The nation's roughly 500 magistrates act as assistant judges in U.S. District Courts, handling requests for search warrants and other types of surveillance.

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"Instead of being deaf, dumb, and blind sitting on our desks or in our pockets, our computers might be able to observe what we do all day, understand what is important to us, and act as a virtual assistant who helps us on a second-by-second basis, " said Thad Starner, Associate Professor of the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Tech University.

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Earlier, she served as assistant to the president for domestic policy, where she helped create the No Child Left Behind Act .

FORBES: Margaret Spellings