Digital Government
Army: System to guide battlefield robots passes test
Service plans to use the navigational tool, which is powered by supercomputers and GPS, to steer armed vehicles with human-like awareness.
Digital Government
The Tweety Bird
Japan, which provided the world with its first <a href=http://news.cnet.com/Sony-puts-Aibo-to-sleep/2100-1041_3-6031649.html>robotic dog</a> in 1999, has now turned on the world's first tweeting satellite. The tweety bird is a four-inch square, 2.2 pound <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat>CubeSat</a> from Intelligent Space Systems Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.
Digital Government
Gates Channels Ike on Spending
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates <a href=http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=45239&dcn=todaysnews>invoking</a> the spirit of former President and Supreme Cmdr. of Allied Forces in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower in a call for a more frugal approach to spending by the Pentagon in a speech on May 7 at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.
Digital Government
Institute uses ink-jet cartridges to 'print' skin for wounded soldiers
Technology could help treat soldiers who receive burns on the battlefield.
Digital Government
You Really Can See Russia From Here
I'm a real sucker for places that bill themselves as located at the edge of a land mass. So when researching an article on Air Force supply drops to remote radar sites in Alaska, I had the thrill of discovering that the <a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=tin%20city%20alaska%20radar%20station&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl>Tin City radar site</a> sits on the westernmost point of the North American continent.
Digital Government
Air Force finds cheaper way to air-deliver supplies to troops
Alaska-based squadron successfully tests system that uses a supercomputer to crunch weather data to determine exact moment to drop equipment and food to crew members to the ground.
Digital Government
Chiefs Want to be iPad, Kindle Friendly
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stands out as a social media pioneer in the Defense Department, having <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/07/jcs_chair_on_facebook_with_lot.php>launched</a> his own Facebook page in July 2009 and is a regular Tweeter.
Digital Government
Group recommends upgrading VA health system with open source
Report submitted to Veterans Administration has implications for the White House's push for a national network for health records.
Digital Government
Hint to VA: Use the Internet
The Veterans Affairs Department completed a study in 1988 that determined up to 30 percent of Vietnam Veterans suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and in 2000 Congress directed VA to do a follow-up study and they want officials to interview the same people they talked to for the first study.
Digital Government
Coast Guard's PIER delivers the news on Gulf oil spill
The popular Deepwater Horizon Response website, created one day after the BP rig exploded, allows agencies to collaborate on information released to the public and could become a model for other agencies to use for disaster response.
Digital Government
Texas' Ethnically Diverse Memorial
I live in small town America, <a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=2004+8th+st+las+vegas+new+mexico&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=2004+8th+st+las+vegas+new+mexico&cid=0,0,928856835541983793&ei=q5DgS8nAKYaglAeS28H7CA&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQnwIwAA>The Original Las Vegas</a>, in New Mexico, which means that folks just wander in from time to time.
Cybersecurity
Unplugged VA computer affects treatment of cancer patients
Without network connection, doctors could not check X-rays of veterans with prostate cancer to determine how they were responding to radiation, the department's inspector general reports.
Digital Government
A Slick Response
Multiple federal agencies, led by the Coast Guard, are trying to manage the oil spill and damaged drill site that is spewing at least 5,000 barrels of a day into the Gulf of Mexico. They have set up an omnibus website called <a href=http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/>Deepwater Horizon Response</a>, named after the drilling rig that exploded and caused the mess.
Digital Government
Boom Goes LORAN
The Coast Guard is making sure that its LORAN stations will never serve as a <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2010/04/gps_backup_what_gps_backup.php>backup</a> to GPS. Yes, it's simply closing some. But in the case of the <a href=http://www.uscg.mil/d17/loranportclarence/area.asp>facility at Port Clarence, Alaska</a>, the Guard decided to literally blow up the tower, the Associated Press <a href=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaCny8J9TJJUHh8Y4dEyxzXV3X3AD9FD4HKG0>reported</a>.
Digital Government
VA finds bug that caused mix-up in health exchange system
Glitch that combined patient data or returned incomplete files should be fixed in May.
Digital Government
Defense, Facebook One and the Same
While the average Facebook employee probably does not meet Defense Department attire or haircut standards, Defense Deputy Secretary William J. Lynn III <a href=http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58949>told</a> a group of Facebookers at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday that he viewed the two cultures as congruent.
Digital Government
AHLTA and Drug Abuse
In <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html>scathing article</a> on problems at the Army's Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson, Colo., the New York Times reported on April 24 that some clinicians at the post hand out so many prescription pain killers that troops in the unit have become addicted to narcotics.
Digital Government
VA official says patient-controlled health records guard privacy better
But few Americans have created the medical files, making individually managed records the centerpiece of a national network problematic, a privacy group counters.
Digital Government
Workforce Mapping Walter Reed, Bethesda
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington will close in September 2011, with its personnel, patients and operations moving to an expanded, joint medical facility at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Digital Government