Granicus Buys Vision Internet The move, presumably funded on the back of private equity investment, gives Granicus a way to more smoothly connect together its various services through government websites. It's also the second time the company has merged with another company on the GovTech 100.
Louisville's Drones-Plus-ShotSpotter Plan is First of its Kind The city is seeking federal approval through a special program to use autonomous drones to respond to gunshot reports. It would probably be the first time a city has done it.
CSDC Reorganizes, Embraces the Cloud and APIs The company, more than two decades old, is taking its core platform and introducing a subscription model with an eye toward soon putting it into the cloud. On its way, the company has brought in new leadership and begun a push toward better integration through APIs.
Pushing Toward the Cloud, Oracle Plans 12 New Data Centers The company will build half of its new data centers in Asia, two in Europe, two in Canada and two in the U.S. as it looks to compete more with companies like Amazon and Microsoft for cloud business.
The Gray Tsunami: Voting Tech Edition Although most Americans think of elections as happening every two years, election officials know there are smaller votes held all the time. And as it turns out, those officials are working with voting technology that is now at least a decade old. The data shows that the problem is widespread, if not universal.
GovTech company on our radar this week:
Dedrone: Software and hardware for detecting, responding to and taking down unwanted drones.
Six Mapping Tools Cities are Using (Smart Cities Dive)
Why Deep Reinforcement Learning Usually Doesn't Work, and How it Might Get Better (Alex Irpan)
How AI Might Explain Itself to Users (MIT Technology Review)
GovTechBiz is our weekly newsletter covering the companies, deals and trends in the business of gov tech. Got a news tip? Other feedback? We're listening. Send it to GovTechBiz Writer Ben Miller at biz@govtech.com.