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Every year, the Information Security Oversight Office reports to the President the estimated costs of securing the nation's classified information. Expenditures can include anything from salaries and security clearances for personnel accessing the sensitive documents to computer equipment and training programs for government employees. In 2011, that total cost was nearly $11.4 billion-more than double the budget from just ten years ago.

"esterday marked three months since the release of the Digital Government Strategy and agencies have been making great strides in meeting the milestones toward building a 21st Century Government.  In his blog, Building-blocks of a 21st Century Digital Government,  Steve Van Roekel said"

" Researchers from A*STAR's Institute of Microelectronics (IME) have developed the first compact high performance silicon-based cavity-backed slot (CBS) antenna that operates at 135 GHz. The antenna demonstrated 30 times stronger signal transmission over on-chip antennas at 135 GHz. At just 1.6mm x 1.2mm, approximately the size of a sesame seed, it is the smallest silicon-based CBS antenna reported to date for ready integration with active circuits. IME's innovation will help realize a wireless communication system with very small form factor and almost two-thirds cheaper than a conventional CBS antenna. The antenna, in combination with other millimetre-wave building blocks, can support wireless speed of 20 Gbps - more than 200 times faster than present day Wi-Fi, to allow ultra fast point-to-point access to rich media content, relevant to online learning and entertainment."

But there's growing evidence that the innovation shortfall of the past decade is not only real but may also have contributed to today's financial crisis. Think back to 1998, the early days of the dot-com bubble. At the time, the news was filled with reports of startling breakthroughs in science and medicine, from new cancer treatments and gene therapies that promised to cure intractable diseases to high-speed satellite Internet, cars powered by fuel cells, micromachines on chips, and even cloning. These technologies seemed to be commercializing at "Internet speed," creating companies and drawing in enormous investments from profit-seeking venture capitalists-and ordinarily cautious corporate giants. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan summed it up in a 2000 speech: "We appear to be in the midst of a period of rapid innovation that is bringing with it substantial and lasting benefits to our economy."

"Every year, Internet access via broadband becomes available to millions more Americans, up from 92 percent last year to 94 percent, a recent report shows. Rural and tribal areas are the outliers."

Bizarre details about a YouTube film trailer that's continuing to fuel protests around the Middle East began to emerge late Wednesday evening. The 14-minute trailer for the film, titled "Innocence of Islam," angered many Muslims across the world because of its derogatory stance towards Islam and its depiction of the Prophet Mohammad as a barbarian and abuser of women. Early reports indicated that Sam Bacile, a California-based Israeli-American real estate developer, was behind the film. Bacile, who allegedly made the film to condemn Islam, was quoted as calling the religion a "cancer." However, as the day went on, some wondered if the "Sam Bacile" name was an alias. One indictator that something was amiss, for example, was that there was no record of a registered real estate broker named Sam Bacile in the state of California.

The authors cover in depth how cities are using a host of social media tools to enhance governments' delivery of many different kinds of services, ranging from distributing health and safety information, to responding to requests for graffiti removal and infrastructure repair, to encouraging and soliciting citizen participation in policy-making. They also outline how different cities run their social media operations, laying out the benefits and drawbacks of centralized versus decentralized social media strategy, and detailing how some cities structure the approval process prior to posting content to social media sites. Beyond presenting best practices, "The Rise of Social Government" highlights emerging trends in social media and how governments can get take advantage of them. Essential trends include monitoring, measuring crowdsourcing and integration of the mobile web. The authors take care to differentiate between monitoring and measuring social media. While monitoring involves listening to conversations on various platforms, measuring involves tracking the numbers that encompass engagement and the report details tools for each activity. The authors also talk about the rise of mobile social media and mobile apps, and the use of crowdsourcing, especially for emergency management

"This post originally appeared as an article in Viewpoint at the end of 2011. Briefed to one of BBH London's smartest strategists, Ed Booty, as a deliberate polemic, it's a provocative argument designed to question our assumptions about the constant pace of change. We like being challenged (we enjoyed Matt Edgar's post last year along similar lines) - please let us know what you think in the comments."

The health industry has not always been a leader in technology adoption. The current "high touch" model where caretakers deliver services within silos of care cannot be sustained because of high costs and other concerns. Making this even more of a challenge is a payment system that leaves little room for improved performance due to financial incentives. That's changing and the industry is moving toward greater "connectedness."  This new model will feature these characteristics: data-based transparency, personalized care, and consumer-directed care. Strategies such as predictive medicine and personalized care could allow players to create value in this new environment. This report outlines how executives should react and take advantage.

