$93M ObamaCare website may face months of glitches, experts warn
WASHINGTON – The $93 million website launched to process customers through the new ObamaCare marketplace may experience significant technical glitches for months, computer software experts told FoxNews.com.
“I wouldn’t rule out that possibility,” said George Edwards, a computer scientist and professor at the University of Southern California. It all depends on when they identify the bugs, where they are, and if they can be resolved easily, he said -- all while the site is running and open to millions of customers.
“[It's] like trying to repair a car while someone is driving it,” he told FoxNews.com.
Not only was the site still experiencing substantial problems Wednesday, a week after launching, but the White House had reportedly been aware for months that the HealthCare.gov websitehad flaws and might not be ready to launch. Yet officials insisted on the Oct. 1 roll out anyway.
Robert Laszewski, a consultant with clients in the healthcare industry participating in the new exchange, said insurance companies were complaining “loudly” that the site had experienced problems before the launch. “People were pulling out their hair,” he told The Washington Post Wednesday.
“I was trying to use it as a consumer … and I could see the Javascript errors,” said James Turner, a member of the technical staff at software company Beeonics and contributing editor at O’Reilly.com. He told FoxNews.com that he tried to apply in order to compare insurance prices numerous times and in four different browsers -- all to no avail.
“I’ve been a software developer for 33 years now,” he said. “After awhile when something is not working right, you just kind of know the reasons why things are failing. It looks like the user interface was something that was tested least or not done right, or both.”
In addition to the high volume of people who accessed Healthcare.gov when it was launched on Oct. 1, crippling the site on and off for the first few days, complaints have evolved around users’ inability to create new accounts, or once they do, not being able to log on and move forward with choosing a health plan -- the primary function of the site.
Attempts to create new usernames and passwords have resulted in multiple spouses and duplicate family members attached to accounts, for instance. Sometimes, the site just freezes up and the user doesn’t know whether to back up, wait, or keep pressing keys to prompt the system.
In short, it’s been a nightmare, for users and the government offices that have had to field the questions and wisecracks from the political and technical community who say they should have anticipated the problems all along.
“What we have here is the perfect storm in software development,” Turner said. He said the heavy volume slowing down the back-end servers was “understandable,” yet “the fundamental problem with this not working right is less forgivable.”
"One of the oldest sayings in the software industry is that you have time, money and features -- or quality -- and you get to pick any two. Money and features, but late, or time and features, but over-budget,” he told FoxNews.com.
“Something had to give. That thing was quality.”
He and others who spoke with FoxNews.com say that there are several reasons for the quality lapse, the biggest perhaps, was that it was not given sufficient time to be tested, particularly with all of the major functions it’s expected to perform. “I'm not a Washington insider, but we’ve been hearing all summer that this thing was having issues. There just wasn’t time to test it or fix it.”
Aside from all the “dumb” errors that Turner and others have recognized (at one point, commenters at Reddit.com were pointing out spelling errors in the Javascript), Edwards said that the government had faced monumental challenges from the outset, including the fact that Healthcare.gov had a hard deadline with a rollout “event,” forcing it to skip “beta” test mode. Because ObamaCare involves multiple government agencies and private insurers, the website had to be able to accommodate all of their myriad “legacy” computer networks. In short, all these different networks have to be capable of talking to each other, and efficiently.
So far, according to the White House and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is overseeing Healthcare.gov, the major culprit has been volume and capacity.
“An extraordinary number of people are coming to check out HealthCare.gov. Traffic on the web site and at the call center continues to be high, suggesting a strong interest by consumers in learning about their health coverage options,” HHS said in a statement to FoxNews.com.
“To improve access to the system, work at night has significantly cut down on time people wait before accessing the website.” Officials have stated that the site had some 8.6 million unique visitors over the first three days, with as many as 250,000 on at the same time.
Edwards and Turner said that, aside from being able to see the code on the front end, it is difficult to know exactly what is going on with the site.
“Because of the time constraints, they’re crowd-sourcing their quality assurance to the American public,” Turner said. “We’re being used to find the bugs.”
The company contracted in 2011 for $93 million to build the website, CGI Group Inc., has so far declined comment.
“In my opinion, intermittent, but not fatal, problems will persist for some time – perhaps even until December 15,” Edwards said.
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Researchers: We can watch 3-D with only one eye
New research may lead to advances for people who have trouble watching traditional 3-D
Humans can see 3-D images with only one eye, according to new research, suggesting a future in which the technology could become cheaper and more accessible.
Simply looking through a small hole is enough to experience 3-D, says Dhanraj Vishwanath, a psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. His research was published in the journal Psychological Science.
The 3-D technology that's currently used in movies and other media relies on two visual images, one from each eye, combining in the viewer's brain to produce 3-D's extra layer of depth.
