TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
05/28/10 06:38 pm ET
Government Executive Editor in chief Tom Shoop wrote in FedBlog on Friday about President Obama's statement on Thursday about increasing the federal government's technological ability to respond to future oil spills -- and how that relates to where to we should draw the line on government's role and on regulation.>>
05/27/10 01:49 pm ET
The General Services Administration on Thursday officially announced that Web services firm ChallengePost will offer a free tool that lets agencies easily launch online contests, information that Nextgov reported last month. >>
05/27/10 04:23 pm ET
The Office of Personnel Management conducted a survey of federal workers on telework habits and has begun to munch the numbers. While the survey findings haven't been released, Justin Johnson, deputy chief of staff at OPM, gave a sneak peek at some of the results during a panel discussion on telework on Thursday.>>
05/26/10 04:25 pm ET
The Interior Department, saddled with handling the Gulf Coast oil spill, on Wednesday quickly moved to appoint a new chief information officer, Bernard J. Mazer. He will replace Sanjeev Bhagowalia, who joined the General Services Administration on Monday. >>
05/25/10 05:02 pm ET
Google set a precedent for the use of cookies - website tracking devices - that the White House should follow, some privacy advocates said, reacting to the news that the search giant will now allow site owners and users to opt out of its service that tracks traffic on websites. >>
05/24/10 04:07 pm ET
Just when you though there was an automated process for everything, one of the most forward-thinking areas of science decided to ditch computers for some good old-fashioned human problem-solving. >>
05/21/10 04:38 pm ET
The General Services Administration is redesigning its Office of Citizen Services and Communications, the division responsible for the agency's public-facing websites and information, to include a technology-focused office. >>
05/20/10 02:24 pm ET
The Homeland Security official responsible for driving new White House requirements for continuous monitoring of networks across government endorsed NASA's bold move to ditch existing policy of certifying network systems as compliant with an unpopular security law. >>
05/19/10 06:08 pm ET
When NASA's chief information security officer issued a memo on Tuesday directing network managers to stop writing reports on certifying systems complied with a security law and instead focus on canning systems for ways hackers could infiltrate their systems, you could hear security experts exhale a big sigh of relief. This is huge. One security expert told Nextgov that this is what they've been working toward for the past 15 years.>>
05/18/10 01:19 pm ET
Federal agencies are all over the social media craze, using Twitter, Facebook and other tools to connect with the American public. But what if an agency has a different audience? Do the same strategies apply? >>
05/17/10 03:26 pm ET
Lawmakers last week blocked President Obama's plans to liquidate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Constellation program, reigniting hopes that the agency would be able to send astronauts up to the moon again. >>
05/17/10 12:17 pm ET
Nextgov wrote a few weeks back about the best and worst of government websites. Now one more organization has jumped on the improvement bandwagon: The Federal Judiciary, home of the U.S. Courts, on Saturday launched a redesigned website complete with additional tools and a whole new look. >>
05/14/10 05:25 pm ET
The Justice Department on Friday allowed states to exclude certain personal information about sex offenders from public notification websites in a move to increase compliance with the law. >>
05/14/10 03:32 pm ET
This time of year brings out scams aimed at tricking taxpayers to give up personal information through e-mails. The latest landed in my inbox on Friday. The e-mail had the subject "Internal Revenue Service - Tax refund (28831290) $620.50," and it said it came from "Irs.Gov." It's message:>>
05/14/10 09:32 am ET
An Australian data management company has hired 200 inmates in a jail there to process data. iTNews reported that the prisoners "will handle banking information 24 hours a day using a shift system." They'll be paid (U.S.) $2.20 a day.>>
05/13/10 01:52 pm ET
Virtual worlds may be the way of the future, but government isn't quite ready to cede its methods to this particular technology. >>
05/13/10 12:16 pm ET
Today I'm covering the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference here in Washington. Sure, it's being held just a few miles away from Nextgov's offices, but I decided to try attending the conference about virtual worlds virtually. I had high expectations for this experience -- after all, isn't Second Life, one of the more widely used platforms for virtual interaction, cool? >>
05/13/10 09:15 am ET
For years, chief information officers have been trying to gain respect in the C-suite. That meant reporting to the leader of the agency or office in which he or she worked. That relationship was enshrined in the 1996 Clinger Cohen Act, which established the CIO position and required the chief to report to the head of the agency. Almost everyone ignored it. (The Obama administration, so far, has been the exception, with the Veterans Affairs Department putting a lot of stock in CIO Roger Baker and John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, elevating the agency's CIO to report directly to him.) But for the most part, it's been a struggle for the CIO to earn boardroom cred and move out from under the CFO's thumb.>>
05/12/10 10:17 am ET
Max Palevsky, described as a baron of the early computer industry who helped found the giant chip maker Intel Corp., died on May 5 at 85. Here are the last three sentences in the nearly 1,800 word obituary that ran in the Los Angeles Times:>>
05/11/10 01:42 pm ET
The long-awaited reform of federal hiring procedures is finally underway, and the public soon may be able to follow the government's progress in deploying new practices. >>
05/10/10 02:31 pm ET
A new online inbox to solicit anonymous comments from service members and their family members about the impact of reversing the ban on openly gay soldiers in the military went live this month.>>
05/07/10 04:07 pm ET
New rules from the White House aimed at penalizing stimulus recipients who fail to report on their spending instruct agencies to probe a report-tracking database every day for potential offenders.>>
05/06/10 05:50 pm ET
A legal battle looms on the horizon after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski released plans today on how the agency would fight to restore regulatory powers over the Internet. >>
05/06/10 05:46 pm ET
While Washingtonians are just grateful when Metro subway cars move, some New Yorkers want mobile apps that will point them to the most convenient seats in New York City Transit cars. >>
05/06/10 05:42 pm ET
In her blog on Thursday, Paulette Robinson, the assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the National Defense University, posted an item on Thursday about her effort to create a group in the federal government to talk about the use of virtual worlds in the federal government. It started out slow she said, but now the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds has 1,600 members - and a conference starting May 13.>>
05/05/10 08:48 am ET
Texts, tweets and e-mails from those who have felt the effects of the Gulf Coast oil spill will be mapped out with new crowdsourcing technology, giving the federal government another look at the impact of the crisis.>>
05/04/10 05:58 pm ET
Most have heard of the Semantic Web, an idea developed by Tim Berners-Lee . Generally speaking, the Semantic Web, or Web 3.0 as it is also referred to, will be able to make connections among your personal information and devices to anticipate your simple actions, decisions and needs. (The classic, yet simplified, example Berners-Lee offered years ago is a call comes in to your phone and the Web automatically turns down the volume on your stereo. The example goes on to show more complicated tasks such as setting up an appointment with a new doctor.)>>
05/03/10 02:37 pm ET
The Transportation Administration is continuing its rollout of the much-embattled full body scanners, which privacy groups have called invasive and not as anonymous as TSA claims. >>
