THE NEWS WRAP: Obama hires former Twitter product manager

Silicon Valley veteran Jason Goldman will become the White House’s first chief digital officer as part of the Obama administration’s bid to grow its tech staff.

Goldman is best known for his work on Twitter, Medium and Blogger and will now lead the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy.

“Goldman brings new energy and coveted expertise as someone who’s helped shape the digital age,” President Obama told Politico.

The announcement follows a string of recent appointments, including former Facebook engineering director David Recordon being brought on as the White House’s director of technology.

Facebook is looking to host news content directly on its site

Facebook is in discussions with several media partners including BuzzFeed and National Geographic in order to “make the experience of consuming content online more seamless”, according to The New York Times.

The new format will be tested in the next few months and will see Facebook directly host content, rather than users having to click through to a link to read a news story.

Facebook has 1.4 billion users worldwide.

Wearables are coming

Wearables will soon be the new smartphones, according to Telstra’a chief technology officer Vish Nandlall.

“I think the curve starts to bend around probably 2020 leading into 2025,” he told Fairfax.

“That’s where we’re going to see a lot more industries start to come in, and then you’re going to see much more penetration of these services across the population.”

The Apple Watch will launch worldwide on April 24.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 104.90 points, falling 0.58% overnight to 18,011.14. The Aussie dollar is currently trading at around 79 US cents.

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