Digital Government
NASA, Energy help Ukraine avoid nuclear disaster
The Chornobyl (formerly spelled Chernobyl) nuclear power plant's concrete enclosure, which is the only barrier between Ukrainians and deadly nuclear radiation, is crumbling, and two U.S. federal agencies are involved in a project to build a stateoftheart information technology system to fix it.
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GAO says software fix needed for 2000 census
The Census Bureau still must solve numerous problems before it conducts the 2000 census, according to a General Accounting Office report released today.
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Security Dynamics Technologies to acquire Intrusion Detection Inc.
Security Dynamics Technologies Inc. announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Intrusion Detection Inc. in a deal valued at $32.5 million.
Digital Government
DOD's Valletta joins SRA
Anthony Valletta, acting assistant secretary of Defense for command, control communications and intelligence (ASD/C3I), plans to join SRA International Inc. as a vice president in federal systems after he retires this week, Federal Computer Week has learned.
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Army views space as ultimate 'high ground'
Looking almost three decades into the future, the Army has started planning the technology that will drive its forces in 2025, or what it calls the Army After Next (AAN).
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White House assures Congress it is on top of Y2K
John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion, assured the House Banking and Financial Services Committee today that President Clinton is giving the Year 2000 computer problem high priority.
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IT lobbying group defends stance on worker shortage
The Information Technology Association of America is defending itself in the wake of a General Accounting Office report that claims concerns over nationwide shortage of information technology workers may be overstated.
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Gore report seeks more IT reliance
Vice President Al Gore's task force report on improving customer service at the Internal Revenue Service was met last week with criticism and praise by Congress and individuals familiar with the agency's modernization program. The 92page report, 'Reinventing Service at the IRS,' calls for the IRS
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Big savings sway USDA to switch to GSA pact
The Agriculture Department's National Finance Center (NFC) last month switched from its own contract for disaster recovery services to one awarded by the General Services Administration's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center. Fedsim officials are trumpeting the USDA's switch to its Dat
Digital Government
NASA's Price dies at age 55
Robert Price, 55, director of the Earth Science Systems Program Office and associate director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, died March 13. Price was the former associate director of the Mission to Planet Earth program, a $1 billionayear project that launches unmanned spacecraft into spac
Digital Government
Administration ignores federal salary legislation
When the mechanism regulating federal salaries was enacted into law in 1990, readers of this column will recall that I expressed skepticism that the government would comply with it. As it turns out, my doubts were justified. The Federal Employees Pay Compatibility Act, also known as the Pay Reform
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Peacekeeping battalion crafts comm support
EAGLE BASE, Tuzla, Bosnia No one has written the manual on how to provide communications support to a longterm peacekeeping mission, but the 141st Signal Battalion headquarters here at the main base camp of U.S. forces in the former Yugoslavia has enough experience to write at least a rough draf
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Marine Corps' Decker relies on IT to complete missions
Mike Decker, deputy assistant chief of staff for intelligence at Marine Corps headquarters, is not your typical cyberwarrior. He gleaned an appreciation for today's information technology from hard lessons learned in places such as Beirut and Saudi Arabia not nestled away in academia or at a job
Digital Government
GPO's Web site muscles up on links to federal documents
I.F. Stone, the legendary Washington, D.C., journalist who believed it was better to read government documents than to interview people, would love the Government Printing Office's site on the World Wide Web. That's because the GPO site (www.gpo.gov) is a point of entry to an increasing mass of raw
Digital Government
Former BTG execs join IntelliSys Tech
Four former BTG Inc. executives who attempted a buyout in January of BTG's product business have become officers and owners of IntelliSys Technology Corp., a Fairfax, Va.based network integrator.
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Fed Reserve gets translation software
The Federal Reserve System recently acquired software from Bottomline Technologies Inc. that will help small banks meet the government's electronic funds transfer mandate. Bottomline's electronic data interchange (EDI) translation software will be used by about 12,000 financial institutions, which
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DOD draft shifts ASD/C3I focus/mission
The draft blueprint for the Pentagon's key command and control office calls for a laserlike focus on information superiority and recommends that the Defense Department establish a new assistant secretary of Defense for information superiority to replace the current assistant secretary of Defense f
Digital Government
GSA's Barram overrules SBA; releases sked
The General Services Administration plans to issue today the longdelayed solicitation for information technology products and services on the multipleaward schedule. David Barram, GSA's administrator, late last week made decisions on several issues raised by the Small Business Administration, whi
Digital Government
PC vendors question future of Energy Star
After almost a year of selling highend systems that exceeded federal regulations for power consumption by PCs, vendors once again can easily meet Energy Star guidelines, thanks to the new Pentium II 333 MHz chip Intel Corp. introduced earlier this year. The question that remains to be answered is
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