FedScoop’s Second Annual Cloud Shoot Out in Washington, D.C. brought 250 leaders from the federal government and IT industry together to discuss the key issues of portability, interoperability and security in Cloud Computing.

HP’s Jeff Bergeron, U.S. Public Sector Chief Technologist, joined the morning panel and shares some insight on cloud computing for government:

(This was cross-posted from The Next Bench and was authored by HP CTO Phil McKinney)

With the holiday decorations stowed and Bowl games played (most of them, anyway), it’s

time to turn our attention to Las Vegas and the annual Consumer Electronics Show for peeks into what will be creating gizmo envy this coming year.

It’s become a tradition for me to predict what’s likely to be cool at the show. Dangerous territory, for sure, but last year I batted a thousand in predicting that the big attention getters would be two exciting new platforms: 3D home television and tablet computers.

So what do I see in my crystal ball for this year? Darren Gladstone, the new Blogger-in-Chief at The Next Bench sat me down to get my thoughts on-record before the show started.  See the video below for all the details.

A quick spoiler: If CES 2010 focused on 3D and tablets, the focus at CES 2011 will be on … well … 3D and tablets. This year, I anticipate the meager amount of 3D TV content to explode, driving higher adoption of 3D in the home. As for the tablet world, it’s all about more devices and apps, apps, apps.

Darren pressed me on this one, but you will not see a webOS tablet from HP at CES this year. That said, we promised to deliver one in 2011 and we will. There is some worthwhile reading here for those of you interested in the topic.

Another thing that I really expect to hear more about at the show is mobile technology making the car more of a network peer. Imagine transferring your music over WiFi while it’s in the garage. Or, as Darren joked, hack and modify the car from the living room.

Speaking of going mobile, that brings me to my final prediction. With more mobile devices and content coming this year, I think we’ll see the major network providers introduce more next generation network infrastructure and services. That will empower more people and more devices. Keep an eye out for AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and the others to make major announcements.

I also chatted with Darren about what I see as some of the hot-button issues for small businesses in 2011. You can watch that over on HP’s 367 Addision blog.

Let me know what you think. Darren and I will get together again towards the end of the show to see how right…or wrong…I was.

Happy New Year to all from the HP communications team.  Here are few stories from the last two weeks that you may have missed:

All Things Digital interviews HP Networking head Marius Haas

Describing the challenge of competing with Cisco in the Enterprise Networking market as ‘daunting,’ All ThingsD’s New Enterprise columnist Arik Hesseldahl elicits some forthright responses from HP’s new head of Networking, Marius Haas.

“People are tired of paying for Cisco,” Haas tells Hesseldahl in a recent Q&A.

“We like the position we’re in,” Haas adds. “We have all the things you need in order to bring together and deliver a sort of holistic kind of cloud strategy for customers. . . . No one else has that.”

Hesseldahl notes the uncertain market outlook reported by Cisco last quarter.  Won’t the same be true for HP?  “Our offering is resonating,” Haas counters.  “We don’t see the kind of slowness they are seeing.”

Engadget offers Palm phone apps, tips and tricks

“Just got a Palm phone?” asks Joshua Topolsky in an end-of-year item at Engadget.  If you did, Topolsky offers a neat round up of must-have apps, accessories and a few tips for getting the most out of your Pixi Plus, Pre Plus or Pre 2.

Among the apps he picks: Twee 2 which “has only gotten better” and the ‘slick, handsome’ Feeder.

When it comes to accessories, Topolsky especially likes the Touchstone charger.  “C'mon,” he says, “you've got a Palm device, now you're required by law to show everyone how awesome inductive charging is.”

HP Board sets annual meeting and record dates

The date is set for HP’s annual meeting.  It will be held on March 23, 2011 in Arlington, Va. All HP stockholders of record at the close of business on Jan. 24, 2011, are entitled to notice of the annual meeting and to vote upon matters considered at it.

HP Launches Cisco trade-in promotion

Shifting back to Networking, HP announced a “Catalyst for Change” trade-in program for qualifying US Customers last month.  Upgrade to HP from Cisco network gear and you’ll get 20% off the list price of a variety of HP switching systems.

In reporting the promotion, the Wall Street Journal speaks with Marius Haas, H-P senior vice president and general manager for networking.  "Cisco has never seen this level of competition before," Haas tells reporter Cari Tuna.

Digging deep into Facebook data

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick called up data-expert and HP Labs Senior Fellow Bernardo Huberman after Facebook’s in-house data-mining team announced new findings drawn from an analysis of 1 million anonymized Facebook messages.

The analysis reveals some fascinating insights into human behavior and relationships, says Kirkpatrick. But he’s unhappy that Facebook’s keeping the original data set to itself. “Great opportunity is lost if the company fails to allow outside researchers to analyze this data as well,” Kirkpatrick argues. 

For corroboration he turns to Hubermann, whose Social Computing Research Group at HP Labs has in the past published noted research based on Facebook data sets.

Facebook's policy change, says Huberman, likely reflects the fact that "this data is amazingly important from a commercial point of view.”  But Kirkpatrick reports him as also being being ‘hopeful’ that Facebook will one day find itself able to be more altruistic.

HP wins big NASA computing contract

An end-of-year announcement from NASA reveals that HP will soon “provide and manage most of NASA's personal computing hardware, agency-standard software, mobile information technology (IT) services, peripherals and accessories, associated end-user services, and supporting infrastructure.”

The contract will run from four to 10 years and has a maximum value of $2.5 billion. To win it, HP beat out incumbent contractor and Silicon Valley neighbor Lockheed Martin, notes the Wall Street Journal.

And finally – 3D Printing is JWT’s #1 Trend for 2011

The Intelligence Unit of marketing giant JWT produces an annual list of “100 things to watch” in the coming year.  Top of author Ann Mack’s list for 2011: 3D Printing.

“3D printers will come into mainstream use,” Mack predicts, while noting recent moves in the 3D print space by Google, Dutch startup Shapeways and HP. 

That makes sense to Alex Williams at ReadWriteWeb.  “3D printing is representative of services that use technology to change the means of production without the need to invest in expensive manufacturing equipment,” he writes. 

It’s an innovation that shows how technology can “intersect with the world for some amazing results,” adds Williams.  Discovering (and then building on) that intersection, he suggests, “can be transforming for an organization.”