"Cable companies weren't interested when the federal government dangled millions of dollars to expand broadband Internet service and boost economic opportunities in Lake County, Minnesota, on Lake Superior (Wikipedia map). But "They didn't want anyone else to build a system, either," report Jim Spencer and Larry Oakes of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "That would mean competition in small parts of the county they already serve, even if it would leave thousands of northeastern Minnesota residents and businesses without broadband. So in 2010, when Lake County applied for federal stimulus funds to build a countywide network, it ran straight into a challenge from industry giant Mediacom and the Minnesota Cable Communications Association. The conflict that ensued is part of a national struggle," one that is repeated over and over in communities across the country, perhaps one you know or cover. "

AS manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition, says Paul Markillie. And some of the business of making things will return to rich countries

Investigating the financial fraud and misguided power plays that brought down the telecom industry Once the foundation of the Dow and NASDAQ, the telecom industry has eaten up more capital than any other industry in recent history and has nothing to show for it. Today, it is by far the worst culprit in the spate of financial dirty dealings that have been splashed across the business pages, and yet the rewards reaped by top executives at many of these failed or failing companies have been inversely proportionate to their decline. Broadbandits takes readers behind the scenes to get the story they won't get in the media. Investigative reporter Om Malik follows the money trail and deciphers the actions and motivations of a generation of new economy "barbarians" that brought down this once lucrative industry. This intriguing book offers an inside look into the telecom bubble, with tales and anecdotes about mavericks who turned simple light and glass fibers into veins of gold, financiers who got greedy and fleeced unsuspecting millions, clueless venture capitalists who thought they'd tapped into the mother lode, hapless entrepreneurs who believed that they were changing the world, and self-proclaimed pundits who were cheering it all on from the sidelines. Broadbandits is a compelling account of the downfall of telecom giants such as WorldCom and Global Crossing, and will show readers how many telecom upstarts and veterans alike became victims of what one chief executive aptly described as "high-yield heroin." Om Malik (New York, NY) is a Senior Writer for Red Herring who focuses on the telecommunications sector. Prior to joining Red Herring in July 2000, he was senior editor at Forbes.com. His work has also been published in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, Brandweek, and Crain's New York Business. For a very brief while, he was a venture capitalist.

A world-first, the report reveals information and communications technology (ICT) enhanced with ubiquitous high-speed broadband is becoming Australia's new utility - as historic and game changing as electricity or telephony.

From the "It Could Be Worse"-Department, the Canadian Press reports hundreds of thousands of Canadians are still stuck in the dial-up world, either because they live too far away from a cable company, their local phone company will not extend DSL service to their home, or they cannot afford the high prices Internet Service Providers charge for the service.

merican publishers are now bringing in more revenue from ebooks than hardcover books, according to a report published by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The figures, which were posted on GalleyCat on Friday, show that net sales revenue from ebooks exceeded that of hardcover books in the first quarter of the year: a first. The data was compiled from 1,189 publishers and did not include children's books.

In a recent Forrester report - Develop Your Service Management And Automation Balanced Scorecard - I highlight some of the common mistakes made when designing and implementing Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) metrics. This metric "inappropriateness" is a common issue but there are still many I&O organizations that don't realize that they potentially have the wrong set of metrics. So, consider the following:

Connected entertainment will drive revenues in the so-called "smart home" market to nearly $60 billion by 2017 - up from just $25 billion in 2012. That's the finding of Juniper Research in a new report examining the smart home market and the financial opportunities derived from connected devices and service models.

Thinking about skipping out on your 9-to-5 in favor of becoming a freelancer? There are a few key factors to weigh out before making the decision. Our friends at JESS3 teamed up with 24 Seven to create this infographic that rounds up the opinions of freelancers who participated in their 2012 Salary Survey & Job Market Report. Overall, freelancers seem pretty happy with the career move.

"Communications regulators, drawing on recommendations from a recent mobile health task force report, look to launch initiatives that will facilitate broadband-enabled healthcare technologies, particularly for mobile apps."

We have had some big successes with digital medicine. In my field about six years ago, device companies started putting antennas into implanted devices. We now analyze data from those devices in more than 200,000 patients. We've collected information on 20 million device downloads, recorded 150,000 life-saving interventions, and collected millions of pieces of valuable additional data. The numbers were clear. Here is what we've learned: If you open up this implanted device to the network, people live longer. We live longer and healthier lives when our health is continuously monitored by a device and exceptions to normal health are reported by the device to our caregivers. The technology exists and is often very inexpensive. It keeps people out of hospitals; saving money and lives. We've proven that. So why aren't we doing more monitoring? It's not a regulatory problem or a lack-of-vision problem in the medical and technology companies; it's that there's too much perceived risk in changing the medical structure.