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Google's new instant search feature promises results instantaneously with every letter typed into the search bar. But I find it more annoying than useful.

Google Instant also performs searches based on your location. A search for federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, using just his last name, pops up different letter-by-letter results in Washington and New Mexico.

The location specific default of Google Instant became apparent when I typed in a "K" into the search bar field here at What's Central in northeast New Mexico. The "K" prompted Google Instant to pop up three Albuquerque TV stations by their call letters as the top results: KOAT, KRQE and KOB.

When Nextgov executive editor Allan Holmes typed "K" into his computer located at the Watergate in Washington, the first result he saw was the Kings Dominion amusement park just north of Richmond, Va.

This location-skew continued when both Allan and I typed in a "U" after the "K." My first hit for those two letters was KUNM, the public radio station in Albuquerque, with a local translator I can pick up here in The Original Las Vegas. Google decided Allan really needed to know about the Kushi Izakaya & Sushi restaurant several blocks away in Washington.

Google Instant seemed to drop its geo-mania once Allan and I both typed the third letter in Kundra's name: We both got "Kung Fu" and a Wikipedia entry for Kundalini, some sort of yoga thing.

Google finally delivered results on the federal CIO only when Allan and I typed the fourth letter of his name, making all the results beforehand an interesting intellectual exercise, but neither relevant nor useful.

But if your mission is to make money by organizing all the world's information, developing a location specific way to display it sure can help the bottom line by steering folks to restaurants, amusement parks and TV stations.

Knowledge, however, has no boundaries, and we need to keep that mind as Google takes us down the instant search rabbit hole.

This item was updated at 4:22 pm, Aug. 20, to reflect a reply from Microsoft.

Or, based on this sole-source contract announcement from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Google now owns, at the least, visualization of the planet.

NGA says it needs a secure system that will provide Web-based access to geospatial visualization services and Open Geospatial Consortium compliant Web-service interfaces. It says only Google can do the job.

"Google is the only source that can meet the government's requirement for worldwide access, unlimited processing and Open Geospatial Consortium compliant Web service interfaces," said NGA, which plans to award the company a two-year contract, with two one-year options.

NGA did not detail the value of the Google deal, but I have a hunch it's big bucks.

I've asked Microsoft what its Bing folks think of this, but have not heard back.

Update: Micorosft spokesman Keith Hodson said the company's Bing Maps Server can meet the NGA's requirements.

Today the Veterans Affairs Department started posting online its monthly data breach reports as part of its ongoing transparency thing, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told a press briefing this morning. He said the latest report (for July) might not make it to the Web until Thursday.

The reports include not only lost, misplaced or stolen computers and BlackBerries, but also misaddressed prescriptions sent out by the VA mail-order pharmacy operation, Baker said. Those packages contain sensitive veterans health information coupled with personal identifiers.

VA mailed out 5.6 million prescriptions last month, and a statically infinitesimal amount -- just 10 -- ended up in the wrong hands. If someone calls VA about receiving a misaddressed Rx, Baker said he or she is instructed to throw it away.

Nelson Grubbs in Pickering, Ohio, received an erroneously mailed Rx from VA earlier this month and following policy was told by VA to throw it away. Grubs told the Columbus, Ohio, NBC TV affiliate he had a hard time understanding the instruction because a local pharmacist valued the 90-day supply of a dementia drug he erroneously received at $700.

The TV station wanted to show the pill bottle on air, which resulted in the VA hospital in Columbus working with the station to blur out the label to keep from identifying a dementia patient, Baker said.

While it may seem wasteful to throw away $700 worth of drugs, the policy is enforce to ensure patient safety, because the "chain of custody" had been broken between VA and the intended recipient, he said.

Baker also said employees continue to lose BlackBerry gizmos -- 13 in July, 24 in June and 13 in May. That's something I have a hard time comprehending. He promised to supply me next month with a cumulative total for the number lost in 2010.

I asked if folks who lose their BlackBerrys are subject to a timeout before they are issued a new one. No, Baker said, because the low cost of the gadgets (a couple of hundred bucks) does not equal the loss in productivity that would result from a BlackBerry-less employee.

I live and work in a BlackBerry-free zone, and I believe my productivity is enhanced by not having one.

Videos showing how to navigate websites are all over the Internet. What's unusual is seeing one done by the president of the United States.

But there it is, right on the White House blog: Barack Obama giving viewers a tour through the new Healthcare.gov site, saying, "it offers a few simple tools to help you take your health care into your own hands."

