Defense Department
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WFED\'s Jason Miller and Jared Serbu give details on stories they are working on.
January 06, 2011 -
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to spend the morning detailing for members of Congress his internal cost-cutting measures, which he said in August would save the department $100 billion over five years. Analysts said the effort was intended to preempt any budget cuts that Congress might force on the department.
January 06, 2011 -
A new program covering the dependents of TRICARE beneficiaries up to age 26 will not be ready for a formal roll-out for several more months, but one of the program\'s top officials said they intend to make the new coverage retroactive to Jan. 1.
January 04, 2011 -
A ten percent DoD budget cut can be done, says Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O\'Hanlon.
January 04, 2011 -
Small Wars Journal\'s Robert Haddick outlines the top three resolutions he has suggested for the Defense Department.
January 04, 2011 -
The House is planning a 2012 budget that will cut spending to below 2008 levels, Reuters reports. Also, a budget plan for the remainder of the current 2011 fiscal year would trim $60 billion —…
January 04, 2011 -
No evidence that U.S drones were shot down in the Persian Gulf. That\'s the word from the Pentagon. But Iran is claiming that it took out two Western drones in the Gulf. Reuters reports, the last time a U.S. drone crashed in the Gulf was in 2009 after a mechanical failure. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan says there are \"no recent reports that would corroborate what the Revolutionary Guard said about unmanned aerial vehicles.\"
January 04, 2011 -
Lyle Eesley, director of the Learning Center of Excellence for Service Acquisition at DAU, joins the Federal Drive with more information on the Service Acquisition Mall (SAM)
January 04, 2011 -
An informal working group reviewed 61 methodologies in the private sector for measuring the lifecycle cost of products. DoD\'s goal is to incorporate such a total cost of ownership approach for all products. The Pentagon eventually could make the process a standard.
January 03, 2011 -
The Defense Department continues to scrub service members\' social security numbers from public DoD websites. The armed services plan to transition to an alternative ID number system by 2012.
January 03, 2011 -
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said his efforts to limit parking at the Alexandria administrative center were not part of the new defense authorization bill.
January 03, 2011 -
The Pentagon\'s Warfighter Capability Demonstration Center (WARCAP) is making a big move in 2011 to implement more nimble, flexibly-configurable video teleconferencing solutions. In an average month, WARCAP\'s VTC team supports one major exercise and two or three demonstrations of emerging technology. End users and subject matter experts join in classified and unclassified briefings and conversations with top military leaders. \"Warfighters themselves can talk to the leadership. Guys on the floor of an Air Operations Center brief capability of the technology and its value -- or lack thereof.\" Anna Santos de Dios, Director of the Air Force\'s Warfighter Capability Demonstration Center (WarCap) told us more. \"Using VTC for exercises lets us bring the field experience right into the Pentagon. Senior decision-makers based here, who often lack the time or budget travel to event, can get in one room or on the same call, and bounce ideas around about what they\'ve just seen.\" WARCAP offers its clients three VTC options. DISN VIDEO SERVICES GLOBAL (DVSG) uses Tandberg systems to link multiple sites but each participating site is a fixed conference room and must be equipped with DSVG-specific hardware. AT&T schedules the VTC and allocates bandwidth. Internet-Protocol (IP)-Based VTC is about to get a lot more popular. This approach is used between two points that each connects their Tandberg MXP-IP coder/decoder (Codec) or similar gear (like the Polycom VSE-7000 IP-based Codec) to connect to the network used to conduct the military exercises and demos. \"Even some guy in the field with a webcam and internet access can be on the call,\" said Santos de Dios. \"We\'ve had guys doing VTC\'s standing next to their HUMVEE\'s talking about how systems perform, and that\'s much more powerful and memorable than someone briefing from a PowerPoint.\" But WARCAP wanted the flexibility to arrange those calls itself, to multiple points, and do it more quickly. So, WARCAP\'s NCO\'s collaborated with team from SAIC to come up with the solution. By April of 2011, General Dynamics IT and its subcontractor, PPI, will have installed a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU), the Tandberg MCU-4150 to improve service by bridging multiple locations. Finally, WARCAP uses Defense Connect Online (DCO), a software-based VTC system, for informal meetings and document sharing that doesn\'t require high bandwidth or ultra-high resolution video that the military exercises do. Once a computer has the software installed, plug in a USB web cam, and they\'re good to go. \"The people we support -- those running exercises, and those advocating more resources for work in the field -- feel that VTC helps them reach audiences they wouldn\'t have access to any other way,\" said Santos de Dios. \"The senior leaderships appreciates the opportunity to see exercises or evaluate technologies without disrupting their schedules with additional travel. \"The big challenge is that, with constant turnover in personnel that simply part of military life, we always have to keep educating people that this resource is available, so we\'re always doing outreach about WARCAP\'s VTC capabilities.\"
January 03, 2011 -
Infosecurity.com reports on a pilot program to give public and private cybersecurity experts temporary assignments.
January 03, 2011 -
Two major contributors to a task force on Defense Department IT acquisition said DoD\'s report to Congress on its plans for reform contains some good recommendations - but fails to identify how the department will overcome powerful cultural barriers to change. Experts said DoD failed to look outside the traditional Defense industrial complex for new ways to manage the IT lifecycle.
January 03, 2011