Emerging Tech

Residents in the Southern California city will get to experience an underground stormwater project in an augmented reality experience designed to give them a better understanding of both the project and area.

Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., recently took a step toward becoming the first city in its area to install wildfire cameras that can detect the initial wisps of smoke that could portend a potentially devastating fire.

The UbiHub tool already is helping cities with traffic and curb management, and can be used for a variety of other tasks. The company is making a play to reduce costs and hassles for smart city projects.

More than 40 state agencies in Ohio will begin using fleet management technology by Geotab to improve operational efficiencies in areas like fuel consumption, route design, idling and the application of materials like sand and salt.

Transit agencies in California and New York, as well as other areas, are adopting fare payment technologies that allow fare capping, setting a limit on what riders will pay regardless of the trips they make.

The University of Cincinnati and the U.K.'s Coventry University are collaborating on a new master's course, “Artificial Intelligence and Human Factors," to prepare students for the rapidly changing industry.

Orting Police Department's drone is equipped with a Forward Looking InfraRed (FLIR) system, which can detect temperature variations. The tool is useful for both police and rescue operations, officials say.

As wildfires become more frequent and intense, this project — along with other recent efforts — shows how the gov tech industry is helping to limit damage. Nighttime detection also is becoming a higher priority.

The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services is testing out fully electrified heavy equipment from Bobcat and Volvo as it transitions to a more zero-emission fleet. Other hybrid vehicles have already found their place in the city fleet.

Plus AAA tests the safety of vehicle drive-assist features, ed tech firm Masterschool raises $100 million and a new cyberthreat, "smishing," is on the rise.

Four companies were selected by the Transit Tech Lab in New York City to deploy and test train signaling and communications technologies as the Metropolitan Transit Authority continues efforts to modernize its infrastructure.

Using the supercomputer Frontera, a professor of biophysics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is predicting the movement of atoms in order to visualize microscopic neuronal activity in the brain.

Two years into a pilot project to use unmanned cameras to catch and ticket unsafe driving behavior, state officials say the program has made a significant difference in active work zones.

A contract to track down illegal fireworks by drone in Kern County, Calif., was justified, according to fire officials. Initial estimates show the drone flagged 100 potential violations with citations of $1,500 each.

The vehicle-mounted cameras are designed to interact automatically with all nearby body-worn cameras. The move follows the $1.89 million purchase of 225 body-worn cameras in September 2020.

Researchers created an algorithm that predicts risks of biased, overly punitive sentencing. The tool performs with similar accuracy — and similar limits — to risk assessment algorithms already used to influence pretrial and parole decisions, authors say.

The climate action office in Denver, which is abbreviated CASR, has had major recent success with its consumer-facing rebate programs that encourage more environmentally friendly technology.

We asked state chief information officers where they stand on blockchain, chatbots, AI and robotics to find out what new technologies have the potential to be more than just buzzwords.