Patent office will offer online access to millions of documents
PTO will post online the complete text of 2 million patents dating back to 1976, PTO commissioner Bruce Lehman says. The Patent and Trademark Office is putting more than 20 million pages of comprehensive patent and trademark information online. PTO last month began providing free Web access to trademark text data that was previously available on the agency's Cassis CD-ROM products, said Bruce Lehman, PTO commissioner.
Interior chooses a vendor for its royalty program
The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service awarded a $65 million contract last month to American Management Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., for Royalty Management Program support services. Under the contract, AMS will operate and maintain RMP's mainframe systems for the next seven years, said Milton Dial, project manager for the RMP Re-engineering Initiative. RMP runs its applications on a Hitachi Data Systems Corp. EX-90 mainframe, Dial said.
Agriculture: Paychecks will get doled out come 2000
Government employees often wonder if they'll be paid after Dec. 31, 1999, Agriculture CIO Anne Thomson Reed says. The year 2000 problem won't stop the National Finance Center from getting paychecks to hundreds of thousands of government employees, the Agriculture Department's chief information officer said recently.
Transportation funds date code repairs for state systems
The department has created a Web site to help state and local governments prioritize year 2000 repairs. The Transportation Department will let state and local governments use federal highway and transit funds for year 2000 repairs in their intelligent transportation systems, a department spokesman said late last month.
NOAA launches Web site displaying wacky goings on in world's weather
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created a Web site that tracks chaotic weather patterns. "We wanted to give as much useful information in one place to the media and the public," said Tom Peterson, research meteorologist for NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. "The Web site will save our time with less questions to answer. It's cost-effective."
New England air traffic control systems crash
A bad data interface may have frozen the IBM Corp. mainframe the Federal Aviation Administration uses for air traffic control, causing radar screens to go blank at New England airports for more than 37 minutes on Aug. 19, FAA officials said. The systems failure kept airplanes grounded as air traffic controllers passed handwritten notes to each other to keep track of aircraft already in flight.
Feds give 50 surplus computers to kids
The Bureau of Economic Analysis had to untangle some red tape to donate 50 computers to a Washington elementary school. BEA officials, motivated by an April 1996 executive order that urged agencies to donate surplus computers to schools and nonprofit organizations, first had to figure out the Commerce Department's policies on donating used computers.
FAA faces congressional criticism on status of agency's date code fixes
FAA has budgeted enough money to finish date code fixes, Ray Long, the agency's year 2000 project director, says. Federal Aviation Administration officials this month had to defend their year 2000 progress at a hearing of the House Science Subcommittee on Technology. FAA administrator Jane Garvey late last month said that FAA had fixed date code in 67 percent of its mission-critical systems and would have its systems ready by 2000.
State Web site gathers tips on embassy blasts
The State Department is using the Web to gather tips about the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. A special agent with the Diplomatic Security Service said State officials hope the site will encourage anyone with information about the parties responsible for the bombings to contact the department. "Leads are coming in from all over the world," said the agent, who asked not to named. "We're looking into all leads or passing them on to
Web site matches workers with forgotten pensions
The Pension Search Directory on Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s Web site has helped 1,394 people receive more than $4 million in pension benefits, a PBGC official said. "The vast majority of workers receive their full pension, but sometimes people move and forget to inform past employers of their new addresses," said David M. Strauss, PBGC executive director.
VA extends an HR systems hand to other agencies
Agencies can use the program to cut costs. The Veterans Affairs Department and Andersen Consulting of Chicago will be partners in deploying human resources and payroll systems to agencies governmentwide. The partnership is designed to bring users into VA's HR LINKS program, a delivery model for human resources and payroll systems, said Sandy Weisman, associate deputy assistant secretary of VA for financial systems.
Agriculture division monitors investment portfolio via intranet
A new intranet in the Agriculture Department's Rural Development Division lets employees research rural community investments online instead of sifting through boxes of computer printouts or tracking down information on the phone. "Prior to the intranet, questions such as 'What were Rural Development's investments in 1997 for the Mississippi Delta region?' required weeks of data gathering and analysis, and yielded answers with an 80 percent accuracy rate," said Kathleen Jackson, a Rural Development computer specialist. "Now,
Treasury CIO sets sights on EC, online apps
Smart cards and digital signatures will secure Treasury's online business transactions, department CIO James Flyzik says. The Treasury Department wants to eventually conduct the bulk of its business online, its chief information officer said. "From Treasury as a whole, electronic commerce is something we're going to take a serious look at,'' Treasury CIO James Flyzik said last month. Flyzik moderated a roundtable of Treasury CIOs who outlined their information technology plans
NASA gives out high fives for software
Software that will remotely control International Space Station experiments via the Internet and improve air traffic control won NASA's 1998 Software of the Year awards. Tempest is an easy-to-install, fully documented program that lets users run experiments using standard Web browsers, NASA chief information officer Lee B. Holcomb said. A NASA study concluded Web remote-control applications will proliferate in the automotive, consumer electronics, office products and medical industries.
FAA will not meet OMB's final date code deadline
The Federal Aviation Administration beat its own deadline for fixing date code on some mission-critical systems, but FAA expects that it won't make the Clinton administration's deadline for finishing year 2000 work. FAA had set a July 30 deadline for fixing date code work in 60 percent of its mission-critical systems.
Date code effort delays Education loan project
The year 2000 problem is hindering the Education Department's efforts to integrate systems that administer student loans. "The year 2000 problem is diverting my people resources and diluting my financial resources from integrating the delivery system," said Jerry Russomano, director of program systems service at Education. "Fixing the date code problem in our systems is taking an inordinate amount of time."
Labor promotes IT programming job openings on Web
The Labor Department's online job bank now has a section exclusively for information technology and year 2000 positions. "The Clinton administration wants to call attention to the Y2K problem and the need for more IT workers," said Jim Vollman, associate assistant secretary in the Employment and Training Administration. Clinton this month announced the America's Job Bank IT program at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. In his speech, Clinton called for the public and private sectors
FAA will do away with paper in its airline safety inspections
The Federal Aviation Administration is upgrading a system that tracks safety violations among the nation's commercial carriers. The new system, which FAA is testing in Honolulu, will let agency inspectors and officials share aircraft inspection and certification documents over an intranet. FAA's Flight Standards Service has 3,500 inspectors working at 110 field offices. The Operations Specifications Subsystem (OPSS) will let inspectors more easily monitor aircraft safety and certify the skills of flight crews and mechanics, said Dick
DOT uses X.500 to mesh its four messaging systems
The system integrates e-mail and provides communication links to DOT's intranet, the Internet and electronic commerce. The Transportation Department's new e-mail system is letting employees in the department's 14 agencies communicate with one another, DOT officials said. "We had problems with our e-mail system in 1994," said George Ramick, Transportation's messaging and Internet manager, at the recent E-Gov '98 conference in Washington.
FAA names new buying and R&D chiefs
Herman A. Rediess will fill FAA's long-vacant aviation research director slot and help manage aviation systems R&D duties. The Federal Aviation Administration recently hired a new procurement chieftain and a new research czar. The agency last month named Steven B. Zaidman its next associate administrator for research and acquisitions, a job that involves overseeing procurements for FAA's systems modernization.
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