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NASA's Open-Source Open Government Future

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, April 10 2012

NASA chose its website as flagship for a revamp of its open government plan rolled out yesterday, and — as if to show the agency meant business — did so with a brand-new, brightly colored buzzword-catcher of a website.

There are two things worth noting here. First, NASA — which, seeing as it has its own cloud computing environment, is on the leading edge of government IT already — is making the case that accessibility through web design and functionality will be important for open government. Second, the agency promises a full-scale reorientation in how it chooses technology. NASA's new goals include a transition to an open-source content management system and change its procurement process to value open-source over proprietary solutions. This in a federal government that wasn't clear on how to treat open-source software in procurement until 2009.

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With a new initiative, NASA explores its open-source projects. Image: Artist's concept of KOI-961 star system. NASA/JPL-Caltech

With Code.Nasa.Gov, Agency Steps Up Hunt for Its Open-Source Software Projects

BY Nick Judd | Tuesday, January 17 2012

Not everyone agrees that the Obama White House has done everything around open government that it said it would do. But earlier this month, NASA lengthened the list of things that federal agencies could do. In addition to releasing data, like those that are gleaned from the Kepler space observatory, NASA now has code.nasa.gov, a central repository intended to eventually link out to every last open-source project maintained by people within the U.S. space agency. Read More

History In HD

BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, July 20 2011

Screencap from NASA.gov On the anniversary of the first human landing on the moon, NASA has released partially restored footage from the voyage as HD video. Read More

T-Minus One Minute Until the End of an Era

BY Nick Judd | Friday, July 8 2011

Nasa.gov is live-streaming the last-ever shuttle launch in less than one minute. Read More

Kundra Closes Down Data Centers, Calls for More Cloud

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, April 28 2011

Photo credit: NASA Not only are the U.S. data centers the federal government owns wasted -- just 7% of the server space housed within them actually gets used -- but they're security threats: with 2,000 of them dotted ... Read More

NASA Charts Its Journey into the Open Government Space

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, April 18 2011

A year after NASA releases its Open Government Plan, the space agency infographics what it's up to in that universe. Read More

NASA and Etsy Get Their Space Crafting On

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, March 18 2011

If you had to pick a federal agency to partner with hipster craft site Etsy, you'd probably pick NASA, what with their Foursquare check-ins from space, frequent tweetups, and plethora of apps. And you'd be right. Over at ... Read More

Why's Foursquare NASA's Latest Frontier?

BY Nancy Scola | Friday, October 22 2010

International Space Station Commander and NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock opened up a new frontier for NASA when, earlier today, he checked in on the location-based game-slash-social-platform Foursquare -- from space! Read More

A Growing Gap Between Gov 2.0's Haves and Have-Nots?

BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, July 30 2009

Last week in Washington DC occurred the Open Government and Innovations Conference (OGI), put on by the Department of Defense and the latest in a steady stream of conferences dedicated to the intersection of government, ... Read More

A New Look at a Walk on the Moon

BY Nancy Scola | Monday, July 20 2009

On this, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moonwalk, NASA has given over its website homepage to a piece of digital wizardry it is rightly proud of: restored video footage of Neil Armstrong's first step onto the ... Read More

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On Change.org, a Big-Name Call for Dimon's Ouster from New York Fed

The International Monetary Fund's former Chief Economist Simon Johnson is using Change.org to build support for his position that JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon must resign from the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Johnson, a British economist who's a longtime professor at MIT, established the petition on Wednesday. Since then, more than 3,000 people have signed on to support his position. GO

Howard Rheingold on Congress, Digital Literacy, and Making Political Movements

From Congress to the classroom, digital literacy is a key skill that's often sorely lacking, Howard Rheingold, author of the new book "Net Smart: How to Thrive Online," said on Thursday's Personal Democracy Plus call — but there are ways to change that.

Rheingold derided "the degree of technological ignorance" in government and in particular Congress. "It's worse than ignorance," he said. "It's know-nothingness ... it's so endemic." During the fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act, members of Congress could often be heard pleading their ignorance of the Internet and its inner workings even as debating legislation that some said would alter the structure of the global communications network.

The call, moderated by TechPresident editorial director Micah Sifry, was recorded and is available online here.

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Should U.N. Politics Affect the Internet?

A key U.S. House subcommittee plans on examining the implications of the U.S. ceding control of key aspects of the global Internet infrastructure next Thursday. The House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on Communications and Technology announced Wednesday that it's going to hold a hearing on proposals at the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union to afford more control over Internet governance to countries other than the United States. GO

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This Isn't What Political Air Time Usually Means

MoveOn.org is asking supporters for $150,000 in donations to fly a plane above high-dollar fundraisers for Mitt Romney with "a message that reminds voters how he represents his corporate and 1% donors." MoveOn previously hired a plane to fly over Romney's Liberty University graduation speech with the message "GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT." GO

There's a New $200 Million Fund for Super-High-Speed Broadband Projects

An initiative to build and test gigabit-speed broadband networks is set to fund up to six next-generation Internet access projects across the country, fueled by a new $200 million broadband development funding program, Gigabit Squared and Gig.U announced this morning. GO

New Rice University Paper Chronicles Impact of the Internet On U.S. Foreign Policy

We all know that the Internet has transformed the way that the United States conducts diplomacy, and the way that it views national security, but where should we look to find evidence of this? This is the wide-ranging subject matter of a new paper published on Tuesday by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The paper provides a round-up of some of the major turns of events between 2005 and 2011 in the realms of Internet governance, the development of online public diplomacy at the State Department, the evolution of the Internet-fueled Arab Spring, and the establishment of the shadowy U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Maryland, among other things. GO

Messin' with Lamar Smith, Revisited

Remember that grassroots fundraising campaign to put a "Don't Mess with the Internet" billboard in the home district of Rep. Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas and sponsor of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act? All of the money required came in, and Fight for the Future, the advocacy group opposing more stringent copyright protections online, writes that the billboard went up. GO

Republican National Convention Organizers Sever Ties With Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions

After eight years producing online content for the Republican National Convention, GOP web consultant Becki Donatelli's Campaign Solutions is off of the project. "Campaign Solutions was retained to help develop our convention website and digital strategy, but they are no longer involved in convention planning," James Davis, the convention's communications director, told techPresident Tuesday. It's unclear what precipitated the of the relationship between the convention organizers and Campaign Solutions, which has been producing the online component of the event since 2004. But Donatelli's name surfaced in a controversial anti-Obama ad pitch sent to a Super PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, which appeared in its entirety in the Times last week. Ricketts has since disavowed the proposal and Donatelli has denied any involvement. GO

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