Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is perhaps the more recognizable individual.  He might be the less surprising pick, too, since it was no secret that Schmidt supported Obama’s run for office, and he was considered a frontrunner for the position of "America’s CTO."

Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, is the other person with ties to the search industry to become a member of the President’s Council.  He’s very well-qualified, having served on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, the Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, and the Council on Foreign Relations before.

Mundie said in a statement, "I’m honored to have this opportunity to advise President Obama and Vice President Biden on science and technology policy.  I look forward to working with other members of the council to determine how science and technology can help address some of the nation’s biggest challenges."

Most of the other council members are professors or academics of some sort.

"The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it’s over," Mundie told Reuters in an interview in the Indonesian capital.

"We know what we thought it’s economic limits were and that didn’t come together, so we’ve moved on and we will go back and implement plan B that we’ve been on in any case," said Mundie talking about Microsoft’s online plans.

Microsoft ended its pursuit of Yahoo last weekend after the Internet company refused its offer to increase the price by $5 billion to $47.5 billion. Microsoft’s offer was $33 a share but Yahoo would not go below $37, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said. Microsoft’s initial offer was $31 per share about three months ago.

"Yahoo could always come back again and say please buy us for $33 (a share) and I’m sure we might reconsider it but we’re not assuming that’s going to happen," added Mundie.