The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today approved by a 3-1, party-line vote a series of steps that its Republican-majority commissioners argue will speed the pace of infrastructure installations necessary for carriers to provide 5G wireless services, but which have drawn strong protest from states and localities in the run-up to today’s vote who object to restrictions on their ability to govern.
The National Association of State Technology Directors (NASTD) is bringing on new leadership. Late last week, the organization announced that John Hoffman, CTO for the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR), will take over as NASTD president. At DIR, Hoffman is tasked with providing comprehensive strategic planning for the agency. He also has 25 years of experience in the wired and wireless communications fields and has held positions in network operations and integration, field operations, and program management.
California’s state Senate pushed the Golden State one step closer to enacting the Obama-era Federal net neutrality laws that were gutted by the FCC earlier this year. On Friday the state Senate passed the controversial bill, called SB 822, in a vote of 27-12 that was largely along party lines.
California’s state Assembly is attempting to turn back time on net neutrality by voting yesterday to approve a controversial bill that brings the state closer to enacting the Obama-era Federal net neutrality laws that were gutted by the FCC earlier this year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today launched a new webpage highlighting the importance of rural e-connectivity, as well as ways USDA is helping to deploy high-speed broadband infrastructure in rural America.
In a report released yesterday, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) weighed in on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for state CIOs.
Research firm Gartner has released its 2018 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report, which found technologies like artificial intelligence platform as a service, blockchain for data security, and quantum computing reaching the peak of inflated expectations, while technologies such as mixed reality and blockchain were on the downswing of excitement.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce’s Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee expressed broad agreement today that the Federal government needs to do more to promote the availability of broadband service in underserved and unserved areas of the United States, but appeared to signal little in the way of any unified sentiment to coalesce around any of several existing bills that aim for that goal.
Using digital records instead of paper-based ones can save government agencies money and help them provide better service to their constituencies, said speakers during Government Technology’s “Going Paperless: How to Do It and What You Will Gain” webinar on July 11.
Even as Apple went public yesterday with a new mobile device operating system intended to close security loopholes that law enforcement agencies were using to access locked devices, one digital forensics firm said it found a workaround to bypass the new security features for a cost of about forty bucks.
