Profile of J. Nicholas Hoover
Senior Editor, InformationWeek Government
News & Commentary Posts: 1254
Articles by J. Nicholas Hoover
4/8/2013
Defense Information Systems Agency will spend $45 million on a private storage cloud for intelligence and surveillance imagery.
4/4/2013
NASA will significantly scale back its Mars missions in April as the Red Planet moves behind the sun as viewed from Earth.
4/2/2013
President Obama's just announced Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) project might require handling yottabytes of data.
4/2/2013
Lack of comprehensive mobile security policy and thousands of unauthorized devices are among the security shortcomings of the Army's mobile efforts.
4/1/2013
High-profile head of the Department of Homeland Security's IT has been on leave since March 15, but the exact reason for his departure remains unclear.
3/29/2013
Department of Veterans Affairs will delay bring-your-own-device until it solves legal questions involving privacy with personal mobile devices used for work.
3/27/2013
Obama administration hopes to save money and development time by pushing agencies toward shared services for all future financial systems.
3/25/2013
FDA will monitor 10,000 sites a year to uncover illegal marketing and selling of FDA-regulated products from drugs to tobacco.
3/22/2013
Appointment would make the Fed another in a growing number of governments and government agencies with chief data officers.
3/21/2013
Reported deal for Amazon to help develop CIA's private cloud infrastructure squares with intelligence community strategy to work with public cloud vendors.
3/13/2013
Military expects another 500,000 users on the Defense Information Systems Agency's DOD Enterprise Email by summer 2013.
3/11/2013
White House support for military research into spectrum sharing furthers White House efforts to open spectrum for commercial use.
3/1/2013
Space station resupply mission, the Mars Curiosity rover, and the International Space Station itself all have had problems in the last few weeks.
2/28/2013
Miami-Dade County is partnering with IBM to improve city policing, transportation and parks through predictive analytics.
2/27/2013
Efforts by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., could lead to significant reform of federal IT management and acquisition.
2/26/2013
Military releases a new plan to accelerate the adoption of mobile devices and apps for both classified and unclassified use.
2/25/2013
Biggest challenge in realizing agile, efficient government IT continues to be the required cultural change, says Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel.
2/25/2013
Across-the-board budget cuts due to hit March 1, if Congress doesn't make a budget deal, could quickly impact NASA's technology work.
2/22/2013
Securities and Exchange Commission's new Midas system collects information on all trades in an effort to better understand how the markets work.
2/21/2013
With Obama's first term in the rearview mirror, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel is looking for ways to continue to improve federal IT even in the face of looming budget cuts.
2/19/2013
Communications are back up between NASA and the International Space Station after a brief glitch happened shortly after a software upgrade.
2/12/2013
With huge automatic budget cuts looking increasingly likely, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel and other officials are discussing the effects of sequestration on government IT plans.
2/11/2013
To help accelerate federal adoption of smartphones, General Services Administration plans to offer a government-wide mobile management tools platform.
2/7/2013
Terabytes are growing into petabytes. Your action plan must include new skills, tools and cross-agency collaboration.
2/6/2013
Department of Defense has dished out $3 million for Python big data analytics libraries from a $100 million fund for big data research and development.
2/4/2013
Centers for Disease Control have updated their two flu apps -- FluView and CDC Influenza -- for the busy flu season.
2/1/2013
Senate report indicates many Fortune 500 CEOs support comprehensive cybersecurity legislation that increases information sharing, but only if sharing is voluntary.
1/29/2013
Separate bill would significantly increase the number of H-1B visas issued by the United States.
1/3/2013
Three-year, $617 million deal gives Department of Defense its lowest prices ever on software and services.
12/28/2012
NASA plans continued exploration of Mars and the night sky, continued missions to the International Space Station, and numerous satellite and spacecraft missions.
12/28/2012
FedRAMP, which aims to make it easier and more cost-effective for government agencies to adopt cloud services, is now officially open for business with the authorization of Autonomic Resources ARC-P service.
12/13/2012
Government agencies must raise server utilization and efficiency as they squeeze more computer processing into less physical space.
12/11/2012
Google, NASA and the NOAA have released high resolution nighttime satellite images that illuminate everything from cities to ships at sea.
12/10/2012
Strategy outlines dozens of innovative initiatives underway or planned at the Department of Energy and the 22 national laboratories.
