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• Offshore outsourcing fails as election issue

  WASHINGTON - Democratic candidates clubbed their Republican opponents in two of this year's election campaigns about their offshore outsourcing records, but to no apparent help.

• Sapphire supplier settles dispute with Apple rather than face $1B in claims from Cupertino

  Apple's ex-sapphire supplier caved to its former partner because "protracted litigation against one of the largest corporations in the world with over $100 billion of cash would be challenging and expensive," court documents revealed.

• CIOs Tasked With Federal IT Overhaul Battle Culture and Bureaucracy

  WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies large and small are in the midst of a wave of ambitious IT projects, but their relative success hinges in large part on the ability of the CIO to align the technology overhaul with the organization's mission and to secure the support of senior management.

• Open Internet Central to U.S. Trade Policy

  WASHINGTON -- U.S. cloud providers have ambitious designs on foreign markets, but overseas expansion has been slowed by a number of obstacles, ranging from privacy worries over government surveillance activities to policies that impede cross-border data flows.

• Health IT Backers Press Congress for Clearer Roadmaps

  Dozens of health IT advocates from around the country made the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, meeting with lawmakers and staffers to press for an array of policies to advance e-health initiatives.

• CIO of Defense Department Agency Cautions Against Rush to Cloud

  WASHINGTON -- For all the enthusiasm surrounding the government's move to the cloud -- and there's no shortage -- one prominent federal CIO is emphatic that cloud computing, for all its virtues, is no panacea for the government's technology challenges.

• Chief data officer may go the way of chief electricity officer

  The U.S. Commerce Department plans to hire a chief data officer , whose job will be to make more of the department's data publicly available. Whoever takes the job will be part of an exclusive club.

• Brocade Pitches Open Networking to Cash-Strapped Feds

  WASHINGTON -- If storage and compute power can be purchased on a usage-based pricing model, like a utility, then why can't networking follow the same path? Moreover, why shouldn't that network run on an open architecture that fosters competition among multiple service providers?

• White House's new IT engineer is sharp, witty, and blunt

  If the White House learned one thing from the Healthcare.gov debacle, it was that the website needs clear-thinking people who can see a problem for what it is. Mikey Dickerson may just be that person.

• The Internet of Things brings far-reaching security threats

  Security pros routinely cite poor cyber hygiene as one of their top concerns. But if they're lying awake at night worried about lazy passwords and software updates going ignored, just think of the headaches that will come once thermostats, pacemakers and just about everything else comes online.

• U.S. senator blasts Microsoft's H-1B push as it lays 18,000 off workers

  U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions Thursday delivered a scalding and sarcastic attack on the use of highly skilled foreign workers by U.S. corporations that was heavily aimed at Microsoft, a chief supporter of the practice.

• Microsoft Urges Partners to Court Public-Sector Customers

  WASHINGTON -- As thousands of its global partners descend on the nation's capital, Microsoft is urging its systems integrators, OEMs and other members of its sprawling ecosystem to consider business opportunities with public-sector organizations.

• Roads in the future will need data standards as well as signs, says DOT's CIO

  Engineers, auto makers and U.S. transportation officials who gathered at the White House's SmartAmerica conference this week showed various systems and technologies that may be used to make driving safer and more efficient.

• Meet Diesel, a cute dog and organic robot

  Diesel, a Labrador Retriever, appears to live in a perpetual state of glee and is unbothered by the electronics-packed vest he is wearing.

• Cantor, a reliable 'yes' vote for raising the H-1B visa cap, is unseated

  Rep. Eric Cantor, the House majority leader who lost a primary bid Tuesday for re-election, was a reliable "yes" vote for increasing the H-1B visa cap. The man who beat him, David Brat, won't be.