TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
01/31/12 04:55 pm ET
As we all know, Marines really aren't supposed to engage in long land wars as they have done for the past decade in Afghanistan and Iraq (and as they did in Vietnam). They're intended to conduct assaults from amphibious ships, colloquially known as "Gator...>>
01/30/12 06:43 pm ET
Teri Takai, the Defense Department's chief information officer, will lose "acquisition specific functions," according to a Jan. 11 memo signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that was sent to me by a benevolent reader today. That memo, which formally disestablished the Assistant Secretary...>>
01/27/12 02:00 pm ET
The Air Force will continue to buy a new specialized version of the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft despite plans announced yesterday by the Defense Department to cancel older versions and use manned U-2s instead, Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz...>>
01/26/12 02:16 pm ET
San Diego -- The Navy has a whole bunch of ships -- 286 of them -- loaded with a mess of computer and communications gadgets, but the service's top network guy has no clear idea of what kinds of gizmos have been installed on...>>
01/25/12 04:02 pm ET
The Air Force decided to not buy any more high flying Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft and instead plans to keep manned U-2s in operation through 2020, Reuters reported. This will leave the Air Force with a fleet of 21 Global Hawks, which cost...>>
01/24/12 04:40 pm ET
San Diego -- The Navy has heard the growing demand for smartphones and mobile computers. Rear Adm. Jerry Burroughs, program executive officer for command, control, computers, communications and intelligence at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command said he's listening and indicated the gadgets...>>
01/23/12 05:28 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department said it accidentally released the records of 2,200 living veterans to Ancestry.com in response to a Freedom of Information Act request last month, a data dump that included social security numbers. The family history website, which provides access to genealogical...>>
01/20/12 11:21 am ET
The Army released yesterday what amounts to a well-thought-out guidebook on how to care for and manage troops after eleven years of constant combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 211-page report and the work that went into it was spearheaded by Vice Chief of...>>
01/19/12 05:57 pm ET
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey on Tuesday released a new operational concept that reinforces the importance of space and cyberspace to military operations, a point emphasized in the new Defense strategy announced by President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon...>>
01/18/12 01:35 pm ET
I have confirmed that AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, experienced an "enterprise-wide" shutdown that lasted most of the day Tuesday. AHLTA provides electronic records for 9.6 million active duty personnel, retirees and their families, and I'm told the failure of the...>>
01/17/12 06:16 pm ET
XM Radio seems to be following the disastrous customer relations strategy executed last year by Netflix. Last week, it shifted its folk music channel, The Village, from satellite to Internet-only and decided to charge customers more for this "upgrade." In case you missed it,...>>
01/13/12 02:08 pm ET
The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded SAIC a $7.5 million, 12-month sole source contract to continue to support the Joint Global Command and Control System (GCCS-J), according to what seems to me a deliberately obscure FedBizOpps notice posted Wednesday. The description of the award...>>
01/12/12 04:48 pm ET
The Air Force Recruiting Service has developed a new iPhone app called "Make It Fly," which allows users to design their own next-generation aircraft. How does this help recruiting? Brig. Gen. Balan Ayyar, commander of the recruiting service said in a Air Force News...>>
01/11/12 04:41 pm ET
That's the goal of Navy Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen who said in a blog post last week the Navy and Marine Corps need to cut back on the number of data centers they operate in order to cut their overall information technology budgets...>>
01/10/12 04:12 pm ET
I'm hearing that Verizon will emerge as a big winner in the Defense Department new strategy released last week with its focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Managing forces in the region, which encompasses about half of Earth's surface -- stretching from the waters off...>>
01/09/12 04:58 pm ET
But, to read the coverage of the killing of Ranger Margaret Anderson on Jan. 1 at Mt. Rainier National Park by Benjamin Colton Barnes, a 24 year-old Army Iraq veteran, you would think every Afghanistan or Iraq war veteran was an emotional powder keg...>>
01/06/12 03:42 pm ET
President Obama said during a Pentagon press briefing Thursday that the new Defense Department strategy for the 21st century is based on "smart, strategic priorities." Buried in that strategy document is a line that calls for development of a new stealth bomber, which may...>>
01/05/12 04:53 pm ET
The new Defense Department strategy for the 21st century released Thursday shifts the country's military focus from Europe and the Mideast to the Asia-Pacific region, with a build up there to counter the growing military power of China. Since 2004, the transfer of 8,000...>>
01/04/12 03:59 pm ET
The New York Times rarely covers the kind of military gadget and gizmo stuff I focus on, but in an interactive feature published Monday, the newspaper asked readers to set their own budgets for two key military radio programs. The feature proposes cancellation of...>>
01/03/12 04:40 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department originally had planned to release the request for proposals for its $550 million Real Time Location System procurement last week, but in a Dec. 29 notice the department pushed the RFP back to on or before Jan. 31. I think...>>
