Digital Government
Army Apps 1, Transformative Apps 0
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 <a href= http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100303_8240.php>Apps for the Army</a> project over DARPA's <a href=https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5db2b9ccbed8edc27d7e1df20a0e2f39&tab=core&_cview=1>Transformative Apps</a> program.
Digital Government
Competition, Washington Style
Defense Secretary Robert Gates continued on Thursday the high visibility campaign he started in a <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2010/05/gates_channels_ike_on_spending.php>speech earlier this month</a> to rein in military spending and argue for a more effective definition of competition in Defense contracts.
Digital Government
Bye MHS, Hello Unified Med Command?
The fiscal 2011 Defense Authorization Bill (http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/HASCFY11NDAA051910.pdf) approved by the House Armed Services Committee yesterday calls for replacement of today's Military Health System (http://www.health.mil/) with a new Unified Medical Command modeled on the Special Operations Command.
Digital Government
VA Finds it Hard To Say 'Terminate'
Despite rules and regulations requiring contractors to encrypt data on laptops, 578 vendors have refused to abide by this common-sense approach to protect veteran data, as I <a href= http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100513_1937.php>reported</a> last week.
Digital Government
DARPA SMITEs Insider Threats
How bad is the threat of an insider attack against military information systems?
Digital Government
Don't Let the Sunshine In
National Rail in the United Kingdom had planned to start operation of a nifty new computerized train control system on the <a href=http://www.thecambrianline.co.uk/>Cambrian Coast Lines</a> in Wales but had to delay the launch because of a problem familiar to evening west bound commuters on Interstate 66 in Virginia: sun glare.
Digital Government
Bye-Bye to Army Minirobot?
I've met the Army's battlefield minirobot -- which goes by the official moniker of Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle -- twice over the past year on trips to White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico. I have to say it's one mighty impressive and cute little critter.
Digital Government
'Semper Fit' for the Wired Marine
My Marine Corps -- actually the Marine Reserve -- has a <a href=https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=997245f5c8f8fdc14e0e6c14cba2215c&tab=core&_cview=1>procurement</a> 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.
Digital Government
National Labs Work on Oil Blowout
The Energy Department has joined the all out federal effort to help stop the almost month-long oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.
Digital Government
The Tweety Bird
Japan, which provided the world with its first <a href=http://news.cnet.com/Sony-puts-Aibo-to-sleep/2100-1041_3-6031649.html>robotic dog</a> in 1999, has now turned on the world's first tweeting satellite. The tweety bird is a four-inch square, 2.2 pound <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat>CubeSat</a> from Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.
Digital Government
Gates Channels Ike on Spending
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates <a href=http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=45239&dcn=todaysnews>invoking</a> the spirit of former President and Supreme Cmdr. of Allied Forces in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower in a call for a more frugal approach to spending by the Pentagon in a speech on May 7 at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.
Digital Government
You Really Can See Russia From Here
I'm a real sucker for places that bill themselves as located at the edge of a land mass. So when researching an article on Air Force supply drops to remote radar sites in Alaska, I had the thrill of discovering that the <a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=tin%20city%20alaska%20radar%20station&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl>Tin City radar site</a> sits on the westernmost point of the North American continent.
Digital Government
Chiefs Want to be iPad, Kindle Friendly
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stands out as a social media pioneer in the Defense Department, having <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/07/jcs_chair_on_facebook_with_lot.php>launched</a> his own Facebook page in July 2009 and is a regular Tweeter.
Digital Government
Hint to VA: Use the Internet
The Veterans Affairs Department completed a study in 1988 that determined up to 30 percent of Vietnam Veterans suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and in 2000 Congress directed VA to do a follow-up study and they want officials to interview the same people they talked to for the first study.
Digital Government
Texas' Ethnically Diverse Memorial
I live in small town America, <a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=2004+8th+st+las+vegas+new+mexico&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=2004+8th+st+las+vegas+new+mexico&cid=0,0,928856835541983793&ei=q5DgS8nAKYaglAeS28H7CA&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQnwIwAA>The Original Las Vegas</a>, in New Mexico, which means that folks just wander in from time to time.
Digital Government
A Slick Response
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 <a href=http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/>Deepwater Horizon Response</a>, named after the drilling rig that exploded and caused the mess.
Digital Government
Boom Goes LORAN
The Coast Guard is making sure that its LORAN stations will never serve as a <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2010/04/gps_backup_what_gps_backup.php>backup</a> to GPS. Yes, it's simply closing some. But in the case of the <a href=http://www.uscg.mil/d17/loranportclarence/area.asp>facility at Port Clarence, Alaska</a>, the Guard decided to literally blow up the tower, the Associated Press <a href=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaCny8J9TJJUHh8Y4dEyxzXV3X3AD9FD4HKG0>reported</a>.
Digital Government
Defense, Facebook One and the Same
While the average Facebook employee probably does not meet Defense Department attire or haircut standards, Defense Deputy Secretary William J. Lynn III <a href=http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58949>told</a> a group of Facebookers at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday that he viewed the two cultures as congruent.
Digital Government
AHLTA and Drug Abuse
In <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html>scathing article</a> 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.
Digital Government
Workforce Mapping Walter Reed, Bethesda
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.
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