<FONT SIZE=2>Loea Corp., a subsidiary of San Diego-based Trex Enterprises Corp., has released a laser-based, gigabit-speed transceiver that can transmit 1.25 gigabits per second, making it a good alternative, or backup, to fiber-optic links in campus environments. Using the 71 to 76 gigahertz portion of the spectrum, the wireless technology uses pencil-size, low-power laser beams of about 30 milliwatts to carry information, even through fog or rain. The technology is available on the General Services Administration schedule through networking integrator Marshall Communications Corp. of Washington. Early adopters include the University of Hawaii, which uses a 2.7 mile link to join two campuses, and the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>The American Institute of Mathematics is hosting a workshop March 24-28, 2003, to develop ways to improve processes of automatically factoring very large numbers. The meeting is being called in response to a recent discovery of a fast method of detecting large primes. This technique could weaken the encryption techniques underlying secure Internet transactions, which rely on the assumption that there is no easy method of factoring integers hundreds of digits in length.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Beginning in 2003, more than 71,000 domain names with the .us suffix that were reserved for the government but never used will be available for purchase. When Neustar Inc. of Washington was selected by the Commerce Department to manage the .us top-level domain, it set aside a series of names for government use. Federal agencies have until Dec. 31 and state and local agencies have until Jan. 30, 2003, to claim these names. Those still available after the deadlines may be purchased. More information can be found at www.neustar.us. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>For systems integrators mobilizing military networks, Tadpole Technology Plc. has an attractive product: the only laptop available in the United States built to run the Solaris version of the Unix operating system.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Alinean LLC, Orlando, Fla., has released a financial analysis tool kit designed for chief information officers. ValueIT helps CIOs determine which projects promise the highest returns on investment. It also can deliver analytics and metrics to demonstrate the value of proposed IT projects. Modules are offered for storage, server consolidation, security and managed services. Additional modules will be rolled out quarterly. Licensing for the suite begins at $10,000.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>InPhase Technologies Corp., Longmont, Colo., has received $600,000 from the from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency's National Technology Alliance, managed by the Rosettex Technology & Ventures Group, to develop a holographic storage system. The company predicts that using holography, or the use of interference patterns between two light sources to record data, can result in higher capacity storage systems, such as a postage-stamp-size device that can hold two gigabytes of information. InPhase will draw on previous research it has done. Since 1994, the company has won $3.5 million in government grants to pursue holographic data storage. Optics manufacturer Zygo Corp., Middlefield, Conn., will develop an integrated manufacturing process for high volume production of the systems. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Johnson Controls Inc., a facility management system provider in Milwaukee, and Newton Security Inc., a security solution provider in Seattle, are offering the Tailgate Detection, Alarm and Recording system to prevent unauthorized entry into secure areas, such as airports and research facilities. Using stereo machine-vision cameras, this system can detect an unauthorized individual who enters a secure area by following closely behind an authorized person. According to Johnson, the Transportation Security Administration has identified this sort of trespassing as a critical problem for securing baggage handling and other airport operations. This system records the event and transmits it to a security office.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Last month, the White House officially put government agencies on the path to using Web services, a collection of emerging Web-based open standards for sharing computer programs online. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Jack Battersby recently experienced an e-learning contract bidding process unlike any other. The State Department put his company, mGen Inc., and several others through three days of onsite product demonstrations, essentially allowing the agency's user community to test drive the software before making a buying decision.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>SCORM, or Sharable Content Object Reference Model, was developed by public- and private-sector organizations under the auspices of the Defense Department's Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. The initiative began in 1997 to promote cooperation among government agencies, industry and academia to develop e-learning standardization.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Many IT contracts include training elements. The following procurements specifically request electronic training elements such as computer-based training, distance learning and teleconferencing.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Replacing paper forms with electronic ones doesn't merely mean mocking up a cyberspace replica of the paper version -- not if an agency wants to truly realize the productivity gains of e-records.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>W</FONT><FONT SIZE=2>ith 70 members, the Financial Services Committee is the second largest committee in the House, and public seating in its hearing room is limited.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>The Naval Research Laboratory in Washington is testing a 10-gigabit asynchronous transfer mode port card offered by the networking division of Marconi plc, London. For the demonstration, multiple 1.6 gigabit-per-second streams of high-definition video were run through the port, which interfaced with a Marconi's BXR-48000 switch router. The company sees a market for this capability in agencies looking to upgrade their digital subscriber line, frame relay and ATM networks, as well as in the Defense Department, which could use the solution to transmit large amounts of encrypted information. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>A report released by the General Accounting Office examines various methodologies that agencies use in performance reports and budgets requests to show how they are achieving long-term agency or governmentwide goals. The report, "Program Evaluation: Strategies for Assessing How Information Dissemination Contributes to Agency Goals," recommended that agencies develop models that better detail the logical trail from program activities to desired outcomes, thereby helping "program and evaluation planners to articulate the specific behavior changes and long-term outcomes they expect." (www.gao.gov/new.items/d02923.pdf)</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>The National Science Foundation has awarded $12 million to several research institutions to develop Internet infrastructure technologies that will be more resistant to failure and attack. The work will be split among the University of California at Berkeley, the International Computer Science Institute of Berkeley, Calif., New York University, Rice University of Houston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>AI Metrix Inc. provides network management software for some of the most complex networks in the private sector, including customers such as cable provider Comcast Corp. and telephone company Broadwing Inc.</FONT>
