I came across something interesting today that is an extension of the modernization of federal services announced last week, including renewing passports online.

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-St...sports-online/

Short story is: The State Department is doing beta testing for the new portal to renew US passports electronically. Beta registration is open for the following three groups of people:

* Department of State employee/contractor
* Employee/contractor of another federal agency
* Friend or family member of a federal employee/contractor

There are a bunch of conditions, none of them too onerous, but something you should be aware of (passport issued between 2006-2012, not changing names, living in the United States, etc.)

The link for the registration can be found in the defense.gov link, it's just a google form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...zNo-w/viewform

According to the news article, the portal is scheduled to open on which opens on 23 December.

Hope this helps someone!