11/21/2012
NASA says its Curiosity rover has made a discovery on Mars, but isn't saying more. Clues offer some educated guesses about what NASA's found.
11/16/2012
Amazon Web Services played a starring role in President Obama's quest for a second term.
11/14/2012
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's philosophy -- prototype new tech based on what non-IT workers envision -- could pay off in robot telework, spacecraft created by 3-D printers and more.
11/13/2012
Department of Veterans Affairs will move 600,000 users to Microsoft's cloud email and collaboration services in one of the biggest cloud computing deals to date.
11/13/2012
First four years of the Obama Administration were marked by the beginnings of significant changes in federal IT. Execution will be the name of the game during the next four.
11/9/2012
Astronaut aboard the International Space Station used a new NASA-developed deep space networking technology to drive a small robot in Germany.
11/7/2012
President Obama was re-elected on Tuesday, but not without glitches and malfunctions reported by users of digital voting technologies.
11/1/2012
Environmental Protection Agency moves to Microsoft 365, adds to stream of government agencies choosing cloud-based email and collaboration services.
10/31/2012
Federal, state, and local information technology and data are on the case in the ongoing recovery from Hurricane Sandy.
10/29/2012
Oak Ridge National Laboratory turns on new 20-petaflop Titan supercomputer, which may be world’s most powerful.
10/26/2012
Defense Department is serious about getting smartphones into soldiers' hands, according to new mobile device management and app store vendor solicitations.
10/25/2012
Inventors compete to build DARPA robot that can use human hand tools, drive vehicles, and climb ladders in a disaster scenario.
10/24/2012
RIM's BlackBerry platform has maintained a strong following in government for years, but that is changing.
10/11/2012
Think big: The Office of Science and Technology Policy and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are looking for the next 'grand challenge.'
10/11/2012
Startup Sqrrl preps Accumulo data storage software to go commercial, teams with Hadoop provider Hortonworks to combine technologies.
10/10/2012
As Amazon announces new services for government customers, it says the 1,800 government and education customers that now use Amazon Web Services prove "rapid" adoption of its cloud computing products.
10/9/2012
National Institute of Standards and Technology scientist David Wineland shared a Nobel Prize for Physics for work that could help the development of powerful quantum computers.
10/5/2012
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and In-Q-Tel have invested in D-Wave Systems, a company marketing what it calls the first commercial quantum computer.
10/5/2012
With the 2012 election drawing near, InformationWeek Government compares the tech plans of President Obama and the Democrats and those of Governor Romney and the Republicans.
10/4/2012
Department of Energy launches MegaDroid, a network of 300,000 virtual Android devices, to study mobile security and stability at a city-sized scale.
9/25/2012
'Blue Button' web applet that provides personal health records has been popular with U.S. veterans; White House now promoting use by private sector insurers.
9/12/2012
Airline expects to save $1.2 million on fuel annually by swapping 35-pound bags of manuals and directories for lightweight Apple iPads.
9/11/2012
Audit finds FBI failed to include $60 million in operations and maintenance expenses in calculating the cost of a system that agency has been developing for more than a decade.
9/5/2012
Military's IT agency has released a plan for Department of Defense's belt-tightening and shifting strategies during the next five years.
8/31/2012
General Services Administration taps 17 vendors to provide cloud email from Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Zimbra to government agencies from federal to local levels.
8/28/2012
Federal Aviation Administration study may change airlines' requirement that passengers turn off electronic devices for significant portions of flights.
8/27/2012
NASA plans to use Nexus Android smartphones as the on-board computers on tiny, low-cost satellites.
8/24/2012
New guidelines lay the foundation for more federal agencies to begin allowing employees to bring their own iPhones, iPads, and Android devices to work.
8/23/2012
Innovation Fellows program aims to improve access to health records, make it easier for start-ups to do business with the feds, create a one-stop federal website, and more.
8/22/2012
Apple and the Government Printing Office strike deal to make hundreds of government documents and manuscripts available on iTunes in e-book format.
6/7/2012
The Office of Management and Budget is requiring federal agencies to tap into a more efficient IT delivery model.
5/10/2012
BlackBerry remains the platform of choice for government agencies, even as Research In Motion's market share slips with businesses and consumers.
