Ideas
Saving NASA's Constellation Program
Lawmakers last week blocked President Obama's plans to liquidate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Constellation program, reigniting hopes that the agency would be able to send astronauts up to the moon again.
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Web Design Done Well
Nextgov <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2010/04/web_design_duds.php>wrote</a> a few weeks back about the best and worst of government websites. Now one more organization has jumped on the improvement bandwagon: The Federal Judiciary, home of the U.S. Courts, on Saturday launched a <a href=http://www.uscourts.gov/Home.aspx>redesigned website</a> complete with additional tools and a whole new look.
Ideas
Banning Sex Offender E-mail Addresses
The Justice Department on Friday allowed states to exclude certain personal information about sex offenders from public notification websites in a move to increase compliance with the law.
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Another IRS E-mail Scam
This time of year brings out <a href="http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080325_3349.php?oref=search">scams aimed at tricking taxpayers</a> to give up personal information through e-mails. The latest landed in my inbox on Friday. The e-mail had the subject "Internal Revenue Service - Tax refund (28831290) $620.50," and it said it came from "Irs.Gov." It's message:
Ideas
Outsourcing to the Insourced
An Australian data management company has hired 200 inmates in a jail there to process data. iTNews <a href=http://www.itnews.com.au/News/174631,indian-outsourcing-firm-looks-to-prison-for-data-entry-work.aspx>reported</a> that the prisoners "will handle banking information 24 hours a day using a shift system." They'll be paid (U.S.) $2.20 a day.
Ideas
MiLand, Your Land
Virtual worlds may be the way of the future, but government isn't quite ready to cede its methods to this particular technology.
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Virtual Worlds -- Virtually?
Today I'm covering the <a href=http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fcvw/fcvw10/index.html>Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds conference</a> here in Washington. Sure, it's being held just a few miles away from Nextgov's offices, but I decided to try attending the conference about virtual worlds virtually. I had high expectations for this experience -- after all, isn't Second Life, one of the more widely used platforms for virtual interaction, cool?
Ideas
CIO, Who's Your Boss?
For years, chief information officers have been trying to gain respect in the C-suite. That meant reporting to the leader of the agency or office in which he or she worked. That relationship was enshrined in the 1996 Clinger Cohen Act, which established the CIO position and required the chief to report to the head of the agency. <a href=http://www.cio.com/article/20909/Federal_IT_Flunks_Out>Almost everyone ignored it.</a> (The Obama administration, so far, has been the exception, with the Veterans Affairs Department putting a lot of stock in CIO Roger Baker and John Berry, director of the Office of Personnel Management, <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090914_5915.php>elevating the agency's CIO</a> to report directly to him.) But for the most part, it's been a struggle for the CIO to earn boardroom cred and move out from under the CFO's thumb.
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File Under Ironic
Max Palevsky, described as a baron of the early computer industry who helped found the giant chip maker Intel Corp., died on May 5 at 85. Here are the last three sentences in the nearly 1,800 word <a href=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-0506-max-palevsky-20100506,0,5625708.story>obituary</a> that ran in the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>:
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Transparency in Hiring Reform?
The long-awaited reform of federal hiring procedures is finally underway, and the public soon may be able to follow the government's progress in deploying new practices.
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Don't Ask, Don't Tell Box
A new online inbox to solicit anonymous comments from service members and their family members about the impact of reversing the ban on openly gay soldiers in the military went live this month.
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Tech To Trap Stim Violators
New rules from the White House aimed at penalizing stimulus recipients who fail to report on their spending instruct agencies to probe a report-tracking database every day for potential offenders.
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Broadband Legal Battles Loom
A legal battle looms on the horizon after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski released plans today on how the agency would fight to restore regulatory powers over the Internet.
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Apps Speed NY Subway Commute
While Washingtonians are just grateful when Metro subway cars move, some New Yorkers want mobile apps that will point them to the most convenient seats in New York City Transit cars.
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Virtual Worlds on the Rise
In her blog on Thursday, Paulette Robinson, the assistant dean for teaching, learning and technology at the National Defense University, <a href=http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/05/06/virtual-worlds-in-government%E2%80%A6-oh-my/#more-2056>posted an item</a> on Thursday about her effort to create a group in the federal government to talk about the use of virtual worlds in the federal government. It started out slow she said, but now the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds has 1,600 members - and a <a href=http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fcvw/fcvw10/index.html>conference</a> starting May 13.
Ideas
Building The Oil Spill Crisis Map
Texts, tweets and e-mails from those who have felt the effects of the Gulf Coast oil spill will be <a href="http://oilspill.labucketbrigade.org/">mapped out</a> with new crowdsourcing technology, giving the federal government another look at the impact of the crisis.
Ideas
How Real the Semantic Web?
Most have heard of the Semantic Web, an idea developed by Tim Berners-Lee . Generally speaking, the Semantic Web, or Web 3.0 as it is also referred to, will be able to make connections among your personal information and devices to anticipate your simple actions, decisions and needs. (The classic, yet simplified, example Berners-Lee offered years ago is a call comes in to your phone and the Web automatically turns down the volume on your stereo. The example goes on to show more complicated tasks such as setting up an appointment with a new doctor.)
Ideas
Body Scanners Spur Opposition
The Transportation Administration is continuing its <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2010/03/recovery_funds_fuel_body_scans.php>rollout</a> of the much-embattled full body scanners, which privacy groups have called invasive and not as anonymous as TSA claims.
Ideas
Nextgov Award Finalists Named
Nextgov <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov_awards/awards_honorees.php>announced</a> on Friday that 19 finalists have been chosen for the inaugural Nextgov Awards. They represent a wide range of accomplishments, having developed new ways of managing cybersecurity, innovative systems to share information in real time and online applications designed to manage increasing workloads as the Baby Boom generation retires. And all the finalists did it in the face of bureaucratic inertia, strong political head winds, and big risks brought about by insufficient budgets and Byzantine rules that must be followed to the letter.
Ideas