Tim Cook visits White House, hangs in Georgetown [Links Roundup]

CEO of Apple Makes Surprise Appearance in Georgetown [Patch.com]: “Employees at the Georgetown Apple Store got a major surprise when the CEO of the international company walked through the door. As part of Apple’s continuous support for World AIDS Day, CEO Tim Cook visited the local store … Cook posted two pictures on Twitter and said that it was ‘Great to visit in Georgetown.'”
Apple’s Tim Cook visits White House [RollCall]: “[B]ut an aide declined to say whether or not he spent time with President Obama.”
Pentagon Game for Anything in Tech Push [Wall Street Journal]: “The Defense Department on Wednesday issued a request for information, calling on existing defense contractors and nontraditional suppliers for ideas that could enter development in the next five to 10 years and be ready between 2025 and 2030. Pentagon and military leaders have in recent months spent more time with commercial executives in the strongholds of the domestic information technology sector, but want to expand the universe of potential suppliers.”
Washington D.C. Marks First Open-Government Advisory Meeting [State Tech]: “The District of Columbia’s Open Government Advisory Group may be only a month old but the 15-member group has already established bylaws and a working outline of short- and midterm projects for boosting transparency and accountability. The first order of business will be evaluating and providing recommendations on improving the content and format of open-government plans submitted by dozens of the District’s agencies.”
A Virginia Tech Professor Got $1M to Improve Artificial Intelligence [InTheCapital]: “An assistant professor at Virginia Tech received close to $1 million ‘to teach machines to use ‘common sense’ in image analysis.’ Devi Parikh, who leads the Computer Vision Lab at Virginia Tech, is the recipient of the Allen Distinguished Investigator Award from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. She’s using the money to help computers ‘read’ complex images with the use of cartoon clip art scenes.”