The Wyoming governor’s office gets a mountain of correspondence from constituents, both email and snail mail. On a recent day, for example, some 1,500 inquiries landed on Governor Matt Mead’s desk.
Until recently, the process of managing constituent inquiries to the governor was manual and paper-based, even for electronic correspondence. Keep reading →
While iPhone aficionados may have to wait three to four more weeks to get their hands on the new iPhone 5, Apple officially released it latest mobile operating system, iOS 6, today. And that meant federal IT executives had yet another new mobile issue to contend with as they began in earnest to evaluate how the new operating system, which boasts 200 enhancements, might impact the growing use of Apple devices across the federal government.
“I think it’s safe to say that these continually improving and expanding features are a key reason why government workers find consumer mobile devices in general – and iOS devices in particular – so compelling for use in accomplishing their missions,” said Dr. Rick Holgate, assistant director for science and technology and chief information officer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF). Keep reading →
Fueled by the widespread adoption of increasingly powerful mobile devices, we are in the midst of one of the most exciting technology eras ever. Half of American adults now own smartphones and over 20% are already using tablets. This pace of adoption is unprecedented as the first Apple iPhone was only introduced five years ago with the Apple iPad arriving in just the past two years.
The rapid emergence of this mass market has shattered the cost constraints for going mobile for every organization, including government agencies. For a technology geek like myself, what’s most exciting is the opportunity this creates to untether knowledge workers from the desktop so that they can be equally effective in the field. Keep reading →
As the federal government moves to widespread implementation of mobile device policies, the most attractive and cost effective approach appears to be personnel using their own personal devices to do their jobs.
But while BYOD policies make economic sense, the devil is in the details. This is especially important for the Defense Department and other federal organizations responsible for handling sensitive and classified data. Keep reading →
A senior National Security Agency official today said the agency is racing to embrace an approach to mobile technology that once would have been unthinkable for one of the government’s most secretive agencies, by moving toward 100% end-to-end reliance on commercial communications technology.
NSA Director of Information Assurance Deborah Plunkett told an industry group today in Washington that, “Unless we do this, we will not be able to meet the demand signals from our customers.” Keep reading →
As part of a plan to upgrade technology and support a mobile workforce, Federal Aviation Administration inspectors are taking part in a pilot project using iPads to conduct safety checks on airline carriers.
About 50 of the FAA’s 3,300 inspectors are testing the mobile devices in a six-month pilot project across a range of airports, FAA’s Chief Technology Officer Douglas Roseboro told Breaking Gov. Keep reading →
A new computing device could revolutionize mobile federal computing. It’s super thin, has a potential battery life of close to nine hours, an ultra high resolution screen and a glass touchpad. It boots in seconds, has 4G connectivity, and it’s all wrapped in carbon fiber and aluminum for lightness and ruggedness.
It’s made by Dell. Keep reading →
Until mid-December, anyone needing a fake driver’s license could download a free app from Apple’s App Store and make one. The DriversEd iPhone and iPad app-available since 2009-allowed users to pose for photos and create bogus licenses. But at the request of Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, who called the app “dangerous,” it is no longer available.
The app, from DriversEd.com, was intended as a game to see what it would look like to have a license for any of the 50 states. Keep reading →
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will save thousands of dollars by trading its fleet of BlackBerries for iPhones and iPads in the next few months.
CIO Joseph Klimavicz told Breaking Gov the change, expected to take place by June 1, would save substantial costs associated with managing BlackBerry devices. He declined to specify savings other than to say it would be “thousands of dollars” now spent on managing close to 3,000 devices. Keep reading →
Consider this: At the beginning of the day you’ve got two computing devices sitting in front of you, a laptop and an iPad. Which do you turn to first?
The laptop’s undoubtedly more powerful, but to use it, you’ll likely need to press the power button, wait a few minutes for it to fire up, wait a few more minutes for various programs to load, then take a few more minutes to find what you’re looking for. The iPad, on the other hand, sips energy ever so slowly and hardly ever needs to be powered down. Everything is easily accessible with the touch of a finger, and apps launch almost instantaneously. And, as portable as the laptop is, the iPad is even more so. Keep reading →