Roy Mark

NASA officials scratched the scheduled March 11 launch of the space shuttle Discovery after detecting a leaky gaseous hydrogen (GH2) vent line. Scheduled for a 9:20 p.m. EDT blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA scrubbed the launch at 2:37 p.m.The vent line is at the intertank region of the external tank and […]

Verizon Business will provide network and data services at U.S. Department of Defense installations around the world under a new contract awarded by Defense Information Systems Agency. The March 11 announcement said the 10-year contract is valued at $2.5 billion. Verizon Business previously had provided the network services under the preceding DISA contract. Under the […]

In a packed U.S. Department of Commerce meeting room, three federal agencies March 10 shed the first light on how the government plans to proceed with dispensing $7.2 billion for the building of broadband networks to unserved and underserved parts of the country. The money is part of the economic stimulus act recently approved by […]

Congress resumed its long-running patent reform debate March 10 with the usual intractable foes lining up for and against the primary sticking point in legislation introduced March 3: damages. High-tech companies want the damages formula in patent infringement lawsuits gutted; traditional manufacturing and pharmaceutical firms like it just the way it is.Bills introduced in both […]

With the markers already down in the 4G battle between Clearwire and Sprint Nextel’s WiMax and Verizon Wireless’ LTE, Clearwire March 9 named former Vodafone and Pacific Gas & Electric executive William T. Morrow as CEO. Morrow replaces current CEO Benjamin G. Wolff, who will become co-chairman of Clearwire, sharing the duties with current chairman […]

Complaining that the National Security Agency exerts too much influence on national cyber-security policy, Rod Beckstrom, head of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, resigned March 6. Beckstrom, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, follows a line of national cyber-security chiefs with short tenures.Beckstrom, who is best known for founding Twiki.net and for his book on the […]

The reviews are in for the BlackBerry Storm on Capitol Hill, and it turns out change is not what lawmakers’ staffs want when it comes to smartphones. As it turns out, Hill staffers prefer keyboards to touch-screens.After Research In Motion introduced the BlackBerry Storm as a potentially serious iPhone challenger, a number of staffers took […]

Even as the financial losses pile up, its stock price drops and the credit market is tight to nonexistent, Clearwire said March 5 it still plans to roll out 4G WiMax networks in eight cities in 2009 and add at least another four markets in 2010.Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are the only two U.S. carriers […]

With the disastrous failure of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory just two weeks behind it, NASA plans to tee up twice in one week with the March 6 launch of the Kepler spacecraft followed by the March 11 Discovery space shuttle mission to the International Space Station. The OCO on Feb. 24 failed to separate from […]

President Obama March 5 named Vivek Kundra, CTO for the District of Columbia, as his administration’s CIO. As CIO, Kundra will direct the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments and be responsible for oversight of federal technology spending.“Vivek Kundra will bring a depth of experience in the technology arena and a commitment […]