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Watson, the computer that has recently been competing on Jeopardy, could eventually hold a position in Government. Technology like the such that is used in Watson could eventually help government municipalities with garnering and analyzing data and information and regurgitating back to people who need it. For instance, a person looking to gain a building license could tell the computer what it is planning on building, and instead of having to sift through possibly thousands of pages of information, the computer could simply return a checklist to the person.

This site shows government technology solutions for local and state governments. I was particularly drawn in by the article of about Watson, the Jeopardy game show computer contestant, and how this type of technology could be beneficial to government programs.

The Apple iPad, one of apple's hottest sellers, is seeing frequent use by those in the government sector. With the seemingly endless amount of apps available for use with the iPad, many help government workers to become more efficient. The apps that are seeing the most use include twitter, quick office, evernote and flipboard. Twitter is helpful to disperse quick messages to others in the work place, and obviously has social networking benefits as well. Quick Office is seeing a lot of use as a microsoft office productivity tool. Evernote allows the user to take notes, record sound bytes, add pictures and video, and other helpful pieces of information into one "note" that is easily dispersed to others in one piece, together. Flipboard is presented almost as a "personal magazine", where feeds from social networking sites and other sites the user selects appear directly on the iPad's interface.

This article outlines 3 initiatives for open gov.from president government (transparency,collaboration,participation) but also takes an extensive look at the use of government websites overall

After seeing the tragedy that has hit Japan, I found this story to be useful as a great example of how tech can really affect people's lives. Google has provided a system where you can search the name of a person in Japan and find out about their status in the country after the earthquake. This tool is so important for government to use during a national disaster because it allows families, no matter where they are across the globe, to better find out what has happened to their loved ones after such a tragedy. Governments or non profits such as the American Red Cross can use this technology in all types of different relief effort circumstances when a number of people somewhere in the world have been the victim of such a disaster.

Facebook revised its terms and conditions regarding state and local governements. The revised conditions will allow for broader use of facebook throughout the government. Many individual agencies have created their own facebook pages and the new conditions have allowed for state and local governments to be more confident and assured in their use of facebook.

Although this article is a a couple years old I think it raises many good points in regards to the public sectors use of technology compared to that in the Business world. I think the author was correct in his assumptions that inefficiencies in the technology are in large part due to the lack of competition in the government. Perhaps, if the government were to do like the article suggests, and base their e-government procedures off of a business model than things may run a bit more easily.

Government officials have now started using facebook and twitter accounts. It helps people feel more connected and allows them to communicate outside the typical 8-4:30pm, M-F. An issue that arises is it can be an exhausting job for anyone, because it's 24/7. Once the newness of the accounts wear off, they might not be updated as much.

Article about government review of potentially costly It projects and there chance for success.

Although this article talks about business and government, it nonetheless provides very useful information in regards to the use of technology in the government. If the public information that is being taken by the government and seemingly used very little can prove to have benefits to society when used in an efficient and accessible way. These benefits can affect an individual, a business, or a non-profit in numerous ways.

Great article on the future of government IT.

"Chinese Hackers Bring Down Change.org in Response to Ai Weiwei Campaign. Chinese government-sponsored hackers took down Change.org with a DDoS campaign after the site registered over 100,000 signatories on a petition in favor of the imprisoned Chinese artist. Ai Weiwei had been known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and as China's leading digital activist and a pioneer in the use of blogging and Twitter in China."

President Barack Obama, the CEOs of Dell Inc. and IBM Corp came up with an agenda for the federal government that will end up saving one trillion dollars by 2020. Some of the ways they could save billions of dollars are by reducing energy use, consolidate IT infrastructure, streamline government supply chains, and by monetizing government assets. The administration is going to work on coporate tax structure and free trade. Obama said he will support this as long as the deficit is neutral.

My final bookmark in my series on the use and future of technology in government funded public education. Talks about teaching using tech tools they already have like webcams, audio recorders, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools in their quest to boost the literacy in their students.

Social media tools, such as twitter and facebook, played a significant part of the overthrowing of Mubarak. With two-thirds of Egypt's population under the age of 30, it's no surprise that internet-savvy, educated, young Egyptians used such tools to break barriers in a country that has been ruled under unjust dictatorship throughout their lives. These tools helped organize and gather the millions of protestors that have sparked revolution in Egypt. Social media and sharing information online has played an almost unimaginable role in this process and certainly poses a threat to governments around the world with dictatorships and a significant proportion of the population who is educated and able to use these tools.

How do you decide which cloud platform is right for your company? Well you could trust the cloud rep. implicitly or learn why one platform might be the best fit for your nonprofit or government agency to use. This PDF outlines many of the differences.

"In an effort to crack down on child pornography, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the seizure of 10 domains as a part of a new initiative called "Operation Protect Our Children" but they also shut down 84,000 seemingly innocent sites in the process."   A clear example of how attempting to exercise government control over the Internet in the United States on a even a small scale can present problems that were not the intent of the US gov. officials & decision makers!!!!!

A new commission on the leadership opportunity in US deployment of the cloud is going to provide the Obama administration with reccomendations of how to deploy the cloud better.

 News Release by Tiffany Brown, Public Affairs Section, Lansing: Recent news coverage prompted by a press release issued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has brought speculation and caused inaccurate information to be reported about data extraction devices (DEDs) owned by the Michigan State Police (MSP). The MSP only uses the DEDs if a search warrant is obtained or if the person possessing the mobile device gives consent. The department*s internal directive is that the DEDs only be used by MSP specialty teams on criminal cases, such as crimes against children. The DEDs are not being used to extract citizens' personal information during routine traffic stops. The implication by the ACLU that the MSP uses these devices "quietly to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches" is untrue, and this divisive tactic unjustly harms police and community relations.