Military and private-sector participants are attempting to replicate the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-led Afghanistan Mission Network (AMN) for CWID 2011 with an emphasis on joint fires and coalition interoperability.

Commercial smart phone capabilities have found their way into the classroom and the battlefield, and the U.S. Army’s Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications initiative is using pilot programs to determine how these mobile platforms will change the way soldiers communicate and access information in the next 10 years.

Dual-use U.S. technology may be improving other nations’ militaries as a result of efforts by foreign technology workers in the United States, according to a U.S. government report. U.S. government agencies should tighten their processes and monitoring of visas and foreign workers’ access to controlled technologies, the report recommends.

A memorandum to federal officials about information sharing during government acquisition processes is opening the lines of communication between agencies and vendors. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo includes guidelines for comprehensive communication plans, awareness campaigns, education modules and discussion forums, all of which aim at facilitating dialogue.

I am -- yet again, amazed at who I run into at various networking events. I am tempted to go into "listen-only" mode, sometimes when I spend too much time in my cave (i.e., home office) so… occasionally, I have to remind myself to open up a bit and talk at these events. I usually come away with another valuable contact.

Your mouse may no longer be a friendly. That goes for your keyboard as well. Cyber security researchers have reportedly found a way to create peripherals that can be programmed to steal and transmit data when certain actions or keystrokes are performed.

U.S. Army developers have installed in Afghanistan the first technology that permits radio communications to continue while soldiers use jammers to defeat improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

According to Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, the U.S. Defense Department was operating 772 data centers as of July 30. 2010. The Office of Management and Budget defines a data center as any room that is greater than 500 square feet and is devoted to data processing. Kundra called for a 38 percent reduction in the number of data centers by 2015. Though such calls are driven by budget considerations, the metric of counting how many data centers can be eliminated is misleading. From a budget standpoint, only the reductions in the Defense Department’s $36.3 billion fiscal 2011 information technology expenses will matter.

The end of the space shuttle program is the signal for NASA to turn to the private sector for human access to orbit. The space agency that built a series of manned spacecraft to blaze a trail to the moon now is placing its bets on several commercial space technology companies to provide entry for humans into low earth orbit. This new direction for the government space agency has several goals. First, it seeks to establish a domestic manned orbital capability to reach the International Space Station. After the shuttle program ends this year, the only way for spacefarers to reach the space station for the next few years will be through Russian space agency launches.