federal government

The Standards Blog: "Cloud computing is all the rage today, with everyone from the U.S. Federal government to Apple herding us into a brave new world of remotely hosted data and services.

There are, of course, many advantages to the cloud concept. But as usual, this new IT architecture has some inherent and serious risks that cloud proponents hope potential customers will not dwell on."

Last month, we mentioned that the Senate had given its approval to a new law protecting whistleblowers in the federal government.

There were some problems with the bill, which led some to fight against it, but much of the bill was useful.

With the whole Wikileaks stuff going on, there had been some concern that such a law might lead to similar leaks, but most of Congress recognized that protecting whistleblowers is important.

Practical Technology: "It’s about time. Today, July 22nd, Open Source for America, a coalition of more than 60 organizations joined together to advocate open source in the U.S. federal government launched."

The H Open: "The Swiss News Agency (SDA) reported on Thursday, 28 May, that the Swiss Federal Administrative Court had issued an immediately enforceable ruling ("Superprovisorische Verfügung") that stops the award of a large federal government order to Microsoft."

The service also offers what it is calling the People's Rolodex, a list of federal government contacts that users can add to their existing online contacts.