"I have pretty good health care these days," the president admits. So he has to turn back the clock and imagine he's back in Chicago in his pre-presidential days to enter hypothetical information about his options.

My favorite part of the video? Obama's laptop has the presidential seal on it

The Defense Department is warning "patriotic women" to be aware of individuals posing as members of the military on dating sites who are running scams. In a press release issued on Thursday, the department related a story of a woman named Shelley who "was thrilled to meet a handsome Marine on a dating website she frequented." Making a long story short, the guy, presumably not a Marine, tried to swindle her out of some money with a sob story.

The scam, Defense said, is similar to the Nigerian e-mail ruse, in which a person receives a message from someone in the West African nation who is in financial trouble and needs to unload some money.

All this is certainly disturbing, and the public should be warned. But what's odd about the press release is how it links love with patriotism, as if that drives the attraction. We learn Shelley "was deeply patriotic and had a great admiration for service members." Later, Defense tells us, "These cyber criminals, posing as military members, prey on patriotic women seeking love online, . . . ." And again, Paul Sternal, the acting cyber crimes program director for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, says: "It's not a bad thing to be patriotic, but people are trying to distort that for personal gain."

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity wants some help from smart folks who can develop new kinds of optical, biological or brain-based computers.

IARPA also would like some novel ideas on how to secure the transmission of information using optical, electromagnetic, digital packet, chemical or biological signals.

Although this is a dry research proposal published on FedBizOps, it has the ring of a script for a science fiction movie in which the spooks harness brains and bodies to the 'Net in some sort of cyborg fantasy.

Since California Governor (and sometime actor) Arnold Schwarzenegger will soon be out of a job, maybe he'd like the lead.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army both kicked off projects to develop applications for mobile gadgets and gismos in March. The House Armed Services Committee strongly favors the Apps for the Army project over DARPA's Transformative Apps program.

The House committee said in its report on the fiscal 2011 Defense Department Appropriations bill that it favored the Apps for the Army competition backed by Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer, because he has "day-to-day experience supporting the warfighting community."

The report said this means Sorenson has "a closer understanding of the warfighter's needs and requirements" compared to DARPA. The report also criticized DARPA for not ensuring its program would not conflict with the Army project.

Entries in the Apps for the Army competition, which will award $30,000 in cash prizes, closed May 15. Margaret McBride, Sorenson's spokeswoman, said 141 soldiers and Army civilians registered in teams or as individuals to participate in the application development challenge.

Apps submitted included 17 for Google Android phones, 16 for the Apple iPhone, and seven for the gizmo loved by the military, the Blackberry.

McBride said the Army will put the entries through a security review and then they will go to the judges. Winners will be announced at the , which runs from August 3-5 in Tampa.

My Marine Corps -- actually the Marine Reserve -- has a procurement on the street that boggled my mind. It's for an online physical fitness program that will include drag and drop functions and a variety of templates to make sure Marine reservists stay truly Semper Fit.

I know I sound like an Old Corps crank, but the only thing I dragged around in my time in the Marines was a tired and aching body.

I also notice the online program does not include any exercises favored by drill instructors of yore, such as holding gallon buckets filled with sand at arms length for an hour. Do that daily -- combined with a 10-mile run with a pack -- and I guarantee you'll be far fitter than pointing, clicking and dragging with a mouse.

Multiple federal agencies, led by the Coast Guard, are trying to manage the oil spill and damaged drill site that is spewing at least 5,000 barrels of a day into the Gulf of Mexico. They have set up an omnibus website called Deepwater Horizon Response, named after the drilling rig that exploded and caused the mess.

The site serves as a launch pad to sites operated by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter that are dedicated to the disaster.

NASA has set up special a Web page that features satellite photos of the oil slick, and the Environmental Protection Agency has a site devoted to its response to the spill.

The Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
feature the Gulf disaster prominently on their home pages. But sadly, all this Web tech can do nothing to fix a well head 5,000 feet underwater.

A robotic arm of a Remotely Operated Vehicle attempts to activate the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventor on April 22.

Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, left, and Don Faul, director of online operations for Facebook, talk to employees in Silicon Valley, Calif., on April 28.
Photo by Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison

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.

In a sign that social media has been embraced by an at-first-reluctant Defense Department, Lynn told the employees, "You're very much a part of our world." He then added, "We're also very much a part of your world. We use social media just as other organizations do. It's a critical element for us."

Lynn is visiting Silicon Valley companies on his road trip, and he told Facebook workers that Defense needs a few good force-multiplier ideas from commercial pioneers.

Who would have thunk that a top Defense official would view Facebook and its technology as a force multiplier?