Profile of J. Nicholas Hoover

Senior Editor, InformationWeek Government News & Commentary Posts: 1254

Military Plans Multi-Exabyte Storage Cloud

4/8/2013
Defense Information Systems Agency will spend $45 million on a private storage cloud for intelligence and surveillance imagery.
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NASA Pauses Mars Missions To Avoid Interference

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.
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Obama Brain Mapping Project Tests Big Data Limits

4/2/2013
President Obama's just announced Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) project might require handling yottabytes of data.
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Army Falls Short In Mobile Security, Says DOD

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.
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DHS CIO Richard Spires Takes Voluntary Leave

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.
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Veterans Affairs BYOD Plans On Hold

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.
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U.S. Agencies Told To Share Financial Systems

3/27/2013
Obama administration hopes to save money and development time by pushing agencies toward shared services for all future financial systems.
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FDA To Track Illicit Product Trade Online

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.
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Federal Reserve To Hire Chief Data Officer

3/22/2013
Appointment would make the Fed another in a growing number of governments and government agencies with chief data officers.
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Amazon-CIA Deal Would Fit Intel Community Strategy

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.
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DOD Reaches 1 Million Users On Cloud Email

3/13/2013
Military expects another 500,000 users on the Defense Information Systems Agency's DOD Enterprise Email by summer 2013.
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White House Supports DOD Spectrum Research

3/11/2013
White House support for military research into spectrum sharing furthers White House efforts to open spectrum for commercial use.
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NASA Missions Face Triple Whammy Of Glitches

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.
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Predictive Analytics Improve Miami City Services

2/28/2013
Miami-Dade County is partnering with IBM to improve city policing, transportation and parks through predictive analytics.
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Federal IT Reform: Are More Laws Needed?

2/27/2013
Efforts by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., could lead to significant reform of federal IT management and acquisition.
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Pentagon Unveils Secure Mobile Device Plan

2/26/2013
Military releases a new plan to accelerate the adoption of mobile devices and apps for both classified and unclassified use.
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Federal CIO Q&A: Security, Sequestration And More

2/25/2013
Biggest challenge in realizing agile, efficient government IT continues to be the required cultural change, says Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel.
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How Sequestration Could Hit NASA Projects

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.
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SEC Makes Big Data Push To Analyze Markets

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.
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Federal CIO Outlines Next Steps

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.
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NASA Reports Space Station Communications Outage Fixed

2/19/2013
Communications are back up between NASA and the International Space Station after a brief glitch happened shortly after a software upgrade.
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Federal CIO Details Concerns On Looming Budget Cuts

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.
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Feds Want Single Mobile Management Platform

2/11/2013
To help accelerate federal adoption of smartphones, General Services Administration plans to offer a government-wide mobile management tools platform.
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Government Braces For Big Data

2/7/2013
Terabytes are growing into petabytes. Your action plan must include new skills, tools and cross-agency collaboration.
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DARPA Funds Python Big Data Effort

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.
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Feds Update Flu Apps

2/4/2013
Centers for Disease Control have updated their two flu apps -- FluView and CDC Influenza -- for the busy flu season.
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CEOs Voice Support For Cyber Legislation, With Caveats

2/1/2013
Senate report indicates many Fortune 500 CEOs support comprehensive cybersecurity legislation that increases information sharing, but only if sharing is voluntary.
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Immigration Reform Package Includes Tech Workers

1/29/2013
Separate bill would significantly increase the number of H-1B visas issued by the United States.
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Military Signs Most Comprehensive Microsoft Contract Yet

1/3/2013
Three-year, $617 million deal gives Department of Defense its lowest prices ever on software and services.
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NASA Details 2013 Plans

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.
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Feds Issue First Cloud Services Security Authorization

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.
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Optimization Is Key To Federal Data Center Overhaul

12/13/2012
Government agencies must raise server utilization and efficiency as they squeeze more computer processing into less physical space.
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Google Maps Adds NASA Nighttime Satellite Imagery

12/11/2012
Google, NASA and the NOAA have released high resolution nighttime satellite images that illuminate everything from cities to ships at sea.
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DOE, National Labs Reveal Sweeping Cloud Strategy

12/10/2012
Strategy outlines dozens of innovative initiatives underway or planned at the Department of Energy and the 22 national laboratories.
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Mars Mystery: Here's What We Know

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.
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6 Ways Amazon Cloud Helped Obama Win

11/16/2012
Amazon Web Services played a starring role in President Obama's quest for a second term.
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NASA's IT Future: Robot Telework, 3-D Printing

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.
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Vets. Dept. Signs $36 Million HP-Microsoft Cloud Deal

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.
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Time To Deliver On Federal IT Reform

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.
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Astronaut Drives Lego Robot Via 'Interplanetary Internet'

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.
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Election 2012: New Voting Tech Caused Some Headaches

11/7/2012
President Obama was re-elected on Tuesday, but not without glitches and malfunctions reported by users of digital voting technologies.
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EPA Chooses Cloud For Email

11/1/2012
Environmental Protection Agency moves to Microsoft 365, adds to stream of government agencies choosing cloud-based email and collaboration services.
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Hurricane Sandy: Government Data Tools Assist

10/31/2012
Federal, state, and local information technology and data are on the case in the ongoing recovery from Hurricane Sandy.
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Energy Dept.'s Titan Supercomputer: Record Breaker?

