Posts By Ross Wilkers

Report: $20B Up for Grabs in Upcoming NIH IT Competition

Both technology manufacturers and resellers will compete under a potential 10-year, $20 billion government-wide information technology contract vehicle run by a National Institutes of Health office, the Washington Post reported Sunday. Marjorie Censer writes that NIH’s Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center intends to award 50 contracts under the Chief Information Officer-Commodities and Solutions programRead… Read more »

Space Agency Enlists Johns Hopkins to Spearhead Moon, Asteroid Research

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory will lead a study into the surfaces of asteroids and the moon for NASA as the agency aims to explore those areas with humans and robots. The five-year initiative aims to build on APL’s previous Lunar Science Institute project for NASA that sought to learn more about the geologyRead… Read more »

NASA Aligns Commercial, Academic Researchers for Space Exploration Research Program

Nine teams of researchers have been selected by NASA to join a collaborative organization that will work on a virtual setting to support the agency’s human space exploration programs. The Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute will bring together U.S. scientists and international partners to help NASA study the moon, near-Earth asteroids and space environments,Read… Read more »

Pentagon, DNI Report $4B Intell Spending Downturn

Government data indicates that sequestration has trimmed budget for intelligence programs from $72 billion to $68 billion during the past fiscal year, Fierce Government reported Wednesday. Ryan McDermott writes the data from the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not explain how the $4 billion in cuts were made.Read… Read more »

Federal CIO Panel Moves IBM SmartCloud Through FedRAMP

A panel of chief information officers from three federal agencies has given IBM a provisional authority to operate under the government-wide Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program for evaluating cloud computing products and services. CIOs from the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the General Services Administration, evaluated IBM’s SmartCloud for GovernmentRead… Read more »

GSA Calls for Car Sharing Services Ideas

The General Services Administration is seeking information from industry on how to implement car sharing as an alternative transportation service. GSA issued a request for information Tuesday that asks interested vendors to answer a market research questionnaire on the idea with a due date of Nov. 15. Vendors are also invited to an industry dayRead… Read more »

FBI Calls on Industry to Demo Video Analysis, Processing Tech

The FBI is researching technologies intended to analyze, process and manage video content in an effort to create a road map for the bureau’s future video analytics infrastructure. FBI will host an industry day Dec. 11 at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. to brief contractors on the project, according to a FedBizOppsRead… Read more »

GSA Seeks Feedback, Data on Green Building Standards

The General Services Administration is seeking information on new building technologies for a Public Buildings Service initiative aimed at building more environmentally-friendly federal buildings. A GSA request for information posted Monday asks private businesses, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and other interested parties to submit building technologies data for the agency’s Green Proving Ground program. UnderRead… Read more »

CBP Sets New Award Date for $1B Integrated Fixed Towers Contract

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has delayed an award of a contract worth at least $1 billion to deploy fixed communication towers along the U.S. border with Mexico by at least three months. CBP originally planned to award the Integrated Fixed Towers contract during the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 but now plans toRead… Read more »

Alexander Kott: Army Research Lab to Work With Academia on Cyber Problems

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has formed an alliance with the private and academic sectors with the goal of preventing cyber attacks on military computer networks. The Cybersecurity Collaborative Research Alliance will work to study the human elements of cybersecurity and develop methods to assess and detect risks to the Army’s infrastructure, ARL said Thursday.Read… Read more »