Digital Government
Anti-crime measures top spending bill priorities
Focusing on crime and terrorism Congress pumped funding into dozens of law enforcement information technology systems and databasedevelopment projects in the catchall spending bill it passed last week before adjourning. The 1 198page omnibus appropriations bill folded into the 1997 Defense Depart
Digital Government
Air Force lifts suspension; ZDS ready to fix problems
The Air Force quickly reversed course on its suspension of the Zenith Data Systems Desktop V PC contract reopening it just six days after the Standard Systems Group (SSG) temporarily halted the placement of new orders. SSG will allow ZDS to ship Desktop V orders in 30 days instead of the required 1
Digital Government
GPS tracks shifting land masses
The satellitebased Global Positioning System (GPS) first developed by the Defense Department to provide highly accurate position and location information has evolved into a technology with many more civilian applications than military. Hikers consult $200 receivers to help them bushwhack across un
Digital Government
Intercepts
Datadriven DISN. DISA has rescoped the size of DISN based upon a 100 percent surge in traffic over the past year most of it on the data side. Col. Marlin Forbes DISN PM said this reflects the 'phenomenal growth' of both NIPRNET and SIPRNET which host Internets and intranets and their related World
Modernization
DISA plans $2B Pacific satellite network
Looking to girdle the Earth with a highspeed communications system the Defense Information Systems Agency last week kicked off a potential $2 billion procurement for a broadband network covering the Pacific and Indian oceans. The agency also said it planned to launch a similar procurement for Euro
People
GCCS, Internet top issues at IT conference
MONTGOMERY Ala. The Air Force Standard Systems Group (SSG) headquartered here widened the focus of its longrunning Small Computer Conference renaming it the Air Force Information Technology Conference and organizing it around the theme of 'Linking Today's Warfighter to Tomorrow ' which top Pent
People
New comm equipment causes a buzz at Fort Bragg
FORT BRAGG N.C. Moving a team of communicators from one trouble spot to another is routine business for the Army's 112th Signal Battalion. When U.S. troops were sent last April to Sierra Leone to help support the evacuation of aid workers missionaries and other civilians from Liberia the 112th qu
Digital Government
Intercepts
Live from Montgomery Ala.: We airlifted the Interceptor mobile unit here to report on the Air Force Information Technology Conference hosted by the Standard Systems Group (SSG). Here's the best from the bit stream. * Prodigals welcome. DISA director Lt. Gen. Al Edmonds seems unfazed that the Treasu
Digital Government
Air Force suspends Zenith PC contract
MONTGOMERY Ala. The Air Force Standard Systems Group abruptly suspended ordering on Zenith Data Systems Corp.'s Desktop V contract throwing lastminute fiscal year ordering into turmoil.~ ~Competing vendors exhibiting at the Air Force Information Technology Conference here last week moved quickly
Digital Government
Island-hopping in cyberspace
Do you have endofthefiscalyear burnout? Tap into the World Wide Web to do some armchair islandhopping. This tour of federal island Web sites will take you far away with just a few key strokes. Start with Diego Garcia a remote atoll in the Chagos Archipelago located north of Mauritius and east
Digital Government
Air Force pans ZDS tardiness
The Air Force has run into delivery problems with Zenith Data Systems on more than 10 percent of the orders placed on that company's Desktop V PC contract and has put its longtime contractor on notice to fix them. Ken Heitkamp technical director of the Air Force Standard Systems Group Montgomery Al
Digital Government
Intercepts
WWMCCS hammered. DISA shut down the aging mainframebased command and control system on Aug. 30 and the agency's GCCS team headed by Rear Adm. John Gauss received a Hammer Award from Vice President Al Gore last week. No word on what DISA plans to do with the mainframes but the Interceptor figures R
Digital Government
AF team earns Hammer Award
Directed by a presidential order to streamline the declassification process for secret documents the Air Force realized it first had to bring some order to its classification system which involved more than 600 paperclassification guides ranging from 30 to more than 100 pages each. An Air Force te
Digital Government
Sarnoff, Air Force demonstrate wireless technology at JWID
David Sarnoff Laboratories has adapted an emerging commercial wireless technology to transmit wideband data potentially up to 2 gigabit/sec to battlefield communications.The technology called Local MultiPoint Distribution Service (LMDS) originally was developed to transmit more than 100 channe
Digital Government
Army orders ISC revamp
Following a year of study the Army plans to reorganize its Information Systems Command (ISC) leaving the Arizonabased unit with only its worldwide longhaul communications mission while dispersing its acquisition systems engineering and software development units to commands in Georgia New Jersey
Digital Government
The case of the missing Air Force notebook PCs
Eugene Rossel vice president of Unitek Technology Inc. a small Ontario Calif. PC reseller and manufacturer believes the Zenith Data Systems/PackardBell marriage has fouled up service and repair causing three notebook computers belonging to a missioncritical Air Force unit to end up lost. Unitek s
People
Raytheon snares Tri-band satellite deal from GTE
Raytheon Electronics Systems captured the Army's Triband Tactical Terminal contract worth a total of $157 million in a fierce fourway competition that included GTE Corp. which built prototype Humveemounted terminals under a $10 million contract. The Army could order up to 275 of the Raytheon Tri
Digital Government
DOD sets sights on development of Shared Data Environment
SAN DIEGO Now that the Defense Information Systems Agency has developed a Common Operating Environment (COE) for its combat and support systems allowing users to share applications the agency wants to do the same for data. The development of a Shared Data Environment (Shade) will allow users to t
Digital Government
Linking with Lynx lessens lag time
Running a graphical World Wide Web browser such as Mosaic Netscape or Internet Explorer over an ordinary phone line amounts to an act of blind optimism best understood by folks who believe every year that the Red Sox will win the pennant. Even highspeed localarea networks hooked up to the Interne
Digital Government