But Vishwanath's research suggests that both eyes aren't needed.
"We have demonstrated experimentally, for the first time, that the same 'special way' in which depth is experienced in 3D movies can also be experienced by looking at a normal picture with one eye viewing through a small aperture (circular hole).
"While this effect has been known for a long time, it is usually dismissed," he said in a release from the university. "Now we have shown that it is in fact real, and the perceptual results are exactly like stereoscopic 3D, the kind seen in 3D movies."
In recent years, 3-D has become an emerging technology for blockbuster movies, video games, TV and other media. But it also causes headaches, dizziness and even nausea for as many as 10% of the people who watch it. Some experts believe that cumbersome 3-D glasses are a primary reason why the technology hasn't caught on with TV viewers.
The St. Andrews researchers say that, with the approach they explored, people with only one eye or those with problems watching 3-D with both eyes could still experience its "compelling" effect.
"Many of these people don't know what it means to see in 3D because they have never experienced it," Vishwanath said. "Our findings and preliminary results suggest that our method could be used to allow people with misaligned eyes ... to experience what it is like to actually see in 3D."
He said the study could have implications for movie producers and other industries. Vishwanath suggested that 3-D could one day be produced by dramatically increasing the resolution of images. That method would also decrease eye fatigue and some of the other side effects people report from wearing 3-D glasses.
The St. Andrews team is now testing the theory with a larger group of subjects. They plan to release more findings on 3-D this year.
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US Army seeks 'Iron Man' armor for commandos
WASHINGTON: US Army researchers are working on building hi-tech body armor that would give soldiers "superhuman strength" in a real-life version of the suit featured in "Iron Man" films.
The blueprint for the "revolutionary" Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) would include an exoskeleton to allow a soldier to carry heavy equipment, built-in computing power, beefed up protection to stop bullets and a system to monitor vital signs, officials said.
"Some of the potential technologies planned for TALOS research and development include advanced armor, situational awareness, command and control computers, power management systems, and enhanced mobility exoskeletons," according to a US Army statement issued last month.
US Special Operations Command, which oversees elite Navy SEAL and Army Ranger commandos, put out the call last month for research papers on potential technologies that a "smart" combat suit could incorporate.
The request for "white papers" will extend through September 2014, and then commanders and defense officials will weigh how to proceed while taking into account growing pressures on the Pentagon budget, said spokesman Roger Teel of the Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command, or RDECOM.
The new combat armor might also employ "liquid armor," reminiscent of the "Terminator" films, though the technology is still in an early stage of development, Teel told AFP.
The liquid would transform into a solid if a magnetic or electrical charge was applied.
"There is a liquid armor that they are looking at developing," said Teel, adding that scientists at MIT were studying the idea. "It could possibly be turned on with a battery switch" to deflect gunfire, he said.
TALOS "is an advanced infantry uniform that promises to provide superhuman strength with greater ballistic protection," according to an earlier statement from RDECOM.
In a crude animated demonstration video released by the army on how the combat suit might operate, a soldier in science fiction-inspired gear stands in a doorway as bullets bounce off at close range from an unidentified enemy.
While ominous music plays in the background, the words "to be continued..." flash upon the screen.
The project's acronym, TALOS, refers to the automaton of Greek mythology made of bronze that Zeus deploys to safeguard his lover Europa.
Despite previous weapons programs that came to little, officials say the technologies for the ambitious project are not out of reach, even if they sound more like the stuff of myth or movie.
The concept of providing virtual displays of battlefield forces in a soldier's helmet screen resembles similar efforts already underway for a sophisticated helmet for pilots flying the new F-35 fighter jet.
Reflecting advances in robotics and computing power, the TALOS suit is part of a trend in current research focusing on what defense industry experts call "man-machine interface," aiming to dramatically increase the capabilities of a single soldier.
Officials said the TALOS project is the brainchild of Admiral William McRaven, head of special operations command, who rose to prominence presiding over the Navy SEAL raid that killed Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
"I'm very committed to this," McRaven told an industry conference in July. "I'd like that last operator that we lost to be the last operator we lose in this fight or the fight of the future, and I think we can get there."
As the proposed suit would draw on a range of technical disciplines, the military expects the project to be developed jointly by academia, government scientists and technology firms, officials said.
Special Operations command is "interested in receiving white papers from a wide variety of sources, not just traditional military industry but also from academia, entrepreneurs and laboratories capable of providing the design, construction and testing of TALOS related technologies," said James Geurts, acquisition executive for the command.
And officials said it was too early to offer any cost estimate.
Although defense officials acknowledge the project evokes comparisons to Tony Stark's superhero suit from the "Iron Man" movies, they note that no one is claiming the smart armor will enable soldiers to soar like a plane over cities.
"It's not going to fly. It's not going to be all that," Teel said. "But it's going to be special."
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