10/29/2012
Oak Ridge National Laboratory turns on new 20-petaflop Titan supercomputer, which may be world’s most powerful.
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DOD Pushes Military's Mobile Strategy Forward

10/26/2012
Defense Department is serious about getting smartphones into soldiers' hands, according to new mobile device management and app store vendor solicitations.
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Humanoid Robot Challenge Kicks Off At DARPA

10/25/2012
Inventors compete to build DARPA robot that can use human hand tools, drive vehicles, and climb ladders in a disaster scenario.
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BlackBerry Loses Its Grip On Federal Government

10/24/2012
RIM's BlackBerry platform has maintained a strong following in government for years, but that is changing.
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White House Wants Ideas For Next Moonshot

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.'
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NSA's Big Data Platform Faces Enterprise Test

10/11/2012
Startup Sqrrl preps Accumulo data storage software to go commercial, teams with Hadoop provider Hortonworks to combine technologies.
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Amazon's Share Of Government Cloud Computing 'Accelerating'

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.
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NIST Scientist Wins Nobel For Quantum Computing Work

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.
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Jeff Bezos, U.S. Intelligence Invest In Quantum Computing

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.
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Obama Vs. Romney: 6 Tech Policy Differences

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.
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'MegaDroid' Tests Android Security At City Scale

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.
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Feds Want Wider Use Of Health Records Applet

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.
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American Airlines Pilots Drop Flight Bags For iPads

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.
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FBI Sentinel Case Management System Actually Over Budget

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.
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Military IT's Future Stresses Cloud, Mobile

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.
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Feds' Cloud Email Deal Paves Way For Agencies

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.
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FAA Reconsiders Airplane Mobile Device Ban

8/28/2012
Federal Aviation Administration study may change airlines' requirement that passengers turn off electronic devices for significant portions of flights.
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Android Smartphones To Power NASA Satellites

8/27/2012
NASA plans to use Nexus Android smartphones as the on-board computers on tiny, low-cost satellites.
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Feds Give Agencies More BYOD Advice

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.
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White House Innovation Fellows Tackle Federal IT Projects

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.
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Apple, Feds Ink E-Book Deal

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.
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Federal Agencies Devise Shared Services Plans

6/7/2012
The Office of Management and Budget is requiring federal agencies to tap into a more efficient IT delivery model.
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DOD Certifies 6 BlackBerry Devices For Military Networks

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.
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Pentagon CIO Talks Security, Mobility, Shared Services

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.
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Interior Department Chooses Gmail Over Microsoft Cloud

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.
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Salesforce.com Government Cloud: What's Inside

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.
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Asteroid Mining Plan Revealed

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.
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Obama Authorizes Sanctions Over Iran, Syria Internet Crackdowns

4/23/2012
Executive order would punish countries or companies that help Iran and Syria use communications networks to track dissidents.
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Feds Banish Oracle From Popular Contract Vehicle

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.
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NYC Selects BigApps Contest Winners

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.
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Google, Tech Execs Accelerate Space Privatization

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.
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IRS Database System Makes Tax Deadline, Finally

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.
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Hillary Clinton Lauds Global Open Government Efforts

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.
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Air Force IT Strategy Stresses Mobile, Thin Clients

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.
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'Do Not Pay' Portal Targets Federal Spending Waste

4/12/2012
New Web portal aims to cut down on fraud and prevent federal agencies from making improper payments to ineligible recipients.
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NASA's New Web Plans Stress Open Source, Cloud

4/11/2012
NASA's entirely new Web architecture will lean heavily on cloud computing, open source tools, and social media.
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FCC, Carriers To Fight Mobile Phone Theft

4/10/2012
AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint will launch database to prevent reuse of stolen phones.
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DARPA Challenge Seeks Robots To Drive Into Disasters

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.
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Army Cloud Plans Include Containerized Data Centers

4/5/2012
Army's $249.8 million cloud computing contract includes mobile cloud services and HP containerized data centers.
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FAA Clears iPad For Takeoff Throughout Agency

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.
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White House's New Attack On IT Spending Waste

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.
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White House Shares $200 Million Big Data Plan

3/29/2012
Obama administration announced plans to fund R&D push for big data analysis, for applications ranging from health to defense.
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FTC Calls For Data Privacy Laws

3/26/2012
Federal Trade Commission requests legislation on privacy and data brokers and continues to push for a Do Not Track program.
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NASA Releases Atlas Of Entire Sky

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.
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Inside Red Cross Social Media Command Center

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.
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Feds Set Classified Info Sharing Standards

3/13/2012
Department of Homeland Security structure and standards will apply to government and private sector entities.
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White House Names New Federal CTO

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.
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Red Cross Unveils Social Media Monitoring Operation

3/8/2012
Digital Operations Center, backed by Dell technology, will track social media to help determine where to focus its disaster-relief efforts.
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Harris Scraps Secure Public Cloud Service

2/29/2012
Large government contractor shutters cloud computing service and $200 million data center, less than a year after opening.
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Homeland Security Tackles Agile Development

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.
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U.S. Army Plots Bring Your Own Device Strategy

2/23/2012
Army's aggressive mobile device plans include a BYOD policy, new authentication tools, and mobile virtualization technology.
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Defense Dept. IT Reform Moves Forward

2/22/2012
After announcing impending reforms in 2010, the military is beginning to shake up how it manages IT.
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Veterans Affairs CIO Eyes Budget Increase

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.
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Top 14 Government Social Media Initiatives

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.
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Obama Would Cut Military IT Budget

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.
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Obama's Budget Cuts Federal IT Spending

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.
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Federal Agencies Prepare For National Mobility Strategy

2/13/2012
A national mobility strategy will attempt to replace ad hoc policies with a coordinated, cost-saving plan.
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