Your essential catchup of the week's news
Shutdown fears, facial recognition and cyber-legislation's latest hurdle.
The possibility of a government shutdown dominated the news this week, with federal employees and contractors alike wondering who will be safe from furloughs, if no spending deal is reached.
The shutdown wasn't the only topic of conversation, however. DHS plans to use video of the audience at a hockey game to test facial recognition technologies, using 20 volunteers scattered through the crowd.
Meanwhile, Edward Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency might have torpedoed any chance of passing significant cybersecurity legislation, for now at least.
An emerging technology for handling large volumes of data more rapidly – in-memory computing – is slowly gaining traction in the federal government.
Elsewhere: Another dark side of social media: it has become part of the gang violence in Chicago, Wired reports. (Warning: There's some rough language.)