TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
04/30/10 05:29 pm ET
The Coast Guard is making sure that its LORAN stations will never serve as a backup to GPS. Yes, it's simply closing some. But in the case of the facility at Port Clarence, Alaska, the Guard decided to literally blow up the tower, the Associated Press reported.>>
04/29/10 01:51 pm ET
While the average Facebook employee probably does not meet Defense Department attire or haircut standards, Defense Deputy Secretary William J. Lynn III told a group of Facebookers at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday that he viewed the two cultures as congruent.>>
04/28/10 05:10 pm ET
In scathing article on problems at the Army's Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson, Colo., the New York Times reported on April 24 that some clinicians at the post hand out so many prescription pain killers that troops in the unit have become addicted to narcotics.>>
04/27/10 06:23 pm ET
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington will close in September 2011, with its personnel, patients and operations moving to an expanded, joint medical facility at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.>>
04/26/10 06:20 pm ET
Two years ago, I observed that the second level ramp at Washington's Dulles International Airport seems to serve as a parking lot for the privileged, despite signs about every 50 feet warning "No Parking, No Stopping, No Standing.">>
04/23/10 12:07 pm ET
Like many Vietnam veterans, Lt. Col. James "Jim" Zumwalt (ret.), my fellow Marine, says he has spent the past 40 years trying to expiate what he calls the raw wounds of that war and its aftermath. >>
04/22/10 07:48 pm ET
The wonderful thing about this gig is I have the opportunity to explore subjects that resonate with my personal experience and touch the heart. The treatment of troops suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury tops the list.>>
04/22/10 11:54 am ET
President Obama announced on Wednesday he plans to nominate Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Jonathan Woodson as assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, filling the military's top doc slot. The post has been empty for a year, ever since Dr. S. Ward Casscells resigned in April 2008. I had heard Woodson was the top choice back in January. >>
04/21/10 05:10 pm ET
That's one of the best suggestions to come out of Wednesday's Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the post 9/11 GI bill.>>
04/20/10 05:06 pm ET
Talking this morning with Air Force Maj. Jonathan Kusy, who works with the U.S. military advisory mission in Iraq, I had one of those moments that makes one pause and reflect.>>
04/19/10 05:52 pm ET
About 7 million airline passengers had been going nowhere slowly due to the volcanic ash plume from a volcano in Iceland that has all but closed air traffic in Europe since April 14.>>
04/16/10 04:59 pm ET
In a sign of the times, the operators of unmanned aerial vehicle won the Air Force's 2010 Team of the Year award.>>
04/15/10 12:13 pm ET
Senators on the Armed Services Committee quizzed Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, on Thursday about his nomination as commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. The lawmakers candidly admitted they were computer challenged.>>
04/14/10 05:34 pm ET
NASA sent its unmanned aerial vehicle called Global Hawk on its first science flights this week to conduct global warming research. It took a 14-hour trip north to Alaska from California on Monday, and followed that up with a 24-hour trip on Tuesday to Alaska again, west to Hawaii and then back to the Dryden Space Flight Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.>>
04/13/10 05:37 pm ET
This FedBizOps notice on what it calls "Gut Illness" may not have much to do with technology, but it's so loopy I had to write about it.>>
04/12/10 04:45 pm ET
Shh, the National Security Agency has developed a software tool that detects thumb drives or other flash media connected to a network, and any federal agency can get a copy free -- no box tops or coupons required.>>
04/09/10 06:29 pm ET
The Navy is looking for a few good veterans to staff its cyber force, offering openings at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Norfolk, Va.>>
04/08/10 09:38 am ET
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. - I arrived here on Wednesday to see a demo of the Joint Tactical Radio Systems program operating in the vehicle of choice for Afghanistan and Iraq: mine resistant ambush protected vehicles. I plan to file a full report on Thursday for the Nextgov news feed.>>
04/07/10 10:50 am ET
While researching a What's Brewin' item I posted this week on backups to the GPS system, I conducted a Google search on GPS jammers. The results of the search staggered me -- by both the number of hits and the fact that Google also carried ads for gizmos that have no legitimate use.>>
04/06/10 05:35 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department has invested more than $4 billion on its Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA) during the last two decades. But the payback the department has received has pretty much exceeded those costs, Health Affairs Journal reported in its April issue.>>
04/05/10 06:10 pm ET
The folks over at the multiagency National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing posted a notice reminding us that the "U.S. government strongly encourages all GPS users to maintain backup capabilities for positioning, navigation and timing" in case of jamming or other outages.>>
04/02/10 05:58 pm ET
The Air Force plans to allow its personnel to access social media sites from the Air Force Network under a new policy effective March 30 for bases in Hawaii and Asia managed by the Pacific Command. The policy will apply to the rest of...>>
04/01/10 05:09 pm ET
I'm obsessed with GPS, which I consider a Defense Department invention and gift to the world equal to the Internet. Today the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, inducted the man who invented the basic technology behind the system now used for...>>
