July 31 2023

The Office of Naval Research-Global is hunting for new capabilities that could bolster the Pacific Fleet, and the sea service just released a sources-sought notice for its Pacific SCOUT initiative. The Navy is looking to move fast with the effort, and it isn’t keen on systems that will require long development timelines. It wants to examine capabilities currently at technology readiness level 6 or greater that could be fielded in the next one to three years, according to an RFI. Read more | SAM link

A top Pentagon official has attacked last week’s congressional hearing on UFOs, calling the claims “insulting” to employees who are investigating sightings and accusing a key witness of not cooperating with the official U.S. government investigation. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick’s letter, published on his personal LinkedIn page, criticizes much of the testimony from a retired Air Force intelligence officer that energized believers in extraterrestrial life and produced headlines around the world. Aliens aren’t funny! Read more

A new waiver allows the defense secretary to bypass the “Buy America” requirements in a variety of situations, such as “to expand sourcing” to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The defense secretary can waive the requirement if the cost of the overall acquisition might be increased by “more than 25 percent,” the schedule would suffer “unreasonable delays” or if the measures needed to be in compliance are “inconsistent with the public interest.” That’s a big loophole. Read more

Microsoft’s recently launched Azure OpenAI service received Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program high authorization, giving federal agencies and those who manage some of the government’s most sensitive data access to powerful language models, including ChatGPT. Read more

The White House launched a new program to fund the development of technologies that will help doctors remove cancerous tumors as part of its “cancer moonshot” efforts to fight against the disease. The Precision Surgical Interventions program will be funded through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which was established last year to fund breakthroughs in the biomedical and health spaces. Read more

A data breach that hit federal contractor Maximus earlier this year may have exposed the personal information of as many as 612,000 Medicare recipients, according to the CMS. The HHS agency said in a statement it is working with the company to notify by letter any individuals who may have been affected by the breach, because, yeah, a letter about cyber breaches going out to the elderly, who are all technologically sophisticated, is definitely going to help. Heck, CMS, why not email all those affected? Read more

Simchah Suveyke-Bogin has a big job. She’s been the Agriculture Department’s chief customer experience officer since 2020, leading the department’s office that is formally in charge of supporting a policy of “hardwiring, scaling and sustaining CX capabilities at USDA now and in the future,” per the 2022 permanent authorization of the office. Read more

On its first day as owner of Aerojet Rocketdyne, L3Harris Technologies pledged to make investments in what is now the company’s fourth business segment and to keep selling rocket motors to other firms. “We'll continue to invest internally over the next few years, as some of the key businesses and programs ramp up,” Ross Niebergall, who was named Aerojet Rocektdyne’s president on Friday upon closure of the $4.7 billion acquisition, said in an interview. Read more

Boeing’s numerous fixed-price contracts with the Pentagon continue to drag on its defense sector, which recorded a loss of $527 million in the second quarter of 2023, the company disclosed in its earnings call. Read more

ChatGPT has exploded in popularity, and people are using it to write articles and essays, generate marketing copy and computer code, or simply as a learning or research tool. However, most people don’t understand how it works or what it can do, so they are either not happy with its results or not using it in a way that can draw out its best capabilities. (Note: It’s not a search engine.) Read more

As geopolitical tensions rise and the federal government places a greater emphasis on shoring up national critical infrastructure and modernizing cyber defenses, having a fully staffed cyber workforce that is up to the task is paramount. But despite the various hearings, reports, and strategies we’ve seen over the years aimed at addressing the federal cyber workforce shortcomings, the talent gap persists. Read more

To see what an economic soft landing looks like, search no further than business hiring. Parts of the economy are cooling, just as the Federal Reserve would like to see to combat inflation. Freight railroads, for instance, are seeing shipping volumes decline. Construction firms are cutting back on equipment purchases. A vending-machine company’s customers are negotiating prices downward. Read more

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