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CIO Carlos Ramos clarifies the California Department of Technology's stance on cloud-based projects and sheds light on the department's plans to reduce project risk, among other things.
The message from California CIO Carlos Ramos was clear: When state agencies need enterprise technology, they need to first look inward at what services are available in CalCloud, the state's cloud services platform managed by IBM and located within California's state data center.
Ramos' remarks were an attempt to clarify a September announcement requiring state departments to look to the cloud “when feasible.” The CIO's comments were part of a broader keynote address at the State of Technology California Industry Forum on Dec. 10, at the Sheraton Grand Hotel. continued…
Four companies were given the OK to bypass the federal bar of using drones for commercial purposes—for construction site monitoring and oil rig flare stack inspections, regulators said Wednesday.
"Unmanned aircraft offer a tremendous opportunity to spur innovation and economic activity by enabling many businesses to develop better products and services for their customers and the American public," said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “We want to foster commercial uses of this exciting technology while taking a responsible approach to the safety of America’s airspace."
The Federal Aviation Administration has maintained since at least 2007 that the commercial operation of drones is illegal. Earlier this year, it began slowly granting exceptions on an application-by-application basis.
A federal judge ruled in March that the FAA enacted the regulations illegally because it did not take public input before adopting the rules, which is a violation of federal law. Flight regulators appealed the decision, which was reversed last month. continued…
Google is set to shut down its Russia-based engineering team, pulling its team of more than 50 engineers, who will be able to transfer to Google offices elsewhere.
"We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers, and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them," Aaron Stein, a Google spokesman wrote to Ars in an e-mailed statement.
Stein confirmed the move, which was first reported by The Information.
On Thursday, Google pulled the plug on Google News in Spain rather than pay Spanish publishers a licensing fee.
The move comes a few months after Russia passed a new law, taking effect in September 2016, that will require data held on Russian citizens to be kept in-country. The Kremlin and the Russian data protection authority known by its local acronym Roskomnadzor have used the law as a way to exert more pressure on Russian companies and foreign companies doing business in Russia, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others. Many Russia observers note that this law is likely to drive tech companies out of the country. continued…
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The power shortages, brown-outs, and rolling blackouts that have long plagued Los Angeles county during times of peak energy usage may soon be a thing of the past now that the region's energy utility has signed on with battery-maker AES Southland to install a massive, 400MW auxiliary power solution.
Currently, when peak energy demand outstrips production in Los Angeles, Southern California Edison has to turn on a series of "gas peaker" plants. These facilities largely consist of outdated gas turbines that take longer to spool up and run less efficiently than the more modern turbines they're meant to augment. That's partly why utility customers have to pay through the nose to use their appliances during peak hours. But the AES battery system—which will be installed at the Alamitos Power Center—takes the opposite approach. continued…
State regulators have turned out the lights on a rebate program that benefits solar-energy consumers.
The Florida Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to end those rebates after 2015.
Regulators say the program remains costly and that consumers have continued to install solar-energy systems even without claiming rebates.
But renewable-energy-system installers say the move could mean trouble for the industry in Florida and that the rebate program suffered from poor execution. continued…
A study by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims up to 100 million Americans could lose electrical power in the event of a magnetic space storm, which would knock out the electric grid and cause other infrastructure to fail.
An internal fact sheet in 2012, from the just-released DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), noted that the damage and impact from a future solar storm isn’t known.
Space weather means conditions on the sun, in space, the upper atmosphere or in the earth’s magnetic field that can impact technological systems on the ground and endanger human life on earth. continued…