It's been a long time coming, but the Pentagon said it's ramping up a program designed to address a shortfall of cyber experts in its civilian workforce. Defense officials told Congress they're dedicating more staff to the implementation of the Cyber Excepted Service, and may want to expand it to include other positions like data scientists and artificial intelligence experts. Congress created the CES more than three years ago, letting DoD set up streamlined hiring processes and new pay scales for cyber experts. DoD officials acknowledge they've been slow to use those authorities. They've only placed about 500 jobs into the new system so far. It's been a long time coming, but the Pentagon said it's ramping up a program designed to address a shortfall of cyber experts in its civilian workforce.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds--and if the United States Postal Service has its way, the robots won't stop them, either. Yes, the agency you know best for bringing you junk mail addressed to whomever lived in your apartment before you has caught robofever. It plans to put semiautonomous mail trucks into service in just seven years, and it seems to think it can pull off a shift away from human driving without shedding mail carrier jobs. That's all according to the postal service's Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the agency and last week released a report on its plans to work autonomy into its 228,000-vehicle fleet. Those plans are already in motion: The post office has partnered with the University of Michigan to build what it's calling an Autonomous Rural Delivery Vehicle, which it wants to launch on 28,000 rural routes nationwide as early as 2025.