Government culture and compensation can make the private sector more appealing for young technologists, contributing to a talent shortfall at a time when the feds need IT expertise more than ever -- as the Healthcare.gov fiasco painfully illustrated.
Technology chiefs in the federal government say they struggle with their role within their departments and agencies. A bill passed in the House and pending in the Senate could give federal CIOs more authority, though.
Politics collided with the world of technology this year as stories about U.S. government spying stirred angst both among the country's citizens and foreign governments, and the flawed HeathCare.gov site got American health-care reform off to a rocky start. Meanwhile, the post-PC era put aging tech giants under pressure to reinvent themselves. Here in no particular order are IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 tech stories of the year.
More than a month after it went live, a couple of large questions remain about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' botched launch of HealthCare.gov.
By layering data from 311 and 911 calls over Census data, unemployment data and other poverty indicators, Buffalo uses data analytics to identify its most challenged neighborhoods and more effectively deploy resources for everything from neighborhood beautification to combatting crime and reducing fire hazards.
Sure, plenty of enterprise software projects go just fine and end up giving customers all the things vendors promise: lower operating costs, streamlined operations and happier users.
Students at a U.S. military graduate school in California are mining social media with new methods that may change the way the armed forces collect intelligence overseas.