Google, Cloud Computing, and the US Intelligence Community – April 29, 2008

Ambient Awareness. The cloud killer app?

By G C Network | September 10, 2008

Ambient Awareness: the ability to acquire, process, and act upon application specific contextual information, taking the current user preferences and state of mind into account. In the September 5th New…

The Cloud Wins in Minneapolis at the RNC!

By G C Network | September 9, 2008

Little did I know that while I was watching the Republicans cheer their standard bearer inside the Xcel Energy Center that the cloud infrastructure was outside defeating the forces of…

Cloud Computing vs. Virtualization

By G C Network | September 8, 2008

Yesterday, Reuven Cohen in ElasticVapor, provided an excellent post on the title subject. I’d like to “second his emotion” and, for my audience, add that cloud computing technologies and techniques…

Government Technology Cloud Recommendations

By G C Network | September 5, 2008

Recommendation on the cloud from Government Technology: No. 1: Educate your team about cloud computing. Don’t just ignore this topic as hype – the future is in this direction. Go…

Cloud Computing: A pay-by-consumption scalable service

By G C Network | September 4, 2008

John Edwards (not the Senator) of Computerworld sees cloud computing as a “…pay-by-consumption scalable service that’s usually free of long-term contracts and is typically application- and operating system-independent”. His recent…

Cloud Computing Dictionary

By G C Network | September 4, 2008

Geva Perry will be presenting at the October 8th SOA-R event. Before attending, you may want to visit his cloud computing dictionary to catch up on the current cloud computing…

Google Launches Chrome: Desktop-centric to Network-centric

By G C Network | September 3, 2008

According to Nicholas Carr, “Chrome is the first cloud browser”. If you’re not familiar with Chrome, this application is Google’s entry into the browser wars. In his blog, Mr. Carr…

Boeing Gives Up On Interoperable Modelling and SimulationNnetworks

By G C Network | September 3, 2008

Last week a Flightglobal article reported on the softening of Boeing’s stance on the need to establish standards for networking protocols across the US and global defence industry. Citing the…

Cisco: A Cloud Computing Company?

By G C Network | September 2, 2008

Yes Cisco ! Red Herring’s report on Cisco’s acquisition of PostPath last week presents a strong case for this. If finalized, PostPath would become Cisco’s fifteenth acquisition in less than…

Cloud Computing at top of Hype Cycle

By G C Network | August 29, 2008

Computerworld reports that Gartner see cloud computing as being at the top of the hype cycle. They have also settled on a definition: “a style of computing where massively scalable…

Just arrived in Los Angeles for the IBM Business Partner Leadership Conference. IBM is billing this as a “new” conference, but I have my doubts. I am, however, very interested in hearing many of the speakers, particularly Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google. His presentation on “The Future of the Web, Cloud Computing and Innovation” should be quite interesting.

Since my focus is on technology in the public sector, the impact of Web 2.0 technologies is really turning my head. According to Maryann Lawlor of Signal Magazine, even government agencies are recognizing the effect of Web 2.0. According to her, “The Web 2.0 revolution is impelling cultural change faster and to a greater degree than ever experienced in recorded history, and democracies that answer to their populaces already are feeling the effects of that change—and ignore those effects at their own risk.”

William Vajda, chief information officer (CIO), U.S. Department of Education, and co-chairman of the best practices committee, CIO Council is also watching these technologies closely. He describes Google as an internet intermediaries— an entities that is willing to step in and give the people what they want because they have access to the questions that people actually ask. This position makes then better positioned to know what is on the public’s mind than some government officials.

The U.S. intelligence community is also getting into the act. For example the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has made these technologies part of its information-sharing acceleration campaign. They have even developed a Wikipedia knock-off called Intellipedia for intelligence community.

For more on Web 2.0 in the US Government see Signal Magazine’s online article, Governing in a Web 2.0 World .

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G C Network