Italy pushes ahead with national ID cards: The California company Drexler Technology Corporation said it has received another order from Italy worth USD3.3 million for its optical memory cards. The cards will be used for Italy's CIE initiative (Carta d'Identita Elettronica), the government's national identity card scheme. This year some 56 Italian regions and two million people are set to receive the CIE card, which includes a one-megabyte optical memory strip and an on-board chip with a data vault containing the holder's demographic information, photograph, signature and other information. While the phased rollout of the identity cards continues, Italy has approved the introduction of National Service Cards, or CNS (Carte Nazionale dei Servizi), which don't hold the user's photograph or act as official identity cards, but which do contain basic information like name, address and birthdate. The CNS cards, which are simpler and cheaper to produce than the CIE cards, are meant to let Italian citizens access e-government services and can be issued by any public administration.
Microsoft and BearingPoint team up to aim at governments: A new multi-year agreement will see the software powerhouse Microsoft team up with consulting company BearingPoint to sell software and services to governments worldwide. BearingPoint, formerly known as KPMG Consulting, has already cooperated with Microsoft on a number of major e-government implementations, including a retirement benefits system for the state of Florida and for teachers in Georgia. The companies have also cooperated on an e-filing system for courts, aimed at making it faster and easier for courts and attorneys to file and access court documents. The two firms said their emphasis would be on building "repeatable enterprise solutions" for various aspects of e-government, and will cooperate in areas including technical training, solutions co-development and pre-sales support. The term of the partnership was not disclosed.
Dubai sees rise in citizen use of e-government contact centre: The government of Dubai says that AskDubai, its initiative to offer a single, toll-free telephone point of contact for citizen information, is a success, with more than 60,000 calls and 1,200 e-mails handled since it launched in June 2003. Speaking at a seminar on regional call centre trends in Dubai, Mahmood Al Bastaki, Business Process Re-engineering Consultant, Dubai eGovernment, said that four government departments have outsourced their customer care to AskDubai since its launch. The call centre also provides interactive on-line chatting with customer care representatives, accessible via the e-government portal Dubai.ae. Information on the portal itself has been organised into areas like "having a baby" and "finding a house" -- an approach that Al Bastaki said gives citizens access to what they need, masking the complexity of the bureaucratic process.
UK "MadforArts" arts portal aims at people with mental health problems: In a move that is sure to get people talking, the UK's Department of Culture, Media and Sport has chosen "MadforArts.org" as the title for its new portal geared at people coping with mental health problems. The Web site, part of the Culture Online initiative, will let participants give their views on the arts, and 12 people will be chosen to make short films about their experience of art. Announcing the project, Minister Estelle Morris said that mental health problem sufferers are among the most marginalised in the country, and that the portal would give them the chance to engage in public debate. The unfortunate naming of the new portal has already been blasted in the media as inappropriate and insensitive, although the department is clearly hoping that the initiative will help mental health sufferers reclaim the word "mad" for their own. The portal goes live on 10 October to coincide with World Mental Health Day.
US Army upgrades on-line knowledge portal: The US Army has upgraded the heavily trafficked Army Knowledge Online Web site to the latest version of Appian Corporation's portal software. Appian said that version three of its software will let the Army deliver more targeted content and information to users, based on their profiles and preferences. The Army Knowledge Online site, which has more than 1.6 million active users who sign on to access about 300 different applications, is currently maintained by more than two dozen different IT vendors. The US Army has said that it will award a single contract for the maintenance of the portal by the end of the summer. The Army's Office of the CIO also said last week that it has established a new disaster recovery facility for Army Knowledge Online, which currently has its key hub at a site in Florida. In the event of an outage or attack, a backup site at an undisclosed location will go live to ensure that Army personnel can continue to access key systems.
Quelle: Electric News Net, 19.05.2004
