CALIFORNIA
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul visited on Thursday Facebook and Microsoft centers in Silicon Valley, California.
Gul firstly visited Facebook headquarters, and was briefed by Facebook executives.
President Gul later visited Microsoft center, Google headquarters and watched Istanbul from the giant screen at the headquarters.
Gul also received information from Google executives about the unmanned vehicle they were working on.
Earlier in the day, Gul visited Apple center.
Gul is expected to visit Twitter's center and depart for Turkey on Saturday.
Silicon Valley refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the American high-tech sector. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States and the world, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for one-third (1/3) of all of the venture capital investment in the United States.
According to an American Electronics Association study in 2006, Silicon Valley was the third largest high-tech center (cybercity) in the United States, behind the New York metropolitan area and Washington metropolitan area, with 225,300 high-tech jobs. The Bay Area as a whole however, of which Silicon Valley is a part, would rank first with 387,000 high-tech jobs. Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area, with 285.9 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers. Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary at $144,800. Largely a result of the high technology sector, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the United States per capita.
Silicon Valley received 41% of all U.S. venture investment in 2011.
Turkish president says he has not thought of becoming NATO secretary general
Gul said becoming the secretary general of NATO had never come to his mind.
President Abdullah Gul commented on recent stories that he could be nominated a candidate for NATO secretary general, and said, "I have not thought of such a thing."
"NATO Secretariat General is an important position, and it is pleasing for Turkey that a Turkish President is thought to be assigned to this position," Gul told a press conference at Microsoft center.
