Civic Tech

The Public Defender’s Office is getting a new system to assist in processing its growing caseload. County commissioners approved spending $173,000 for software with artificial intelligence to aid in discovery.

The city Department of Planning and Permitting has deployed new software intended to speed up site development, zoning and planning applications. It replaces a platform that was taken offline in late July.

The city is looking at using drones to learn more about how and to what extent people use parking spaces downtown. The analysis is also aimed at inventorying parking in the area before larger builds increase demand.

Created by Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, the Digital Government Hub’s latest feature tracks the connections between public-sector organizations and how they deliver services.

A long-gestating vacation rental ordinance will soon get an airing, starting with the city planning commission. Leaders are considering using software to get a better idea precisely how many such rentals the city has.

The county has updated its application for cellphones, which enables residents to pay bills and obtain key services. Its notifications tab allows the receipt of real-time updates on severe weather and other events.

The City Council postponed to September a vote that would install cameras with artificial intelligence on garbage trucks, to search out blight. Areas of concern included cost amid budget tightening, and privacy.

The Pathogen Forecast Model launched this week by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego looks five days ahead at weather, tides, waves and river flows to calculate ocean water conditions hour by hour.

The failure, in the airline’s computer network, forced it to ground flights Sunday night for about three hours. The outage, tied to third-party equipment, yielded about 200 cancelled flights. A replacement is underway.

The city is using a tool with artificial intelligence to respond to more than 40 percent of its nonemergency interactions — freeing public safety dispatchers from over 900 hours of talk time to focus on real emergency calls.

The state’s technology department officially opened its Innovation Lab this week — a dedicated space for ethical AI experimentation aimed at advancing public service.

This effort to speed up the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting’s ability to process new building permit applications is scheduled to begin next month, city officials say.

Officials affirmed an expanded contract with Alabama Power to add the devices and license plate readers to power poles citywide. A federal grant to upgrade IT systems and cybersecurity will cover early costs.

The link to the payment site, which is currently available from the town's website and Facebook page, allows residents to look up their tax bills from the past three years and pay them digitally.

So-called drone entertainment offers cities like Aspen and Parker a diverting but less flammable option to Fourth of July fireworks displays. The latter may have the “boom factor,” but could also ignite a wildfire.

City officials are building a comprehensive artificial intelligence ecosystem to support economic growth, by incentivizing businesses and enabling experimentation in what they call "the capital of AI."

Ongoing work with Medici Land Governance has yielded a blockchain-enabled tool to aid in property searches and sales. The goal is to ease the transformation of thousands of vacant, abandoned or blighted properties.

Voice, the city's digital survey tool, recently introduced as part of iAccess Life, enables people with mobility issues to share feedback on parking — and gives planners the benefit of their street-level insight.