Spotlight Features

Google's wow factor is still at large -- this time in a self-driving car that's tootling about California in a series of test runs. It's easy to get carried away with the dream of a personal (albeit automated) chauffeur and the implied robotic "get out of jail free card." The inebriated and textholi...

Biometric security -- which employs systems that read people's fingerprints or compare their voiceprint or retina scans to information in data banks in order to authenticate them -- is being heavily used in some of the United States' most critical installations. How reliable are biometric systems? W...

Competition in the keenly contested smartphone market is driving massive change in user interfaces. Mice and keyboards are so yesterday; touch, multitouch and gestures form the core of UIs today. Now, we have Google TV with apps on the TV set. The media of television, streaming video and the Interne...

The allure of utilizing the latest advance in information technology -- cloud computing -- is that cloud applications will greatly increase efficiency and reduce IT costs. The U.S. government, which spends upwards of $80 billion per year on information technology, clearly presents a big opportunity...

The U.S. government is searching for ways to reduce the fog of bureaucracy to improve communication with citizens, and has turned to the cloud as a key strategy to achieve that goal. In addition to improving services to taxpayers, use of the cloud could save cash-strapped federal agencies millions o...

Being tethered to a computer all day is bad for employees' health and for employers' profits, considering healthcare insurance premiums climb and productivity declines with every worker malady. The latest scientific evidence finds that productivity is reduced even when it appears to be unimpeded. Wo...

The very nature of humanity has been changed by the nature of modern work. Where once workers were lean, muscled and tan, now they are pudgy, stooped and wrist-warped. The problem comes from restricted movement over long stretches in the day. Computers have chained employees to one spot, effectively...

Government information technology procurement has been largely conducted on an independent basis, with each federal agency determining its own needs and acquiring the infrastructure -- both hardware and software -- to meet those needs. However, the procurement landscape may change significantly with...

21st Century Western civilization bears the brunt of the greatest health threat since the black plague. Although not quite as dramatic -- there are no bodies in the street or mass graves of the afflicted, for example -- the death count is high and climbing, and the toll on company costs (from health...

While the cloud appears to be the ultimate jailbreaker, it is prudent to remember that a freed device is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the phone becomes a truer handheld computer, fully enabled to exceed native carrier and device restrictions. On the other hand, the phone becomes a miniature co...