A group dedicated to making Congress more accessible to the public has launched a Web 2.0-style petition to encourage lawmakers to use Web 2.0 technology.
The Sunlight Foundation has organized a petition based on Twitter, a Web site and service that enables users to post and distribute 140-character messages via mobile phones, instant messaging and other applications and devices.
The group hopes to persuade the congressional Franking Commission not to pass any rules that would restrict lawmakers’ use of technology to communicate with their constituents.
Google might not have the final word in search engines, at least not with venture capitalists.
According to a recent report in the San Jose Mercury News, dozens of companies are offering services that focus on specific sectors or topic areas — what is known as a vertical search.
One company, Retrevo, helps users find the best prices on electronics. Several firms, including Kayak and UpTake, drill deep for rates, reviews and other information for people planning vacations.
The article notes that a recent survey identified more than 173 million Web sites, “roughly double the number of two years earlier.”
When it comes to determining the success or failure of a shared-services initiative, conventional wisdom turns out to be wrong.
Researchers at the IBM Center for the Business of Government recently surveyed federal, state and local agencies to learn what factors were critical to the outcome of sharing information technology services across agencies.
Most survey participants believed that the greatest challenge was people oriented — meaning overcoming resistance to change. But IBM’s research suggests that the most critical element was more basic: good old-fashioned project management discipline.
The computer mouse, a fixture on most office desktops for more than two decades, might soon be unnecessary, according to a recent article on Forbes.com.
A number of companies are working on “touchless” technology, which enables people to control their computers using hand gestures.
One such entrepreneur is John Underkoffler, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. Underkoffler was an adviser to the makers of the movie “Minority Report,” which features Tom Cruise using hand motions to edit digital videos.
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