Call it “Halo: Kandahar.” The Army is looking for ideas from the private sector on how to build a “virtual world” for training soldiers. But the requirements the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command outlined in its June 2 request for information don’t sound that different from many popular Playstation or Xbox video games. The Army wants the game to contain highly complex, interactive environments that precisely recreate real-world terrain “on a 1:1 scale,” changing weather conditions, basic physics and collision detection, and realistic vehicles and weapons. And the virtual world should be able to handle 10,000 players and in-game…
Browsing: Agencies
The 31-story Peachtree Summit Federal Building in downtown Atlanta was evacuated yesterday after mailroom workers flagged a suspicious package that turned out to be a decorative egg. Federal Protection Service authorities ordered the evacuation just before noon Tuesday after a routine X-ray spotted what appeared at first to be a grenade inside the package. The suspicious item later turned out to be a Fabergé-like egg. About 1,900 federal employees from the IRS, Social Security Administration and other agencies work at the building, which also contains a daycare center. Employees were allowed to return to the building about an hour and…
The General Services Administration has tapped an industry expert to serve in the newly created career position of chief greening officer. Eleni Reed, director of sustainability strategies at property management firm Cushman and Wakefield, will oversee green building programs and strategies across GSA’s inventory of 9,600 owned and leased facilities, the agency announced Tuesday. While at Cushman and Wakefield, Reed led the effort to enhance the environmental performance of the firm’s portfolio of U.S.-managed properties. She played a key role in develping a memorandum of understanding between the firm and the Environmental Protection Agency aimed at enhancing energy efficiency, cutting water use…
So let’s say you’re sitting around on a Saturday afternoon, thinking, “Well shucks, I’d sure like to finally get around to solving America’s national debt problem today, but I’m really starting to get a little soft in the middle … maybe I should go outside and get some exercise instead.” We’ve all been there, right? Well, worry no more: Budgetball is here! Budgetball is, no lie, “an active sport of quick passes, tough defense, and bold comebacks designed to increase awareness of the national debt and reward strategic thinking and collaborative problem-solving around the issues of fiscal responsibility.”
You may have seen the music video for OK Go’s song “This Too Shall Pass.” But what you probably don’t know is that the amazing, extended Rube Goldberg device that is its centerpiece was partly designed by a few engineers and staffers at NASA’ Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL engineers Mike Pauken and Heather Knight, planetary scientist Eldar Noe Dobrea, and intern Chris Becker joined forces with Syyn Labs, a group of engineers who “twist together art and technology” and were tapped to build OK Go’s machine. The results — featuring dominos, a falling piano, a Mars rover, and a TV showing the band’s…
Wired magazine reported today that a new bill from Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, currently in draft form, would give the government broad powers to take over responsibility for civilian networks in case of an “imminent cyber threat.” It’s commendable that legislators are thinking about private networks while making contingency plans for a massive cyber attack. Protecting government IT systems isn’t enough — the vast majority of the country’s infrastructure in this area lies in private hands. From the Wired report: “These emergency measures are supposed to remain in place for no more than 30 days. But they can be…
Avatar director James Cameron was summoned to Washington yesterday to advise the Environmental Protection Agency on innovative ways to cap the massive, ever-worsening BP oil spill, according to the AFP. AFP said Cameron attended the meeting with a Canadian submersible researcher, who built the submarines used on his 1989 movie The Abyss. But it doesn’t say exactly what real experience Cameron has with oil rigs, environmental cleanup, or anything else that qualifies him to figure out the many complicated technical issues that have stumped an entire industry. But hey, he did direct Titanic, which has something to do with water. Plus…
Conservative activist James O’Keefe, who became notorious last year after dressing up as a 70’s-style pimp and releasing videos he claimed showed the community organizing group ACORN was aiding and abetting prostitution, has set his sights on the U.S. Census Bureau. O’Keefe posted a hidden camera video today on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government blog purporting to show a Census Bureau supervisor instructing temporary workers to fudge their time sheets. O’Keefe, who worked for two days receiving training to be a temporary Census taker, then apparently told a few superiors that he was being paid for four hours of work he didn’t do, but his…
The Chicago regional director of the Federal Labor Relations Authority today denied the American Federation of Government Employees’ bid for an election to determine which union will represent Transportation Security Administration employees. The regional FLRA upheld its previous determination that because TSA screeners do not have collective bargaining rights, it has no jurisdiction to process the petition for an election. AFGE said it will appeal to the full FLRA within 60 days. AFGE and the National Treasury Employees Union are each seeking to represent roughly 40,000 TSA screeners. NTEU has filed a similar petition with FLRA.
Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, but take some time in between cookouts to remember our nation’s veterans, both of past wars and of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for those of you in the Washington area, there’s no shortage of great events this weekend: The Rolling Thunder motorcycle run technically begins this Sunday at noon at the Pentagon’s north parking lot. But there also will be motorcycles streaming up 395 to get to the staging area for hours beforehand, and I’ve had fun watching them from the Arlington bridges that span the highway. Veterans from all over…