November 9th, 2009

Northrop Grumman sells consulting firm in leveraged buy-out

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 9, 2009 @ 7:12 AM

Categories: Antitrust, E-government, Ethics, Government technology, Homeland security, ICT, IT Management, International, Telecom, Transportation

Tags: Northrop Grumman Corp., Consulting, TASC, Ronald D Sugar, Outsourcing, Operational Accounting, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Finance

Like the accounting industry, selling products and offering consulting services creates conflicts. Northrop Grumman offers both services to government agencies, particularly U.S. Homeland Security and the military.  The U.S. (and other countries) have new guidelines and regulations, resulting in Northrop Grumman announcing that it is selling its consulting group TASC.

Northrop Grumman, one of the largest suppliers to U.S. military has sold the division to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and the Atlantic Group for $1.65 billion.

Ronald D Sugar is notes that this is in the best interests of Grumman Northrop;

“

This transaction is in the best interest of Northrop Grumman’s customers, employees and shareholders,” said Ronald D. Sugar, chairman and chief executive officer. “It reflects Northrop Grumman’s desire to align quickly with the government’s new organizational conflict of interest standards, while preserving TASC’s unique organizational culture and its status as the advisory services employer of choice. TASC is a remarkable organization with a proud 43-year heritage of supporting critical national security missions. We are confident the investors understand the critical importance of its customers’ missions and the depth and sophistication of its employees’ expertise.”

TASC has revenues of $1.6 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year with the cash going to buy back its stock.

November 6th, 2009

Human x-ray machines: Coming soon to an airport near you

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 6, 2009 @ 5:00 AM

Categories: Canada, Congress, FAA, Government technology, Homeland security, Intelligence, International, Justice, Law enforcement, Privacy, Public health, Science, Security, Transportation, UK

Tags: U.S., Canada, Airport, Transportation, Security, Doug Hanchard

In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger (Gov. of California) runs through a security check point corridor operating using X-Ray technology. That film was released in 1990. Today that technology is being installed around the world at airports, border check points, marine ports and high risk security environments such as court buildings. They are currently being assessed or used in Canada, the U.S., U.K., Russia, Japan, and Australia. Some countries, such as India, have outright rejected them based on privacy and considered too offensive to passengers. Significant concern is being raised as to the long term medical impacts to humans going through the devices.

In Canada, the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency (CATSA) organization has completed some field trials at smaller airports (Kelowna, B.C.) and is looking to purchase a half dozen of the machines to continue further assessment. There are approximately 18 airports in the U.S. using them. In the U.K. several airports now have them including Manchester. Testing in several countries has been going since 2004. In the U.S. the Transportation Security Administration began field trials in 2007. The technology offers security details to process passengers quickly and determine if weapons or other contraband is on a person without doing physical body search. Such technology would significantly improve the detection of hidden materials. Read the rest of this entry »

November 5th, 2009

FCC Chairman testifies on driving while texting

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ November 5, 2009 @ 2:30 PM

Categories: Canada, Commerce, Congress, FCC, Law enforcement, Mobile/wireless, Obama, State & Local Govt, Transportation

Tags: FCC, Phone, Chairman, Cell Phone, Federal Government, Cellular Phones, Telecom & Utilities, Government, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

Last week I posted that the Government of Ontario has implemented a ban on driving while using a mobile phone or CB radio. U.S. Congress is now holding hearings on the issue.

Chairman Julius Genachowski of the Federal Communications Commission testified before the Subcommittees on Communications, Technology and the Internet, Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Committee on Energy and Commerce on the topic of Technological Devices and Vehicle Safety. Chairman Genachowski’s testimony brought out some interesting facts.

1995: approximately 34 million people had subscribed to a mobile phone.

2009: 276 million

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in 2008 that driver distraction is the cause of 16% of all fatal crashes - 5,800 people killed - and 21% of crashes resulting in an injury - 515,000 people wounded.

I posted last week that 6 U.S. states have banned driving while talking on a cell phone. 18 states now have some kind of law, primarily aimed at texting while driving.

President Obama signed an Executive Order banning all Federal employees (except in an emergency) from texting while driving any government vehicle or driving while on the job.

