Government & Public Sector

The Wi-Fi network Google Inc. built for Mountain View, Calif. becomes generally available on Wednesday, providing free broadband wireless access in this municipality that the search engine giant calls home.

Earlier this month, the national Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association announced an initiative to compile claims information from 79 million patients into a database that can be shared with 20 participating Blue Cross plans.

A new technology that hoped to stop unnecessary repeat visits to the emergency room (ER) has proved successful in its first few months.

The inspector general's office at the U.S. Department of Transportation disclosed that a laptop PC containing the names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 133,000 Florida residents was stolen from a car in Doral, Fla., on July 27.

A computer consultant who billed Philadelphia's government more than US$1.4 million (C$1.6) for her work on the Project Ocean water billing system has come under scrutiny from the city's controller.

Some commentators framed this as a security vs. privacy issue. To my mind, there's a problem with such formulations. They assume something that's never been proven: that strengthening public security involves sacrificing individual privacy, writes IT World Canada's online editor Joaquim P. Menezes.

Intel asked the Delaware district court for permission to serve a subpoena on graphics chipset manufacturer ATI. Intel is seeking documents that will shed light on how AMD's planned acquisition of ATI will affect its ability to compete in the microprocessor market.

Help is on the way -- via electronics -- for patient's who want to manage their chronic diseases all by themselves. The afflicted, as well as pharmacists, in Sault Ste Marie should soon be able to access relevant medical information through Group Health Centre's (GHC) electronic medical record (EMR).