In July, office-accessory vendor Fellows Inc. introduced a mouse with a fingerprint-reading capacitor. Geared to notebooks but usable on most PCs with a Universal Serial Bus port, the $99 SecureTouch Optical Mouse is a reliable biometric control.
In the days before Sept. 11, 2001, the talk about biometrics was as much about data security as physical security. By recognizing a person's fingerprint, voice or iris pattern, often on an inexpensive device, biometrics was becoming a feasible way to prevent unauthorized people from accessing PCs, notebooks, networks and data.
"1995 is the Year of Biometrics." That's what John Woodward, then a senior policy analyst at Rand Corp., wrote in a book he authored eight years ago. For several years thereafter, as he updated the text, Woodward would repeat the phrase, firmly believing that the current year would finally see biometrics take off.
Electronic Data Systems Corp. in August awarded Securify Inc. a two-year, $5.8 million contract to help resolve a challenge the integrator had grappled with for almost three years: how to secure a huge network rife with legacy applications.
KSE Software, Dusseldorf, Germany, has released the latest version of its fax software for mobile devices. Truefax, which works on Microsoft Corp.'s Pocket PC platform, allows users to send and receive faxes with a handheld computer or cell phone.
Companies partner all too often without a sufficient reason to do so, according to a report completed by Electronic Data Systems Corp., Plano, Texas, and its consulting subsidiary, A.T. Kearney Inc.
The Defense Department's Open Systems Joint Task Force has published guidelines for an emerging procurement methodology called the Modular Open Systems Approach. The military can use the approach, known as MOSA, to define open standards for interoperability in a way that allows vendors to continue to offer proprietary solutions, according to Mark Gordon, an analyst for the National Center for Advanced Technologies.
A new telecommunications protocol is on the rise that will enable integrators to lower their costs and give government customers greater control over their voice and data networks.
The first step in keeping information locked away from prying eyes is to make it safe in transit across the networks that connect users. That means using encryption suitable to the type of information being transmitted.
Although AT&T Corp. expected heavy traffic on the do-not-call registry it deployed for the Federal Trade Commission, the company was still surprised by the registry's instant popularity.
The foundation for storage area networks could be shifting.At the moment, Fibre Channel SANs rule. They are dedicated, centrally managed and secure systems used to connect servers to storage devices across enterprise local area networks.
A study authored by Central Intelligence Agency scholar-in-residence Bruce Berkowitz said the CIA is not making full use of information technology tools to help analysts with their work.
	Memory sticks are the latest security threat concerning agency chief information officers, according to John Mitchener, chief scientist for BBX Technologies Inc., New York. BBX's software watches for unusual file-related activity on computer hard drives.
A market may be emerging for real-time bus arrival information systems, according to a report from the Federal Transit Administration. These systems provide bus and subway patrons with expected arrival times, drawing updates from automatic vehicle location systems that have been put in place to optimize scheduling. In 2000, 88 U.S. transit agencies operated vehicle location systems, and 142 others were planning them. An arrival information system can report expected arrivals by electronic signs at the stops, through the Internet or through cellular telephones. The report is available at http://gulliver.trb.org/ news/blurb_detail<BR>
The federal government's push for better information sharing among agencies, made more urgent by e-government initiatives and the war on terrorism, has created strong demand for enterprise software architectures, Web standards and integration tools.
When the Bureau of Land Management wanted to speed the application process it had for oil and gas companies to drill on federal property, it looked to Office Technology Systems Inc., Wheat Ridge, Colo., to help it streamline operations.
Air Force acquisition personnel are playing a board game by Paradigm Learning Inc., Tampa, Fla., to help them better understand the acquisition process. Using a customized version of the company's Discovery Map, teams flip through activity cards, which force them to solve problems and rethink standard business practices.
In May and June, the National Institute of Standards and Technology benchmarked the performance of 23 programs that translate Chinese or Arabic text into English. It found software written by Franz Och, a University of Southern California computer scientist, to be the most efficient.
