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The State of the Union address is a set piece. Appeal to the middle class. Rattle sabers at enemies abroad. Toward the end, highlight a few ordinary, courageous Americans by name.

Last night, Barack Obama waded into new territory with a plan for the nation that seemed to rely particularly heavily on gee-whiz technology. In fact, Obama made so many references to 3-D printing, genome mapping, Apple, and clean energy that some wags on Twitter suggested he might be trying out for a writing position at a technology magazine.