According to the Automobile Association of America (AAA), nearly 50% of teens admit to texting while driving.

Bluetooth and speech-to-text technology sales are likely to skyrocket, along with civilian versions of Heads Up Displays (HUD) in rear view mirrors.

October 29th, 2009

Traffic management: New Internet coming to your local roads

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 29, 2009 @ 9:18 AM

Categories: Canada, Congress, Government 2.0, Government technology, Intelligence, International, Mobile/wireless, Networking, Regulations, State & Local Govt, Transportation

Tags: Internet, Traffic Management, Australia, Radio, Advertising & Promotion, Wireless And Mobility, Marketing, Doug Hanchard

Since the mid 1980’s, there have been proposals to implement traffic management via wireless. Often referred to as Intelligent Transport System (ITS), the goal is to enable analysis and traffic flow services on a nation’s road system.  Study and working groups have been active in the Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Other European countries are in various stages of reviewing similar requirements.

ITS services would be operated via wireless devices attached to any motor vehicle. It could monitor volume, speed and direction of traffic. There would be significant benefits of such a tool for various agencies. The current designs being contemplated are looking for synergies on platform standards along with radio assignment in the 5.9 GHz frequency band.

During initial development the goals became clear and benefits in public safety and traffic management could save billions of dollars. Fast forward to see how we use technology today brings new concerns and other challenges that may cause significant concerns with respect to Law, Privacy and a host of security implications.  It could also prove to be a terrorist’s or hacker’s dream come true and thus a whole new level of challenges arise.

Australia has just released its analysis and request for comment for ITS solutions and the future of such a project. In it you will find some fascinating ideas, concepts and issues that raise more questions than there are answers. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is specifically looking for comments on the radio frequencies recommended for such a deployment. There is no current timetable when this infrastructure would be enabled. Is this the beginning of a new era of how people management maybe becomes the norm? Perhaps…

October 26th, 2009

Talk and drive? More governments ban handheld phone use in vehicles

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 26, 2009 @ 12:34 PM

Categories: Canada, Courts, International, Law enforcement, Mobile/wireless, Telecom, Transportation, Twitter

Tags: Phone, Lufthansa, Government, Cell Phone, Accident, Ontario Provincial Police, Telecom & Utilities, Policies And Procedures, Cellular Phones, Human Resources

You just finished buying a new cell / mobile phone and it’s got everything you need in one neat little gadget. Your email, address book and calendar. It has your presentation, web browser and of course the ability to twitter what you are doing right this second…like getting a ticket for using it while driving down the road.

It’s now law. The government of Ontario has banned operating handheld devices while driving any motor vehicle on public roads. There are exceptions made for public safety and other government agencies. But these are exceptions. You can still talk and drive, providing you are not actually holding the device. Blue-tooth enabled phones or headsets are allowed. Fixed devices to dashboards are allowed, such as GPS units. The law will be enforced in all jurisdictions with warning tickets for approximately 30 days prior to fines being issued.

The Ontario Provincial Police is warning people publicly that if caught driving while holding and talking on a cell phone a fine could be just the start of your problems. If during an accident investigation it’s determined that driving while talking on a cell phone is a contributing factor to the accident, existing laws and fines may expose the driver causing the accident, fines to be levied at the maximum rate and driver points assessed at the maximum allowed under law. Read the rest of this entry »

October 19th, 2009

Success or failure equals government intervention

Posted by Doug Hanchard @ October 19, 2009 @ 12:32 PM

Categories: Antitrust, Congress, Courts, Elections, Google, Google Book Deal, Intellectual Property, International, Microsoft, Regulations, SEC, Transportation

Tags: Financial, Industry, Government, Vertical Industries, Financial Accounting, Finance, Doug Hanchard

The economy is in complete disarray and recovery efforts cost taxpayers everywhere. It will be a small fortune (a few trillion dollars) in long-term debt that governments are now incurring. Government is not at fault right? They are not the cause of economic wealth or disaster - right? What role do they really play? Turns out the answer is plenty.

Daily, the press fires out news about bailouts everywhere in the auto sector and financial marketplace, institutions that caused their own undoing are putting us in asset devaluation and debt never seen before. If you’re a successful company, don’t worry, the government sector is going to still tear your company apart. Microsoft is being micro-managed by the EU ,and the U.S. government make current financial regulators look like amateurs. What industry or company is on a government hit list?

