Digital Government

PTO awards contract to safeguard electronic transactions

The Patent and Trademark Office yesterday announced that it plans to award a contract to Entrust Technologies Inc. for a secure system to supply encryption and digital signature technology for a range of electronic commerce applications.

Digital Government

Air Force outfits tankers with high-tech navigation systems

The Air Force plans to upgrade 550 of its tanker aircraft with cuttingedge commercial information technologies that will significantly improve flight safety by providing pilots with enhanced awareness of their surroundings and improved navigation capabilities.

Digital Government

East Lansing, Mich., Uses Web Site to Make Final Four Riot Arrests

When Michigan State University lost to Duke University in the Final Four of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, a student riot broke out on MSU's East Lansing, Mich., campus. City tech officials then teamed with MSU police to use the World Wide Web to help apprehend suspects.

Digital Government

'Cruel' budget pinches pilots' IT on aircraft carrier

Faced with not enough funds to upgrade systems in older aircraft, pilots aboard this aircraft carrier must rely on commercial handheld Global Positioning System receivers to help navigate their older Tomcat fighters, which are not equipped with builtin military systems.

Digital Government

Fedwire Briefs

AT?#038; Amp;T files for lower FTS 2000 prices Officials at AT?#038; Amp;T Government Markets said they sent a proposal April 2 to the General Services Administration to cut the prices on AT?#038; Amp;T's FTS 2000 long distance telecommunications network. John Doherty, AT?#038; Amp;T's vice president of FTS 2000 and civilian markets, sa

Digital Government

Support the New Tax Moratorium

The arrival of electronic commerce means that all the trappings of businessinvestment capital, shopping, bidding, buying and selling (in short, money)are flowing more often over networks. Not just over big networks between established centers of trade but also smaller network capillaries that con

Digital Government

Newsfeed

Backup Plan for Y2K State/Federal Interfaces The president's Year 2000 office said almost all of the states were making 'excellent progress' in preparing their federal program interfaces for the millennium date change. A report by the President's Council on Y2K Conversion said that while 48 states

Digital Government

DOD should define requirements for GBS

The Defense Department has begun to build the Global Broadcast Service, which will enable DOD to send information such as imagery, intelligence information, missile warnings, weather forecasts and other information to alleviate the load on other military communications systems. GBS will be able to

Digital Government

Fax servers set sights on administration, ease

Written and Tested by Andre Kvitka With dozens of fax server products available on the market, choosing one over another can be a timeconsuming and very confusing process. Our comparison of four fax servers [FCW, Feb. 8] made it clear that the best products combine comprehensive fax server adminis

Digital Government

National Gallery puts art lesson on CD-ROM

Through its Micro Gallery interactive computer system, the National Gallery of Art has made it possible for people to learn about at their own pace more than 1,500 pieces of the gallery's permanent collection. Much of that collection and knowledge now is available to the world through an intera

Digital Government

Horn hands agencies poor financial grades

The chairman of a House oversight committee last week gave half of the major federal agencies failing grades on their ability to manage financial information. Some observers say the poor performance stems, in part, from inadequate or outdated information systems. Rep. Steve Horn (RCalif.), chairma

Digital Government

Agenda

April 6 Bringing WebtoHost Technology Into Focus. Burlington Marriott. Burlington, Mass. (Also April 20 in Washington, D.C.) The seminar is designed for organizations considering the integration of Webtohost technology into an existing network infrastructure. For more information, call (781) 27

Digital Government

Letters to the Editor

Outsourcing Hot Buttons I just finished reading your article on San Diego County's outsourcing of information systems services. I found it interesting that no IS professionals were in the decisionmaking process. I wonder how Ron Roberts would feel if IS professionals decide to outsource the county

Digital Government

Air Force's PC buying strategy on target

The blanket purchase agreements for PC hardware, software and peripherals that the Air Force's Standard Systems Group (SSG) recently negotiated as successors to the Desktop V contract will provide Air Force customers access to uptodate, quickly refreshable information technology. The amazingly co

Digital Government

Intercepts

ABOARD THE USS KITTY HAWK IT21 ON THE BRIDGE. Sitting high above the complex ballet of aircraft and crew on this aircraft carrier's flight deck, Capt. Matt Touhy's eyes do not stop moving as he guides the ship through the flight operations off the coast of Saipan (the largest of the Marianas Is

Digital Government

Communities

DenverGov: Home of 250 New Webmasters Denver recently unveiled a World Wide Web site designed to secure the city a lead in the pack of municipal governments racing to deploy services to the Internet. The site, at www.denvergov.org, is staffed by 250 city and county agency employees designated as c

Digital Government

Federal Bytes

DESEVE HAS TO GO. At a House hearing last week before the Government Management, Information and Technology Subcommittee, subcommittee chairman Rep. Steve Horn (RCalif.) wanted to know whether Ed DeSeve soontobe former deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget w

Digital Government

What is stepped pricing?

In this column, I'd like to address the following points: What is stepped pricing? How new is it? How does it work? Recently, the concept of 'tier pricing' methodologies in government contracts has been discussed in Federal Computer Week. Such methods have been around for a long time. Indeed, a sig

Digital Government

USDA telecom picks MCI

The Agriculture Department announced last week that it selected MCI WorldCom to provide longdistance voice and data services through the company's FTS 2001 contract with the General Services Administration. Keith Jackson, the USDA's associate chief information officer for telecommunications servic

Digital Government

CA plans Platinum purchase

Computer Associates International Inc. last week announced plans to purchase fellow management tools vendor Platinum Technology International Inc. for $3.5 billion in cash. Officials of CA, which last year tried unsuccessfully to take over Computer Sciences Corp., said they approached Platinum, whi