Personal Information to Get Your Money and Your Vote

via gizmodo.com

In 2008, the Obama campaign enlisted the help of Facebook and Google bigwigs to help raise massive sums from a lot of small donors. Back then, the key was just a few pieces of data—today, that data mining effort has been expanded to a huge and very creepy degree.

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Who Actually Votes in America? (Infographic)

via takepart.com

Sure, we're always telling you it's important to get out and vote on Election Day. But who actually bothers to show up? We break down the voter turnout data from the last Presidential election in 2008 and look at who actually votes in America—and who doesn't. The results may surprise you.

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The Greatest Books of All Time, as Voted by 125 Famous Authors

via theatlantic.com

"Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work," Jennifer Egan once said. This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bi-directional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers' success, as bespoken by their personal libraries. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity's greatest British and American writers—including Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Joyce Carol Oates—"to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time- novels, story collections, plays, or poems."

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U.S. Takes First Steps Toward Internet Voting

via mashable.com

The 2012 Republican primary‘s first vote was not cast in New Hampshire, as most Americans would assume. An Okaloosa County, Fla., resident living in Thailand got that privilege in December, thanks to a new technology called LiveBallot.

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Researchers hack e-voting machine, similar to 2012 Election Day machines

via digitaltrends.com

A group of American computer science and security experts have performed a hack on an e-voting machine similar to ones which will be used on Election Day in 2012.

Voting machines that could be used by up to a quarter of the US electorate on Election Day next year can be hacked, says a group of computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. In fact, they’re not only saying it. They’ve done it.

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