ASMC The Business of Defense

  • As of May first, televisions that carry the Environmental Protection Agency\'s Energy Star label are now required to, on average, be 40 percent more efficient than conventional models. Available nationwide, the new sets will help consumers save more energy and money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while offering the same features and performance. The new requirements represent EPA\'s most stringent Energy Star TV specification to date. With more than 19 million sets with screens larger than 40 inches expected to ship to American homes this year, the new specifications also offer important savings in larger size TVs. If all televisions sold in the U.S. met the new requirements, Americans would save $2.5 billion annually in energy costs while reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the emissions of about 3 million cars.

    May 10, 2010
  • The Atlantic City International Airport, located at the Federal Aviation Adminstration\'s Technical Center, has become the first in the national airspace system to deliver \"digital notices to airmen,\" or NOTAM\'s. NOTAMs provide computer-generated safety information to pilots and air traffic controllers about conditions at an airport like construction and hazards. FAA Administrator Randy Babbit calls digital information management \"key to meeting the air traffic system\'s safety and efficiency goals,\" as well as modernizing the national airspace system. Digital NOTAMs have safety and efficiency benefits over traditional NOTAMs, including transmitting to all air traffic management systems simultaneously. And, airspace users get easier to read information. Other airports that will follow the lead of Atlantic City International include: Washington Dulles, Reagan National, B-W-I, Richmond, and Norfolk.

    May 10, 2010
  • March 1st, March 3rd, May 10th 2010 David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P National Coordinator Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

    May 10, 2010
  • Witold Skwierczynski President, AFGE National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals David Wright President, AFGE Federal Protective Service (FPS) Local 918 Milly Rodriguez AFGE Labor Relations Specialist

    May 06, 2010
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham prayed on a sidewalk outside the Pentagon today after his invitation to a prayer service inside was withdrawn because of comments that insulted people of other religions. He prayed with his party of a half-dozen people for about five minutes at the Pentagon parking lot. Pentagon spokesman Geoff said he came, he prayed, he left and it was uneventful.

    May 06, 2010
  • Assistance is coming for family members who have to leave their jobs to become caregivers for severely wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, courtesy of a bill signed Wednesday by President Barack Obama. The bill, estimated to cost $3.7 billion over five years, also expands veterans care for women, the homeless, and those who live in rural areas.

    May 06, 2010
  • Law enforcement officers face many dangers on the job. May 7, 2010

    May 04, 2010
  • A U.S. counterterrorism source in a position to know says there is a foreign influence nexus to the suspects linked to the Times Square attempted bombing. A Justice Department spokesman said, \"The investigation continues. We are pursuing every lead to determine the identity and motives of the person or persons responsible. Other U.S. Intelligence officials are stressing it is too early to determine what that influence was generated outside of the U.S. or stateside with international connections.

    May 04, 2010
  • A video of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud surfaced last Friday from what appeared to be an unidentified location. Geo News TV did the interview in which Meshud said the Taliban are winning the war. Earlier this year he was reportedly killed after a U.S drone attack, but Taliban leaders and Pakistani intelligence now say he is alive. The question now is whether this video was made before or after the US missile attack.

    May 03, 2010
  • Seth Diamond Executive Deputy Commissioner New York City Department of Social Services

    May 03, 2010
  • You can\'t tell the players without a scorecard!

    May 03, 2010
  • The World Bank Group recently made many of its statistical databases available to the public online. The site is data-dot-worldbank-dot-org and is a place for global crowdsourcing. The move has required the cooperation of several governments and groups, reaching across the span of several cultures and languages. Some two-thousand indicators will become available that could be of help to researchers, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, entrepreneurs, and students. Bank officials say the data is arranged in a variety of ways. Users can search by country name for information on health, education, environment, standard of living, cost of living and other indicators. The website also comes with a variety of interfaces that allow a user to manipulate the data in a variety of ways. The site is part of the World Bank\'s broader Access to Information policy set to be launched July first.

    May 02, 2010
  • A new form of platinum that could be used to make cheaper, more efficient fuel cells has been created by researchers at the Department of Energy\'s S-L-A-C National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston. The process could help enable broader use of the devices, which produce emissions-free energy using hydrogen. Fuel cells hold significant promise for clean energy because the cell\'s only byproduct is water. But current fuel cell designs can require as much as 100 grams of platinum, pushing their price tags into the thousands of dollars. By tweaking platinum\'s reactivity, the researchers were able to curtail the amount of platinum required by 80 percent, and hope to soon reduce it by another 10 percent, greatly trimming away at the overall cost.

    May 02, 2010
  • Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has announced that nine American Recovery Act investments will go to help bridge the technological divide and boost economic growth nationwide, meeting several goals of that Department. More than $114 million dollars will be awarded to increase broadband access, and adoption, in more than a dozen states. The grants will fund projects that lay the groundwork to bring enhanced high-speed Internet access to thousands of households and businesses and link hundreds of schools, hospitals, libraries, and public safety offices through the internet. All told, the Department has awarded 82 Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants worth a total of $1.2 billion dollars to expand broadband access through projects in a majority of states and territories.

    May 02, 2010