The Air Force Research Laboratory, in collaboration with the Nano Bio-Materials Consortium and Case Western Reserve University, has developed wearable sensor technology designed to track warfighters’ health status. 

Air Force Materiel Command said Wednesday research efforts from the Biomolecular Structure and Integration for Sensors program resulted in the founding of private company Sensate Biosystems, which will develop the technology for applications in the commercial market.

Lawrence Drummy, a senior materials engineer in the materials and manufacturing directorate and BioSIS technical lead, said that the technology will work to ensure warfighters’ safety during critical missions by sensing when they become stressed, excessively fatigued or hyper-stimulated.

“These wearable sensors can take on a variety of forms such as mouthguards, patches applied to the skin or microneedle patches that just penetrate the epidermis into the interstitial fluid, for example,” Drummy explained.

He added that the technology offers advanced human monitoring capabilities that can enable commanders to make more informed decisions.

The BioSIS program included AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, the 711th Human Performance Wing, the NBMC and Case Western Reserve University.

The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to establish a new office of enterprise supply chain modernization to help manage the integration of functions of nearly 60 logistics and ordering systems across the Veterans Benefits Administration, Veterans Health Administration and the National Cemetery Administration, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Dave Sloniker, executive director for logistics redesign at VA, will oversee the new office.

“This new office will look at the whole environment: Here are the things that need to be changed in terms of process and policy. Our current policies are driven around our current systems, but if you change the system, you have to come in and redesign your process and policies, so we’re going to look at both issues at the same time … we want to achieve a better veterans experience and a better user experience for the people who are using it,” said Sloniker.

News on the VA office comes as the department plans to compete a contract to replace its Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support system with a cloud-based platform.

According to FNN, VA aims to announce the vendors for the acquisition contract’s prototyping phase by spring 2023 and award the single-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract by midway through 2023.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers on Monday released a report identifying the highest priorities of state CIOs in the coming year.

Cybersecurity and risk management topped the list of policy and services priorities for 2023, while identity proofing and multifactor authentication was the biggest concern in terms of applications and technologies.

According to the survey, state CIOs intend to focus primarily on digital services to improve government customers’ experience, as well as on reimagining the federal workforce and replacing legacy platforms. They are also seeking broader adoption of cloud services and deeper exploration of data and information management. Deploying 5G and other means to improve connectivity ranked ninth in the list of policy priorities, while customer relationship strategies was tenth.

The respondents cited software-as-a-service and other X-as-a-service models, security enhancement applications and artificial intelligence as some of their target technologies and tools for 2023. Business intelligence and other data analytics, low-code/no-code software development, enterprise resource planning and business process integration systems rounded up the list.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, said DISA’s work in information technology, cybersecurity and emerging technologies play key roles in achieving the objectives set in the 2022 National Defense Strategy.

During his speech at the 2022 Department of Defense Intelligence Information System Worldwide Conference, Skinner highlighted DISA’s efforts to deliver advanced warfighting capabilities including its Thunderdome zero trust security project, the agency said Wednesday. 

“Innovation is alive and well. Innovation is here in the United States and innovation will continue to make us powerful,” Skinner, a 2022 Wash100 awardee, remarked. 

The official said that DISA also works to secure identity credentialing and access management for the Department of Defense’s applications and uses commercial cloud infrastructure.

In addition, Skinner mentioned the recent $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract vehicle to awarded Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Oracle.

“JWCC is an example of us being ready. We have developed an environment with systems integration, infrastructure as a code, a marketplace system and DevSecOps,” Skinner said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has proposed a bipartisan bill that would prohibit TikTok from operating in the U.S., citing the social media platform’s threat to national security.

Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., unveiled companion legislation in the lower chamber, backing Rubio’s measure – Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act or ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act.

“The federal government has yet to take a single meaningful action to protect American users from the threat of TikTok. This isn’t about creative videos — this is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day,” said Rubio.

The lawmaker also cited how TikTok can influence elections and the platform’s ties to China.

In November, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House panel about the bureau’s national security concerns over TikTok, saying the Chinese government could potentially exploit the video app to control data collection on millions of users.

Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, called on the Council on Foreign Investment in the United States to initiate action to ban TikTok due to concerns over the security of data of U.S. users.

The Department of the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is conducting a review of TikTok over national security issues as the app owned by Chinese company ByteDance negotiates to continue its operations in the U.S.

In September, a Senate panel held a hearing over the video platform’s access to U.S. user data and links to the Chinese government.