Techno-politics

For the Army to function, it needs to keep track of where its soldiers are deployed. So in 2004, it hired a software company to help locate its units down to their exact positions, even if they were in a moving transport vehicle. The Army allegedly liked the solution so much that it wound up Continue Reading →

The U.S. Supreme Court stayed out of the multibillion-dollar fight over Internet sales taxes, leaving intact a New York law that forces Amazon to collect money from customers in that state. The justices, without comment on Monday, rejected appeals by Amazon and another Internet retailer, Overstock.com, which said New York is violating the Constitution by Continue Reading →

Healthcare.gov, the error-riddled website where uninsured Americans are supposed to shop for health insurance, now works for “in the zone of 80 percent” of users, a White House official said today. That’s up from just 30 percent of users who were able to navigate through the entire site five weeks ago. Officials say the site Continue Reading →

The Department of Health and Human Services has tapped Hewlett-Packard to replace Verizon Communications’ Terremark subsidiary as the Web-hosting provider for HealthCare.gov, the federal health insurance marketplace that has had a troubled rollout since launching in October. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services division confirmed the move Wednesday but noted that Continue Reading →

Entertainment executives meeting privately with President Barack Obama Tuesday asked him to ensure copyright protections are enshrined in new trade agreements and help facilitate better relations between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Obama spoke with a who’s-who of major studio and network leaders, including Walt Disney Co. CEO Continue Reading →

New Jersey will launch a five-day “soft” trial of 13 online gambling sites Thursday, ahead of the official November 26 debut of Internet gaming in the most populous state to date. New Jersey follows Nevada and Delaware in permitting online poker, and will also allow residents to play other casino games online, as well. Lisa Continue Reading →

Activist hackers linked to the collective known as Anonymous have secretly accessed US government computers and stolen sensitive information in a campaign that began almost a year ago, the FBI warned this week. The hackers exploited a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc’s software to launch a rash of electronic break-ins that began last December, the Continue Reading →

On Friday, President Obama had this to say about problems with the Obamcare website during a speech in New Orleans: “I promise you, nobody’s been more frustrated. I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don’t write code.” But plenty of programmers do write code. And three of them have created their Continue Reading →

As bugs and glitches continue to plague Healthcare.gov, the man who oversaw the site’s creation has said he’s resigning. Tony Trenkle, chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), sent an e-mail to co-workers on Tuesday that said he will be leaving on November 15 “to take a position in the private Continue Reading →

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions Continue Reading →