This is the second in a series of stories about innovation at the National Weather Service.
This storm season, National Hurricane Center scientists are using sophisticated simulation models, new-age aircraft and better communications tools to achieve finely honed forecasting. Keep reading →
The terrorists who attacked the Benghazi consulate, killing US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and four others, apparently maintained web, cell and radio silence before they acted, giving the US no hint an attack was imminent.
“If people do not emit or discuss their behavior, it’s hard to find out what they are going to do,” Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper said at the huge annual conference of intelligence professionals called Geoint. The U.S., he made clear, did not have tactical warning of the attacks. He noted that there were anti-American protests in 54 countries when the attacks occurred, clearly implying the intelligence community had its hands full that day. Keep reading →
I am the deputy managerof the Science and Technology Chief Engineers office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. I consider myself lucky to have the privilege of working on so many exciting space projects and programs. It is amazing to look at the technology that I work on each day – especially compared to my life growing up on a rural farm in North Alabama.
I don’t ever remember thinking I was poor while growing up. We always had plenty of food that we raised on the farm, and everyone in that rural area seemed to be in a similar situation. I was always taught that you work hard regardless of what your job is. Growing up with seven siblings, I worked on the farm – picking cotton, milking cows and cleaning out chicken houses. My first real job was at a chicken processing plant and I was glad to get it. Later, I worked at a cotton mill and washed dishes at a nursing home to put myself through junior college. All jobs, no manner how menial, are important. They provide a sense of accomplishment if you do the work to the best of your ability. Keep reading →
This is the first in a series of stories about innovation at the National Weather Service.
The National Weather Service is on a hunt for killer tornadoes, using the latest technology to warn people sooner and creating a model that could be used by other agencies to make predictions on everything from health to the economy. Keep reading →
In this video, Tiffany Shlain, founder of The Webby Awards, Jeff Jonas, of IBM, and Mari Maeda, of DARPA, discuss ways data can change the world.
It was taken at The Economist’s Ideas Economy: Information 2012 event in San Francisco, California. The session was moderated by Kenneth Cukier, data editor for The Economist. Keep reading →
Argonne National Lab researcher Elena Rozhkova and other scientists are capable of building materials atom by atom and controlling their advanced functions. Such materials can be used to manipulate, control, and repair biological systems at unprecedentedly small scales. She talks a bit about the effect of these machines on medicine and technology.
This Q&A and video are part of the Lab Breakthrough series, which highlights innovations developed at the National Labs. Keep reading →
This is one among a collection of videos and essays from women who contribute to NASA‘s mission. They are part of the agency’s efforts to create a collaborative and supportive community of women at the agency, inspire girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and to encourage openness and accountability at NASA.
I began my first NASA research project only a year after I started studying mechanical engineering. I was in my mid-twenties and an “older” college student. I had studied musical theatre and education after high school, but I kept dropping out of college and going to work. I worked a waitress for a few years, and then as a veterinary technician for another few years. I also rented rooms and booked tours at the Grand Canyon and managed a gas station. Keep reading →
Despite a longstanding deadline and months of work, most federal agencies are about to miss the Sept. 30 deadline to enable IPv6 but will face no penalties for not reaching that goal.
Officials say Sept. 30 was a goal set by the Office of Management and Budget and that consequences for not meeting it are unnecessary. Nonetheless, compliance remains important as private industry v6 compliance is strong and therefore limits government interaction. Google, for example, launched IPv6 in June (see video with Vint Cerf above). Keep reading →
What began as a simple way to help veterans view their personal health information over the Internet is continuing to snowball into an electronic health record phenomena known as the Blue Button, now used by more than a million patients nationally and gaining wider adoption by certain health care providers.
The Blue Button is a simple piece of software code that the Department of Veteran Affairs developed two years ago, that lets veterans obtain a copy of their medical information electronically.
VA and health industry officials are now exploring ways to expand its adoption, as well as the types of information patients can access.
At a recently concluded consumer health IT summit, Peter Levin, chief technology officer for the VA described how the Blue Button got started and the impact it has had since in serving veterans.
But he and Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who leads the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, also highlighted their vision to grow Blue Button’s user base from “from one million to 10 million to 100 million to the entire country.”
“We want to turn the Blue Button from a noun, to a verb,” said Levin, to a “thing that you do…when you see the Blue Button, you know…you’re going to get your health information.”
Mostashari said he expects immunization records to be accessible via Blue Button in the coming weeks.
But he and Levin said they hope to avoid having distinct types of records added individually.
“You don’t want to do this one at a time,” said Levin. “You’d like to have a methodical way, of not just (adding information) inside government, but most important of all, is doing it outside of government.”Looking ahead, Mostashari said that it is also important to ensure two things happen:
“First, making the information more usable. But not only making sure that its always human readable, for the patient and the family to have immediate access to the information, but also making it machine readable so developers can develop new tools and services.”
The U.S. Army is expected to open a new mobile applications store as part of a pilot program designed to offer a more flexible way to develop and buy software for the government. The online store will provide a space where users can request specific tools and where participating developers can quickly provide or create a product to fill respective needs without getting bogged down in a complex and time consuming acquisitions process.
The new pilot will be a six-month effort that will support the Army’s intelligence service and the potentially intelligence agencies. Keep reading →