Briefly noted

IT to get more attention in approval process for political appointees
When the Senate holds hearings next year to confirm what will then be President Barack Obama’s choices to lead federal agencies, nominees could face a long list of questions on how they plan to use information technology to improve and secure government operations.

More U.S. hospitals turn to palm biometircs for patient identification

Until two years ago the hospitals of Carolinas HealthCare System checked the patient’s address and asked to see a form of identity, such as a driving license, but there was still a 1 percent error rate whereby about ten patients a day were misidentified. Carolinas HealthCare addressed the problem by introducing a technology from Fujitsu that had only been used in cashpoint machines in Japan: palm-scanning. This is one of the most promising of a number of new technologies that can identify people through a biometric indicator. Many of us know about fingerprints and iris recognition, but fingerprinting is not totally reliable and iris recognition can feel intrusive.