Mobile apps are a hot topic at this year's federal office systems exposition known as FOSE, a technology conference underway at the Washington convention center in Northwest.

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One of the biggest celebrities at the conference is not even human, but IBM’s artificial intelligence computer system Watson that dominated the competition on jeopardy earlier this year.

Next door, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak spoke to a standing room only crowd, reflecting on his childhood love of computers and discussing the future of cloud computing.

On the convention floor, FOSE attendees checked out new identification software, video calling technology and gizmos and gadgets like the blackberry tablet "playbook."

This year, conference officials say more attendees are moving toward mobile applications for smart phones.

Ian Meakin of Cellcrypt said the company has developed an app to encrypt voicecalls. The technology costs $1,600 per phone per year. To ensure the product is not used by terrorists or criminals, users must submit to a background check.

“It's used by executive offices, admin offices, presidential offices that kind of thing, and also military armed forces because it's a software only application it can be deployed anywhere over the world in a matter of minutes,” Meakin said.

As the federal government continues to expand its telecommuting workforce, industry experts say web security - and companies that provide it - will be critical.

“Anybody who's transmitting sensitive info that they want to be sure is going to arrive to the intended recipients and only viewed by those recipients,” said Brandon Hart of Encryptx.