If you’re successful, then rest on your laurels, shrug your shoulders and begin to fall flat on your face, just blame everyone else for causing the problems when the company falls apart. As a bonus, don’t worry the government will come bail you out. If you’re the biggest and most successful and financially sound, the government still wants to get into your books and tell you what your business can do and hand over some of the business to your competitors.

Why didn’t the government do that with GM? Shouldn’t they simply have handed over some of the business to Toyota, Ford and others? In a sense with Chrysler, they did and packaged up a deal and prayed that FIAT didn’t blink before they signed on the dotted line.

I wonder if Cisco is going have to worry some day that it will have to hand some of its business over to Juniper, Ciena, Brocade or other network gear companies? Read the rest of this entry »

August 6th, 2008

TSA vendor finds lost laptop, remains suspended

Posted by Richard Koman @ August 6, 2008 @ 4:12 PM

Categories: Transportation

Tags: transportation security administration, laptop computer, vip, notebooks, hardware, notebooks & tablets, richard koman

Travelers who use the Transportation Security Administration’s Registered Traveler program might be verified as good security risks but the same can’t be said about Steven Brill’s Verified Identity Pass, one of the TSA vendors that operates the program.
VIP, under the brand name Clear, lost a laptop containing 33,000 registered travelers’ names — but announced last Tuesday the laptop has been found.

“We apologize for the confusion but in an abundance of caution, we treated this unaccounted-for laptop as a serious potential breach,” VIP CEO Steven Brill said in a statement. “We’re glad to confirm that a preliminary investigation shows no personal information was compromised.”

PC World reports that the laptop disappeared from a locked office at the San Francisco International Airport on July 26. VIP began notifying customers of the breach late Monday and VIP was suspended from , after the TSA announced it had suspended VIP from enrolling new customers into its Registered Traveler program.

The laptop contained unencrypted names, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers and passport numbers of customers seeking to enroll in the company’s Registered Traveler program.
VIP will be required to submit an independent audit, verifying that required security measures are in place, the TSA said. The agency will verify the audits before VIP can resume its Registered Traveler program, PCW says.

October 11th, 2007

New airport scanning tech might be a little too revealing

Posted by Richard Koman @ October 11, 2007 @ 1:16 PM

Categories: Transportation

Tags: Transportation Security Administration, Image, ZDNet Government

The Transportation Security Administration has a hot new machine for airport scanning. The new “millimeter-wave passenger imaging technology” produces much more detailed images than metallic scanners, the TSA says, according to a CNN report.

But that’s just the problem, says the American Civil Liberties Union.

Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU said the technology can pick up graphic body images and even medical details like whether a passenger has a colostomy bag. Steinhardt called the screening an “assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate.”

TSA says they will apply a “modesty filter” procedure, in which the person actually looking at the scan image will be physically removed from the individual. The TSA says images won’t be saved and faces will be blurred.

The process works by scanning a person with radio waves, which reflect off the body to transmit a three-dimensional image of the passenger. The image looks like a fuzzy photo negative, CNN said..

TSA spokeswoman Elle Howe said the process is harmless and “can see more than a magnetometer,” which is the first screening machine airport passengers encounter.

“A magnetometer only picks up metal or weapons, so this could see other materials that might be hidden on the body and it also produces an image” rather than just a beep, she said.

Asked if the millimeter wave could detect an object hidden in a body cavity, she said only that the TSA will learn more about the technology as it’s tested at U.S. airports.

The ACLU expressed concern that TSA officers would save the images of celebrities and that TSA might unilaterally decide to stop blurring faces.

The machines will be offered at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport as an alternative to a pat-down for a second search.

January 29th, 2007

Blackberry causes pileup on freeway; WA ready to take action

Posted by Richard Koman @ January 29, 2007 @ 8:07 PM

Categories: Government technology, State & Local Govt, Transportation

Tags: Driver, Cell Phone, RIM BlackBerry, ZDNet Government

Coming on the heels of reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Washington state's lawmakers have turned their focus away from a ban on using a cellphone while driving to the apparently more dangerous activity of making it illegal for drivers to text on the open road.

