GovConJudicata Weekly Debrief (5/3–7)

This week's Weekly Debrief covers the Army's AR headsets, Army satellite communications, CISA's understanding of SolarWinds, contractor minimum wage increase, NFTs for CPARS, and TMF for cyber and COVID-19 recovery.

Defense

NextGov – Army to Equip First Unit With Augmented Reality Headsets By Fall

• "The Army will begin equipping units with augmented reality headsets by the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, according to Congressional testimony by two of the service’s top officials."

C4ISRNET – How commercial satellite constellations fit into the Army’s future tactical network designs

• "The U.S. Army will begin implementing advanced satellite communications technology to increase network resiliency as part of its next iteration of tactical network tools. Adding low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit capabilities commercial satellite constellations into the service’s tactical network repertoire is part of the service’s effort to shift to dispersed battlefields, instead of the fixed fiber communications and forward operating bases that defined the last two decades of war in the Middle East."

CISA

FedScoop – CISA has a better understanding of critical software post-SolarWinds hack

• "Following the SolarWinds hack, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency believes it has developed a better understanding of critical software across government. CISA’s National Risk Management Center has spent the four months since the hack was discovered determining the risks such software poses to national critical functions and developing tools to mitigate the threat, said Assistant Director Bob Kolasky.

Contracting

GovExec – What the Executive Order Requiring Federal Contractors to Pay a $15 Minimum Wage Will Mean

• "It will take some time for the full scale and scope of President Biden’s recent executive order directing federal contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage for their workers starting next year to be seen."

NextGov – Forget art. What if agencies used non-fungible tokens for reporting contractor performance?

• "The recent $69 million auction of a digital file by artist Beeple raised a lot of eyebrows. It also introduced a new term into the popular lexicon: non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. As NFTs disrupt the staid art market, it’s worth considering implications for other sectors."

TMF

BGov – This Is IT: Biden to Tap Tech Fund for Cyber, Covid-19 Recovery

• "The Biden administration’s top technology officials announced plans to use the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) to strengthen the federal government’s cyber defenses and respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. The move could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending on IT modernization, much of which would create new opportunities by federal contractors."

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