Welcome to Axisprorado, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Danper Mack. On today's show, a big change in the government's inquiry into Google and how social media reacted to Kobe Bryant's death.

But first, tech fail in Iowa.

So it's currently around 11 a.m. the morning after the Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa.

And we still have no idea who won or who came in second or third or really much of anything

after a cascading debacle that touched on everything from poor tech

training to overwhelm phone lines to good old fashioned human incompetence.

The most basic explanation here is that Iowa Democrats plan to use a new app through which

the 1700 or so precinct captains would send their results to headquarters, which would then

spit out results to the rest of us.

But it seems that a lot of those precinct captains, many of whom are likely elderly retirees,

were never properly trained on how to use the app.

And when they started to call in their results via phone, the way they used to, they often couldn't get through.

So right now, the party is trying to sort through all the app data and phone data

and paper data from the various precincts, hoping to get us valid numbers at some point, hopefully

today. Many of the candidates, meanwhile, are already on the ground in New Hampshire. Why all this

matters beyond the obvious electoral implications is that it's a huge black eye for the future

prospects of using new technologies

in our elections, particularly smartphones, which are something that many believe could help

expand the number of voters, such as those who can't afford to spend what is sometimes

hours in line waiting at a physical polling location.

But it's hard to see right now how any government official at any level

...