Younger drivers are the target for House Bill 1214, which says: "A person operating a moving motor vehicle while reading, manually writing or sending a message on an electronic wireless device is guilty of a traffic infraction."

A similar bill by Rep. Dawn Morrell would prohibit teenagers with intermediate licenses from using cell phones to talk or text-message in the car.

"I realized how much attention it takes, and I found out they were doing it routinely while driving," she said. "If you can imagine reading and writing while operating a vehicle, you see the distraction is too dangerous," said Rep. Joyce McDonald.

There is still an ongoing push to ban drivers from using cellphones without hands-free devices. If caught tapping away while rolling along, the fine would be akin to a secondary traffic infraction, or $101 fine if the driver is caught while committing another offense, such as speeding.

Five other states have passed similar legislation requiring drivers to use hands-free devices. Other states include New York, New Jersey, California and Washington, D.C.

"People are getting more and more attuned to the distraction that they hold, so it probably has as good of a chance as ever to pass," said House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler.

Matt Sundeen, who follows transportation issues for the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan policy think tank, says the reason that similar bills have not passed is because of legislators' addiction to talking and driving.

"Everybody will agree that driving with a cell phone is distracting. The question is whether it is distracting enough to warrant legislation," Sundeen said. "Cell phones are not something like drunk driving, where there's really no value to it. They allow people to talk to their loved ones, keep in contact with friends or do business."

December 26th, 2006

NYC's new Trip Planner: promise and disappointment

Posted by Richard Koman @ December 26, 2006 @ 4:21 PM

Categories: Government technology, State & Local Govt, Transportation

Tags: ZDNet Government

No matter how many New Yorkers you ask for directions, you're unlikely to get the same answer. Unfortunately, the same has been true of the directions you get from NYC Transit's website. But now, The New York Post reports, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has quietly upgraded the quality of directions the site offers.

NYC Transit's new Trip Planner offers a simple interface, includes bus and subway routes and, crucially, provides schedule information.

Although a crop of Web sites have sprung up in recent years offering point-to-point directions, the new one takes into account up-to-the-minute service changes and many of the system's lesser-known idiosyncrasies. The new site makes planning a subway trip far simpler. It even takes into account variables such as walking distance and whether the route needs to be wheelchair accessible.

Of course, checking a transit database is on-the-street computing. You want to be able to stand on the platform and figure out which train you're taking or if there's an alternate train or bus that will get you around a delay. The MTA understands and is working on support for PDAs and phones, the Post says. There might even be in-station kiosks with the service.

It's not perfect yet, says the Post.

There are still some bugs to work out. The planner occasionally gets thrown off by how the starting and ending addresses are entered, and occasionally suggests getting off the subway and switching to a bus when a few more stops would bring riders within five blocks of their destination.

So what do the people say? Gawker.com gave some tenuous words of encouragement and asked readers to beta-test.

We've been playing around with the MTA's new Trip Planner, which not only provides routes when you enter starting point and destination info, but also gives estimated bus and subway arrival times, and so far . . . we hesitate to jinx this . . . it seems like it might be kind of awesome and actually useful, unlike anything else the MTA has ever done in its entire life.

Readers quickly dissed the results, though:

• you must be joking. the thing is … retarded. it doesn't understand what upper west side is. not as if i'll ever have a reason to go there. so never mind.
• The only way to truly replicate the "token booth clerk giving you completely back-ass-wards directions" experience would be to have my speakers emit a teeth sucking sound.
• Ew. The thing would rather make me take a rush hour L train than walk the extra 1/4 mile to the JMZ. The web form should have a check box for "I want to be packed in like a sardine and not know when the next train is coming, if ever"

Gawker's readers also shout out to HopStop.com, which seems to offer more options, such as walking more.

HopStop does seem to have a leg up on the MTA's version, and the 'send directions to phone' thing is top-notch. But it's good to see the MTA getting in the game.

The whole story goes to the question of whether a government agency can ever produce a better product than a start-up. The consensus here appears to be no. That seems surprising since the agency would have the most up-to-date information on schedule changes and delays. If readers' impressions are the ultimate judge, this seems to be a case of government IT being saddled with the same old factors that prevent flat-out success.