Government IT News For VARs — October 29, 2014

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Ebola is still topping the news this week: a new online community hopes to develop new innovations to aid in the fight against the disease. Also, federal cloud spending is set to rise, China has launched a MITM attack on the iCloud, and USAID has launched a new Open Data Policy.

Challenge Brings Together Researchers Online Community To Tackle Ebola Epidemic

This article from Fed Tech Magazine examines a new initiative that has been created that launched an online community in order to find solutions — including the use of technology — to the raging global Ebola epidemic. The central question posed to the online colloquium was “How might we rapidly equip and empower the care community to fight Ebola?” United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has joined forces with OpenIDEO and several other federal agencies to create a forum to foster research and innovations that could help develop new tools for combating the deadly virus.

Federal Spending On Cloud Services Set To Skyrocket

The e-Commerce Times reported that federal cloud spending is set to increase from a little more than $3 billion in 2014 to almost $10 billion by 2018, according to IDC Government Insights’ September government cloud investment forecast. While the migration to the cloud will remain a formidable task for most government agencies, at least the pace of federal spending to facilitate that migration should be improving. The IDC predicts that over half of that spending will be dedicated to private cloud storage, followed by public cloud, with a much smaller amount being dedicated to community cloud or hybrid cloud services.

USAID Releases New Framework For Open Data

According to Fed Tech Magazine, the USAID has established the first open data policy that sets guidelines for making data accessible to the public. The new policy governs how agency data is collected, stored, and shared with the general public. See Automated Directives System 579,

Government IT Talking Points

This article from the e-Commerce Times reports that the White House has planned a November 7 workshop to explore how robotics can best be employed in the battle to contain Ebola. The workshop will be cohosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Texas A&M University’s Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), and will include representatives of medical fields, DARPA, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and the University of California at Berkeley. The seminar will explore the use of robots for transportation of bodies and disposal of hazardous materials; detection of contamination; disinfection; consultation via telemedicine; interpretation services; and provision of physical security.

For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Government IT Resource Center.