We noted on Friday that the Federal Communications Commission had released an official version of a web app designed to tell Americans just how fast and stable their broadband Internet connects are. Also worth noting is that there's now a mobile version of the FCC's Broadband Speed Test, too -- an iPhone app that uses your phone's built-in GPS capabilities to figure out where in the U.S. you are, and then tell just how robust your mobile Internet connection truly is.

If you're reading the tea leaves for policy clues, the FCC's iPhone Broadband Speed Test app is just one more reminder that this Federal Communications Commission intends to have its say over mobile broadband, not just the land-based stuff.

 

One step closer to the dream of canvassers everywhere to have a two-way, digital, portable voter file in their pocket is MiniVAN Touch, the just-released iPhone app version of the Voter Activation Network data program used to power a great deal of Democratic campaigns and the field organizing efforts of a wide range of progressive groups. The target audience: existing VAN clients, as it requires users to already have a way to log into the VAN.

"We definitely feel this has a broader audience than the Palm app it replaced," VAN new media director Mike Sager tells me, "because it is so easy to use and troubleshoot. We think lots of candidates themselves will carry the app when they go door to door."

Are we nearing the promise land of the paperless campaign? Perhaps not quite yet, but Sager says that the iPhone version of VAN can at least cut down on the vast amounts of time and effort that can get wasted during the course of a campaign's pounding of the pavement or working of a crowd. "The app is dramatically more efficient than walking with paper lists," says Sager, "as it eliminates all the follow up data entry -- press one button, and your contacts are recorded in VAN."

CPAC, that annual gathering of conservative activists, bold-faced names, members of Congress, and true believers, has been humming along for more than 35 years. But this year, for the very first time, CPAC attendees can navigate the two-day conference at Washington's Marriott Wardman Park Hotel armed with an iPhone app. It's also a useful tool for those following the festivities from home.

The official CPAC 2010 iPhone app, built by the firms Purple Forge and Raise Digital and available for free on iTunes, helpfully collects together all the speaker bios for presenters at the conference. An auto-updated conference agenda is included, as are maps of the meeting spaces. Also featured in the app are Twitter streams, photos from Flickr, and videos from YouTube.

Want to offer feedback on that Glenn Beck keynote as it happens? The CPAC app includes a conference survey tool.

There's also an automatically-generated news feed with CPAC related reports, though it might not shape up the way its designers intended. The first item in the CPAC app's news stream at the moment is a post from the Center for American Progress' Campus Progress blog, titled "CPAC: Brought to You by Unionized Workers."

House Education and Labor Committee Democrats tout the usefulness of the Recovery Act in a new 30-second web video:

Say you're a parent, and you want to know, does my child have a good teacher?

There's an act for that.

And you want to know how you're going to pay for college.

There's an act for that.

And you wonder if they'll get a good job.

There's an act for that too.

Yep, there's an act cleaning up the last eight years. Only the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Can we see George Miller in a black turtleneck now?

The launch of the official White House iPhone app was announced on the White House blog late last night by the White House's chief developer. There few parts of that sentence that wouldn't have seemed a little crazy a year or so ago.

That aside, what's in the new White House iPhone app? If you have a minute and a half, take a look at the video to the right for quick rundown of what the app features.

If you don't have that long, keep reading...

For a guy with a self-reported case of Ludditism, Howard Dean has a knack for trying curious new things in the digital politics space. The iPhone version of his "Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Health Care Reform" from Chelsea Green (co-authored by Igor Volsky and Faiz Shakir) marries the text of his manifesto with a handful of basic mobile activism widgets. The interface could be smoother and the app succumbs to random slowness. But the Call-Sign Up-Share advocacy tools are a new twist on the ones pioneered by the Obama campaign, and include integration with Twitter, Facebook, and more:

Contact their member of congress. The application uses either the user’s current location or zip code to generate telephone numbers for the corresponding with Congressional representatives. Once the information is entered, the user can call the Member’s office right from their iPhone.

Sign the petition. Join more than 350,000 people in signing Governor Dean’s petition at www.standwithdrdean.com, calling on Congress to ensure that a public health insurance option is included in healthcare reform.

Involve friends. The application enables the user to forward an email to their contacts about the book, the healthcare reform debate, and how to get involved, as well as to post to their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Watch the video. The application also features two videos by Governor Dean, outlining what real healthcare reform looks like and thanking the reader for their activism.

For $9.99 -- a few bucks more than the Kindle version of the book -- you can get Dr. Dean in your pocket for from the iTunes store.

Despite the attention paid to national service recently, the field of volunteerism remains stolidly in the Industrial Era. But the moment is ripe...

Change.gov the website is so yesterday. Today, it's Change.gov the widget, iPhone app, and mobile tool.

We noted a few days ago that online home of the Obama-Biden Transition Project had swapped out traditional copyright for a far looser Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license -- one that invites users to have their way with the site's contents, as long as they give credit back to Obama. Now a new service called Cerado Ventana has packaged Change.gov in a way that makes it easier to interact with the site through other portals.

Obama's campaign released an iPhone application (thanks to an all-volunteer creative base). So how can McCain catch up and prove that his campaign has tech prowess? Release their version of the application on Google's Android platform for the T-Mobile G1.

Today the Obama campaign announced it released the Obama '08 iPhone app, a free application for your iPhone or iPod Touch. The app is pitched as a "a great volunteering tool that lets you make a difference any time you want by talking to people you already know." It's a slick application, but is it useful 33 days from the election?

Update: I received word from the developers that this was an all-volunteer effort, which changes things. Read below.