Pentagon

Top military officials are finally getting a chance to see first hand how tablet computers and smartphones other than their trusted BlackBerrys might work in the line of duty.

As part of previously undisclosed program, 200 mobile devices – including iPads, iPhones, Samsung Galaxy tablets and smartphones – have been issued to senior military personnel: 100 to top leadership in the Pentagon and another 100 to key staff at major commands such as Army Cyber Command and the Training and Doctrine Command. Keep reading →


Government agencies and departments are learning to live with travel restrictions and discovering innovative alternatives amid an anti-conference trend brought on by budget restrictions and well-publicized abuses.

But some managers fear the trend will inhibit federal workers’ ability to stay current with new technology field advancements or to consult with experts in the private sector via site visits, professional seminars and annual conferences. Keep reading →

Little doubt remains that the Pentagon budget will flatten or contract in coming years. Scaling back on performance and adopting a more austere approach to meeting the country’s evolving defense needs are viewed as a necessary consequence.

It is less understood that defense spending has experienced price inflation that dwarfs other industries and the economy as a whole. Keep reading →

For Teri Takai, the key to overseeing cybersecurity for the world’s largest defense organization is striking a delicate balance between enabling mobility and safe-guarding information that is often crucial to national security. In her role as the Department of Defense’s chief information officer, she must also convince a widely diverse group of constituents that a shared approach is best.

DOD has always had a highly mobile workforce, but the proliferation of mobile devices is radically altering the department’s already challenging security environment.
__________________________________________________
This article originally appeared in the latest edition of CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government‘s Leadership journal. For more news and insights on innovations at work in government, please sign up for the AOL Gov newsletter. For the quickest updates, follow us on Twitter @AOLgov.
__________________________________________________ Keep reading →

This is the second article in a four-part series exploring what federal officials need to consider as agencies begin to look beyond current efforts to consolidate government data centers.

When U.S. Army Col. Dave Acevedo, CIO/G-6 ADCCP Team, says the “stars — meaning Army brass — are literally aligned behind data center consolidation”, it shows how serious government is about reducing its data center footprint. Keep reading →

Due to the government’s growing interest in providing mobile devices to civilian and military personnel, the Defense Information Systems Agency has certified its first secure mobile device running on the Android operating system.

Defense Systems has reported the Dell Streak 5 smart phone/small tablet computer is the first handheld device using the Android 2.2 operating system to be certified for use in the Defense Department’s secure but unclassified communications, said John Marinho, director of Dell enterprise mobility solutions. Keep reading →

Herndon, VA-based GeoEye captures the damage, the reconstruction, and the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon in a series of images from its IKONOS and GeoEye 1 satellites traveling 423 miles above the earth’s surface at a speed of 17,000 miles an hour.

This photo gallery can be better viewed by clicking the gray square in the lower right corner of the picture framed below, which opens the gallery in a larger viewing window. Keep reading →

It’s hard to believe that the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is almost here. It was one of those events, like Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, which remains in the memory with startling clarity.

From where I was working in the Government Printing Office (GPO), we could see the column of smoke from the strike on the Pentagon. Later, after Federal Government facilities in the DC area closed down, I walked from GPO to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (I still remember a woman telling a Smithsonian guard that she had seen someone on the building’s roof – and who could tell what that meant in a world spinning out of control?) to meet my wife, who by some miracle got into the District and picked me up. Keep reading →