5/10/2012
Budget cuts and cybersecurity demands have led the Department of Defense to push increasing resources into a long-term strategy to create shared IT infrastructure across the military, CIO Teri Takai says.
5/1/2012
Two-year battle comes to an end with a $34.9 million contract to bring Gmail to the Department of the Interior's 90,000 email users.
4/25/2012
Salesforce.com unveils government-focused suite of services, app
marketplace, and small business partner program for customers in federal, state, and local agencies.
4/24/2012
Planetary Resources, a new company with backers including current and past Microsoft and Google execs, shared its strategy to create a new industry in mining asteroids.
4/23/2012
Executive order would punish countries or companies that help Iran and Syria use communications networks to track dissidents.
4/20/2012
Federal government cancels Oracle's services contract on the General Services Administration's IT Schedule 70. Feds spent $388 million on Oracle products and services through Schedule 70 in fiscal 2011.
4/19/2012
New York City's third annual developers' contest awarded $50,000 for apps that help users take advantage of what the city has to offer.
4/19/2012
Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and ex-Microsoft exec Charles Simonyi are backing Planetary Resources, a new space exploration company to be unveiled April 24.
4/18/2012
After long delays and multiple false starts, IRS delivers on a new database to speed up returns processing and delivery of refunds, plus improve fraud detection.
4/17/2012
Secretary of State says countries that are open with data will flourish, while closed nations will have trouble with stability and security.
4/16/2012
Agency seeks an additional 2,725 iPads and updates a procurement for a virtual desktop infrastructure to support most of the Air Force.
4/12/2012
New Web portal aims to cut down on fraud and prevent federal agencies from making improper payments to ineligible recipients.
4/11/2012
NASA's entirely new Web architecture will lean heavily on cloud computing, open source tools, and social media.
4/10/2012
AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint will launch database to prevent reuse of stolen phones.
4/10/2012
DARPA's Robotics Challenge offers a $2 million prize if you can build a robot capable of driving and using tools; $32 million in other robotics projects up for grabs.
4/5/2012
Army's $249.8 million cloud computing contract includes mobile cloud services and HP containerized data centers.
4/3/2012
Federal Aviation Administration will let employees choose to use iPad in a production environment, having already developed numerous special-use iPad apps.
4/2/2012
Office of Management and Budget tells agencies to "look into the darkest corners" to eliminate duplicative, inefficient technology, orders portfolio reviews, consolidations.
3/29/2012
Obama administration announced plans to fund R&D push for big data analysis, for applications ranging from health to defense.
3/26/2012
Federal Trade Commission requests legislation on privacy and data brokers and continues to push for a Do Not Track program.
3/16/2012
Atlas includes images and data about more than half a trillion objects throughout the universe, from stars to asteroids--and the whole thing is available online for free.
3/15/2012
New Digital Operations Center will help the American Red Cross respond better to disasters. Dell's social command center served as the model.
3/13/2012
Department of Homeland Security structure and standards will apply to government and private sector entities.
3/9/2012
Todd Park, CTO of Health and Human Services Department, gets the nod as the new federal chief technology officer. Park is known for his open government work.
3/8/2012
Digital Operations Center, backed by Dell technology, will track social media to help determine where to focus its disaster-relief efforts.
2/29/2012
Large government contractor shutters cloud computing service and $200 million data center, less than a year after opening.
2/28/2012
DHS plans a big push toward more agile development, where software is developed over a series of one- or two-week sprints.
2/23/2012
Army's aggressive mobile device plans include a BYOD policy, new
authentication tools, and mobile virtualization technology.
2/22/2012
After announcing impending reforms in 2010, the military is beginning to shake up how it manages IT.
2/21/2012
While spending for most federal IT groups will be flat in 2013, Department of Veterans Affairs seeks budget boost to improve access to electronic health records, telehealth, and mobile devices.
2/17/2012
Government agencies are embracing social media, using Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to inform and interact with the public. Take a look at the best examples of social networking in government.
2/14/2012
The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2013 would cut the Department of Defense's IT budget by 3.6%. But cybersecurity gets an increase.
2/13/2012
President's fiscal 2013 budget proposal reduces federal IT spending by 1.2%, all of it attributable to cuts in military IT.
2/13/2012
A national mobility strategy will attempt to replace ad hoc policies with a coordinated, cost-saving plan.