(9/6/2007) A taxi strike in New York City yesterday was having "limited impact, if any at all," according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while strike organizers declared the protest over new GPS tracking and credit card technology in cabs a success. The strike, planned for yesterday and today, would not lead to talks with taxi drivers, Bloomberg added. "There's nothing to talk about," he said. | (9/4/2007) Monster.com's database was ransacked by identity thieves who also obtained personal information of 146,000 people who use USAJobs, which is the federal government's official job search site, according to federal officials. According to Monster executives, the Trojan absconded with the names, addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of some 1.3 million people. | (8/31/2007) Since 2005, phones sold in the United States have been GPS-enabled to accommodate the FCC E911 regulation requiring that cell phone carriers be able to locate specific phones for 911 emergency calls. But there's a big issue raising its head. At least in theory, this increased location monitoring means you can be tracked by a lot of folks now, at least according to the Privacy Rights Clearing House. | (8/30/2007) Want one of the worst jobs in the information age? Try chief information officer. It's a job with a lofty title and plenty of land mines, and almost all of them more related to Machiavelli than technology. "So what is my job? Compromising. Compromising all day long. And trying to find a reason to rationalize this complete mess we call information systems." | (8/29/2007) The U.K. government's Courts Service has reaffirmed that the long-delayed Libra case management system will be fully rolled out by the end of next year - although it has so far reached fewer than one in eight courts. The Libra project began in 1998 and has seen repeated delays and cost hikes. | (8/29/2007) U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has called for the U.S. government to cancel an ongoing purchasing contract with Sun Microsystems Inc., but the company says Grassley's request is based on bad information. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has repeatedly criticized Sun for allegedly overcharging government agencies while on a government-wide purchasing schedule at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). | (8/28/2007) Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has described reports of Chinese hackers breaking into German computers as a matter of "grave concern" and said his country would co-operate with Germany to resolve the matter. Federal security experts discovered Trojan horse programs in computers used in several government ministries. | (8/27/2007) Repeated attempts by the Australian government to get the Access Card legislation through parliament has stalled, with future plans for the smartcard now on hold until at least 2008. Human Services Minister Chris Ellison has admitted the government's original timetable, which involved getting the legislation through both houses of parliament by June 2007, was far too ambitious. | (8/27/2007) InterGovWorld.com readers write back | (8/24/2007) The U.S. government will spend close to US$22 billion on IT projects by the end of September, as agencies rush to spend their budgets by the end of the fiscal year, says a report from Input, an analyst focused on government contracts. |
  | |  | | Blog Spotlight: Sandford Borins |  | As Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto, Sandford Borins brings InterGovWorld.com readers exclusive insights into how and why the public sector is changing. You'll find new perspectives and questions, observations and objectives, lessons and answers. Cover to Cover, the blog by Prof. Sandford Borins, appears every Thursday. Inside Cover to Cover | |
| | | Unified Communications |  | Unity is a word often heard in the public sector, with myriad agencies and departments looking to foster collective thinking around some of today's most pressing issues. The word, however, doesn't usually get mentioned in the same breath as technology. That's a situation, though, that might soon be changing, thanks to a new software platform known as unified communications.
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