A U.S. Navy aviation depot in North Carolina has purchased equipment designed to help technical personnel obtain more detailed and accurate measurements of individual aircraft components. 

The Fleet Readiness Center East's Precision Measurement Center has a new optical comparator and laser tracking system that mechanical engineering technicians use to assess aircraft parts and support fixtures, Naval Air Systems Command said Thursday.

The comparator is built to generate two-dimensional images of small hardware and allows users to conduct inspections without making contact with the object.

Meanwhile, the laser tracker works to emit beams to an object's mounted reflector for calculating dimensions to perform tasks such as fixture calibration and weapon system alignment.

NAVAIR noted that new machines at the center require only one operator compared with legacy equipment.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has asked the Department of Homeland Security to provide policies, strategies and guidance for countering domestic extremism and domestic extremist threats on social media platforms. 

Peters wrote a letter to DHS Tuesday asking the department to submit information on its coordination efforts with social media companies to detect and prevent such threats on online platforms and strategies and actions taken to avoid extremist violence online. 

The letter addressed to DHS Secretary and 2021 Wash100 Award winner Alejandro Mayorkas is requesting the department to provide documents related to HSI and I&A investigations involving domestic extremist threats on social media platforms; I&A products related to domestic extremist threats online, and information on DHS offices responsible for receiving notifications from social media companies. 

DHS should submit the documents and information to the Senate panel no later than Oct. 27th.

The U.S. Navy will implement a new information technology approach that allows for IT services sharing across the service's entire enterprise, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

Navy officials said in a memorandum that the planned change aims to reduce redundancies, expand data availability, align with modern industry practices, boost productivity and decrease cyber risks in IT services.

Aaron Weis, the Navy's chief information officer (CIO); and Frederick Stefany, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, wrote the memorandum.

The document refers to IT services as technologies that address specific use cases and are not difficult to adopt.

The Navy's chief technology officer, within 60 days of the document's release, will establish a new forum to come up with policies, procedures and a systematic structure for the enterprise-wide implementation.

Damian Kostiuk, chief director of the data analytics division within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said data-sharing agreements can help the agency reduce biases in algorithms used to automate naturalization processes.

He said data sharing can produce the variety of information needed to train the algorithms with respect to other agencies involved in naturalization, Fedscoop reported Wednesday. Data from other agencies can also help USCIS address its own gaps and limitations that contribute to biases.

These partner agencies include U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the State Department. The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate is also developing technology designed to isolate details that contribute to biases.