AI Tools Helped Treasury Recover Billions in Fraud and Improper Payments

by  Natalie Alms

Risk screening, check fraud detection and more have helped the government recover more than $4 billion, Treasury announced.

The payment integrity arm of the Treasury Department says that new AI-powered tools are helping it spot fraudsters and bad actors before they access government money.

Treasury prevented and recovered over $4 billion in fraudulent and improper payments in fiscal 2024 in part due to those tools, it announced Thursday, up from $652.7 million the year prior, a number the department has confirmed includes $154.9 million in prevented improper payments and $346.2 in recovered ones.

Specifically, the department's Office of Payment Integrity houses tools open to other federal agencies and federally-funded programs administered by states, and it's using machine learning to examine large amounts of data and flag potential fraudulent schemes, a Treasury spokesperson told Nextgov/FCW.

 Read full story at Government Executive…

Army Starts to Create SATCOM-As-a-Service Contract

by  Nick Wakeman

The service branch wants to create a satellite communications marketplace that leans on commercial-style purchasing for global coverage.

The Army is looking to buy satellite communications as-a-service in a move to bring more commercial like buying to the military branch.

From the solicitation documents …, it appears that the Army will pursue a multiple-award strategy as it wants to create a marketplace for buying satellite communications that provide worldwide coverage.

Intelsat and SES both hold blanket purchase agreements for satellite communications. The Army awarded the BPAs in 2023 for one year and they are worth around $7 million, according to Deltek data.

 Read full story at Washington Technology…

New Website Tracks Government's Many Digital Services Teams

by  Keely Quinlan

The Digital Service Network created a new online tool that tracks the many digital services teams popping up in all levels of government.

Last week, the Digital Service Network at the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University published a new online tracker that documents details about government digital service teams across the country.

The new Government Digital Service Team Tracker, which was published on the Digital Service Network's new Digital Government Hub reference website on Oct. 10, so far documents 28 digital services teams, their formation dates, locations, structures, and mandates or enabling legislation, among other information.

Along with state-level digital services teams, the tracker includes information about city-level teams and federal teams, such as the U.S. Digital Service and the the General Services Administration's 18F team.

 Read full story at StateScoop…

DOJ Suggests Splitting Off Chrome and Android to Break Google's Monopoly

by  Gyana Swain

The Department of Justice hopes to curb Google's dominance in search and advertising, but the tech giant warns of potential privacy risks and threats to innovation in AI and online security.

In a significant escalation of its antitrust battle with Google, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed splitting off Google's Chrome browser and Android operating system as part of sweeping remedies aimed at curbing the tech giant's “illegal monopoly” in online search and advertising.

“The DOJ is considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features — including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence — over rivals or new entrants,” the DOJ said in a court filing.

The department said that Google's longstanding control of the Chrome browser, with its preinstalled Google search default, “significantly narrows the available channels of distribution and thus disincentivizes the emergence of new competition.”

 Read full story at Computerworld…

Here's What TurboTax's Boss Doesn't Want You to Hear

by  Tom Macwell

Intuit, which owns TurboTax, implored The Verge to delete portions of an interview in which they pressed its CEO about lobbying efforts.

TurboTax's parent company Intuit has stepped in it after its CEO Sasan Saeedi got into a somewhat confrontational exchange during an interview with The Verge for its Decoder podcast.

Saeedi was pressed by the outlet's editor-in-chief Nilay Patel over Intuit's efforts to prevent a simplification of tax filing in the United States. It's a pretty obvious thing to ask about: Intuit is one of the most notorious lobbyists in Washington because of its efforts over the years to prevent tax filing from becoming simpler and cheaper.

Following the interview, however, Intuit's head of communications contacted The Verge to ask that the testy exchange be cut from the interview, or otherwise heavily edited to make it seem less confrontational, such as by removing portions where they are talking over one another.

 Read full story at Gizmodo…

Microsoft Blocks Windows 11 24H2 Update on Devices With Known Issues

by  Laura Pippig & Joel Lee

Windows 11's big annual 2024 update was supposed to be an exciting milestone for the operating system, but it is increasingly edging into debacle territory due to all the issues it's been causing.

Problems stemming from the Windows 11 24H2 update include disappearing mouse cursors, SSD-related crashes, driver-related crashes, undeletable crash files, broken Clipboard History feature, and broken internet connections. Not to mention the update itself takes a long time to install and removes a bunch of features and apps.

 Read full story at PCWorld…

Amazon Announces Nuclear Power Deals as Tech Giants Scramble for More Clean Energy

by  Lisa Stiffler

Sustainability: News about the rapidly growing climate tech sector and other areas of innovation to protect our planet.

Amazon … announced agreements supporting the construction of a next-generation nuclear power plant in its home state of Washington — marking the latest development in the tech-driven resurgence of nuclear energy.

Amazon has a deal with Energy Northwest to fund the initial feasibility phase of a nuclear facility in central Washington, with the right to purchase electricity from the 320 megawatt plant.

The tech giant is also anchoring a newly announced, approximately $500 million investment round in X-energy, which is providing the nuclear reactor technology. That deal will help X-energy scale its manufacturing capabilities to build more than 5 gigawatts of nuclear power in the U.S. by 2039 — a goal the companies deemed “the largest commercial deployment target” of its kind.

 Read full story at GeekWire…

DOE Selects Nearly $2B in Projects for Grid Resilience Funding

by  Ethan Howland

The projects will boost transmission capacity by more than 7.5 GW, accelerate interconnection for clean energy and spark over $4.2 billion in public and private investment, according to DOE.

The U.S. Department of Energy selected 38 projects for nearly $2 billion in funding from its Grid Resilience and Innovation Program, DOE said Friday.

"With these projects, we're investing in resilience, which means we're supporting communities before, during and after wildfires and storms and heat waves and other extreme weather across the country by hardening the grid by, for example, undergrounding power lines or adding technology that reroutes power during storms," DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Thursday during a press briefing.

 Read full story at UtilityDive…

Georgia Power Awarded $160 Million From Department of Energy to Enhance Georgia's Power Grid

by  Southern Company Press Release

Funding focused on innovative approaches to expanding transmission capacity and adding resiliency as company works to meet the energy needs of a growing Georgia

Georgia Power, the state's largest electric utility serving 2.7 million customers, has been awarded more than $160 million in funding by the Department of Energy (DOE) through its Grid Deployment Office. As Georgia continues to grow, the company is ensuring that customers have access to clean, safe, reliable, and affordable power, and actively pursued the funding available under the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help reduce the costs of necessary investments for the benefit of customers.

Investments under the GRIP Program are intended to enhance grid flexibility, improve the resilience of the power system against extreme weather and ensure American communities have access to affordable, reliable electricity when and where they need it.

 Read full story at Southern Company …