http://techinsider.nextgov.com/ en Copyright 2012 Wed,08 Feb 2012 22:25:00 GMT http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The smartphone's rise in overseas markets is a "key development" that the State Department is watching over the next year, an adviser said Tuesday, signaling the agency's interest in using mobile technology to advance foreign policy goals. The deployment of 3G and 4G mobile networks will enable more people to... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/the_rise_of_the_smartphone.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/the_rise_of_the_smartphone.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Dawn Lim ) International Policy Politics Spending Telecommunications Wireless Wed,08 Feb 2012 22:25:00 GMT The U.S. Embassy in Damascus' only statement to Syrian citizens since pulling up stakes in what appears to be a nascent civil war is...a cartoon. The State Department evacuated the Damascus embassy Monday amid rising violence between Arab Spring protesters and President Basher Assad's regime. It wasn't clear at the... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/leave_em_laughing_syrian_embassy_posts_cartoon_to_facebook.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/leave_em_laughing_syrian_embassy_posts_cartoon_to_facebook.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Tue,07 Feb 2012 22:58:38 GMT This post has been updated to correct a statistic about newspapers as a source of election news About 20 percent of Americans are learning something about the presidential campaign on Facebook, compared with 42 percent who are getting some election news from their local daily newspapers, according to a study... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/facebook_matches_local_papers_for_campaign_followers.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/facebook_matches_local_papers_for_campaign_followers.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Tue,07 Feb 2012 17:37:14 GMT Do you want to be an astronaut? So does everyone else. More than 6,300 people have applied for the positions at NASA, the agency announced Friday. This is the second highest number of applicants following the call for astronauts in 1978 that netted 8,000 applications from people hoping to go... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/astronaut_hopefuls_face_stiff_competition.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/astronaut_hopefuls_face_stiff_competition.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Caitlin Fairchild ) Mon,06 Feb 2012 21:41:57 GMT In what might be the modern equivalent of the cat-ate-my-homework excuse perfected by a previous generation of school children, James Murdoch is offering a new defense for ignorance of critical matters: Blame the IT shop. Murdoch's lawyers say the tabloid executive never received an email chain describing the scope of... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/got_a_problem_blame_the_help_desk.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/02/got_a_problem_blame_the_help_desk.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Katherine McIntire Peters ) Wed,01 Feb 2012 13:46:24 GMT The social media town hall has become a staple of the Obama Administration with events conducted via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube in the past three years and a Google Plus hangout scheduled for Monday. Agency heads have followed suit, often taking Twitter questions during live streamed events. This month... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/on_town_halls_and_social_media.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/on_town_halls_and_social_media.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Fri,27 Jan 2012 17:45:04 GMT Federal agencies know they want Twitter followers but figuring out when and who to follow back is a thornier issue, based on questions during a webinar titled "Engaging Audiences with Twitter," sponsored by the General Services Administration's Web Manager University. "Some folks in the public aren't entirely comfortable being followed... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/agencies_know_when_to_lead_but_what_about_when_to_follow.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/agencies_know_when_to_lead_but_what_about_when_to_follow.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Thu,26 Jan 2012 18:23:59 GMT This article has been updated to include comment from Google and GSA Google's controversial new privacy policies will not apply to users of the Google Apps for Government enterprise email system, such as the General Services Administration, a Google official said Wednesday. The statement came after Karen Evans, the former... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/former_e-gov_director_calls_new_google_privacy_policy_dangerous.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/former_e-gov_director_calls_new_google_privacy_policy_dangerous.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Wed,25 Jan 2012 21:02:08 GMT This article has been updated with new information from GSA The General Services Administration has begun the process of moving its public Web presence to a unified cloud, according to a press release from CGI Federal, which won the $21 million five-year contract for the transition. Among the cloud-bound sites... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/usagov_datagov_on_their_way_to_the_cloud.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/usagov_datagov_on_their_way_to_the_cloud.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Tue,24 Jan 2012 15:41:44 GMT The White House plans to follow up the president's Tuesday State of the Union address with a "State of the Union interview" with the president conducted on Google Plus next Monday. The White House just signed on to the search giant's new social networking site on Friday though President Obama's... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/queue_up_the_next_social_media_town_hall_-_on_google_now.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/queue_up_the_next_social_media_town_hall_-_on_google_now.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Mon,23 Jan 2012 16:45:47 GMT The State and Defense departments plan to work with European Union officials to develop an "international code of conduct" to govern activities in outer space, the American Forces Press Service reported Wednesday. The conduct code was prompted by the recent crash of a failed Russian Mars probe into the Pacific... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/a_space_treaty_for_the_junk_age.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/a_space_treaty_for_the_junk_age.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Wed,18 Jan 2012 20:55:09 GMT Former federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra is the new executive vice president of emerging markets at Salesforce.com, the cloud provider and government contractor announced Monday. Kundra, who was the nation's first official CIO, left government in August to take a fellowship at Harvard University. While in office, Kundra bemoaned... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/kundra_joins_cloud_provider_salesforce.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/kundra_joins_cloud_provider_salesforce.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Mon,16 Jan 2012 17:46:00 GMT Verizon is having a good week, as far as federal contracting goes. As my colleague Bob Brewin pointed out in What's Brewin' yesterday, Verizon stands to benefit significantly from the Pentagon's focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Now today the U.S. Postal Service is giving the company -- the largest communications... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/another_win_for_verizon.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/another_win_for_verizon.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Katherine McIntire Peters ) Wed,11 Jan 2012 17:59:50 GMT Some of the greatest interest in the slate of new top-level Internet domain names set to be opened up Thursday has come from governments, the chief executive of the non-profit body that will oversee those new domains said. In some cases national governments are interested in new top-level domains that,... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/cities_states_eager_for_new_top-level_domains_icann_ceo_says.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/cities_states_eager_for_new_top-level_domains_icann_ceo_says.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Tue,10 Jan 2012 23:09:56 GMT The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang has put together probably the best presentation to date of the ideological conflict between government-built mobile applications and industry-built apps that rely on government data. According to the Weather Gang's report, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials put the kibosh on any government-built weather... http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/the_great_gov_apps_debate_hits_noaa.php http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2012/01/the_great_gov_apps_debate_hits_noaa.php webmaster@nextgov.com ( Joseph Marks ) Mon,09 Jan 2012 19:11:04 GMT