Digital Government

Veterans Affairs Appoints Chief Data Officer 

Kshemendra Paul will lead the agency’s efforts to leverage data and better inform VA-wide decision-making through technology and information.

Emerging Tech

US Navy’s Drone Tanker Prototype Takes First Flight

Now service officials hope they can get the MQ-25 operating faster than planned.

Emerging Tech

‘EarEcho’ Uses Your Ear to Unlock Your Phone

A new prototype technology called EarEcho uses modified wireless earbuds to authenticate smartphone users via their ear canal, researchers report.

Ideas

Algorithms Are People

The secret sauce of search engines gives tech companies an abundance of plausible deniability.

Digital Government

Lawmakers Intro Bill to Enhance Not-Yet-Revived Office of Technical Assessment

A group of House and Senate lawmakers want the office to be more responsive and transparent, assuming funding to reinstate it gets through the appropriations process.

Emerging Tech

FDA Unveils Next Step on its Journey to Develop a Safer Food System

Insiders say it’s time to leverage emerging technologies and innovative approaches to strengthen and protect food traceability across America.

Emerging Tech

Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

A new report found that CCTV surveillance is increasing in certain areas of the U.S., with one city government watching its citizens from 35,000 cameras.

Emerging Tech

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Eyes Tech Sprints to Accelerate Advancements

The hope is to rapidly identify technological solutions for the agency’s toughest problems. 

Emerging Tech

The Air Force Will Start Work on Flying Cars This Fall

It’s about replacing the V-22, eventually. But it’s also about finding new ways to harness commercial innovation.

Cybersecurity

Lawmakers Call on FCC to Reexamine Licenses for Two Chinese Telecom Firms

Sens. Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton fear the state-owned companies present national security threats.

Emerging Tech

The Intelligence Community is Exploring Long-Range Biometric Identification 

A new IARPA program aims to build biometric technology that can identify people using cameras stationed on far off rooftops and unmanned aircraft.

Ideas

Agencies to Security Industry: Automate Cloud Compliance Faster

Cloud providers also want faster, more efficient FedRAMP compliance, and today, this is well in reach.

Emerging Tech

Interior Expects to More Than Triple Drone Flights by 2025

Unmanned aircraft offer the department a cheaper, faster and safer way to conduct operations across 500 million acres of federal lands.

Emerging Tech

How Silicon Valley Maintains its Competitive Edge

Historian Margaret O’Mara talks about her new book The Code and how Silicon Valley has maintained its competitive edge in high tech.

Modernization

Feds Look to Application Programming Interfaces as Gateways to Modernization

The technology can boost partnerships and lead to new solutions across federal agencies.

Digital Government

The Pentagon Needs to Make More Software Open Source, Watchdog Says

The White House in 2016 required every agency to make at least 20 percent of its custom software available for reuse across the government, but the Pentagon isn’t even halfway there, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Digital Government

OMB Finalizes Long-Awaited Update to Internet Connection Policy

But practitioners will have to wait a few months more for the final use cases on which the policy is based.

Emerging Tech

Device Offers a Way to Communicate During Disasters

A new tool called “Panacea’s Cloud” could give first responders a way to communicate during a natural or human-made disaster when devices such as cell phones may not work.