In July 1976, Apple unveiled the Apple 1 computer, helping (along with Microsoft, founded a year earlier) to launch the PC revolution and paving the way to the digital society we live in today. That same month, a former governor of Georgia was nominated to be the Democratic party’s presidential candidate, paving the way to Jimmy Carter’s victory in the general election and an eventful—though just one-term—stint in the White House.
Carter’s ascent to the presidency at the dawn of the PC age may not have been an accident: Both were the product of a particular moment in time, as Rolling Stone contended in this insightful 2011 article which also included the first Ramones album among the momentous happenings that made the year 1976 so special.
Like Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Carter also had an epic second act. After losing his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan, Carter went on to become an indefatigable humanitarian devoted to fighting disease and poverty, and to promoting peace—leading to a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
On Sunday, Carter died at age 100. His legacy, like the tech startups that launched so many years ago, lives on. —Alexei Oreskovic
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Trump jumps into MAGA visa brawl
After days of bitter infighting among Trump supporters about foreign worker visas, the president elect weighed in over the weekend. Donald Trump appeared to side with Elon Musk and the MAGA tech faction, saying in several media interviews that he supports H-1B visas and that his businesses have made frequent use of them over the years.
As the New York Times reports though, Trump’s businesses appear to have mainly used H-2B visas, which are for unskilled workers like housekeepers and cooks. Those are different than H-1-B visas for skilled workers like software engineers, which Musk and company want to see expanded but which anti-immigrant MAGA loyalists like Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon are vehemently opposed to (Bannon reportedly described Musk as a “toddler” in a post).
Here's one easy prediction for 2025: The visa dispute will continue to preoccupy and divide Trump’s coalition.
Trump's TikTok solution
In other Trump tech news, the president elect asked the U.S. Supreme court on Friday to pause the countdown to a ban on TikTok so that he could put his dealmaking prowess to work.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government—concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” read a legal filing submitted by Trump’s lawyers.
During his first term as President, Trump led efforts to separate the popular social media app from its Chinese owners, arguing that it presents a national security threat. A bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in April gives TikTok until Jan. 19—the day before Trump takes office—to sell itself to non-Chinese owners or be shut down in the U.S.
AT&T and Verizon: We were hacked
Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon made an end-of-year confession: Each of their networks were breached by foreign hackers in the so-called Salt Typhoon cyberattacks earlier this year, Bloomberg reports. The official admission was not exactly a shocker. Media reports had long cited AT&T and Verizon as among several carriers affected in coordinated China-linked attacks that sought to gain access to foreign intelligence (China has denied any involvement).
Both carriers said their networks were now free of any intrusion by foreign hackers, though U.S. officials have said it’s still unclear how many Americans were targeted during the incidents.
“Based on our current investigation of this attack, the People’s Republic of China targeted a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest,” AT&T said in a statement. “In the relatively few instances in which an individual’s information was impacted, we have complied with our notification obligations in cooperation with law enforcement.”
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