Some say we have two seasons in Canada, winter and construction, and city crews are about to embrace the latter.
Thirty-five locations are on the books for paving this summer and five others will undergo water and sewer replacements. It is part of the $4.1 million annual paving program the city introduced in 2013. Since, over 47 kilometres of roadway has been replaced, just over 16 per cent of all roadways in Prince Albert.
Read full story at PANow…
first published week of: 05/21/2018
THE City of Kwinana has launched a new online geographic information system (GIS).
GIS is accessible for the community through the website here.
The new-look system, provides residents with an improved look and feel mapping system that hosts a range of functionality for the community specific to residents individual properties.
Some of the benefits of the system include:
Read full story at Kwinana Courier…
first published week of: 04/30/2018
A new online resource allows residents and visitors to plan out their trip to one the City of Waxahachie’s [Texas] 18 parks before ever leaving the house.
The new interactive park map, developed by Geographic Information System, also showcases the amenities of the parks system.
GIS analyst Manjul Shrestha stated the map is very user-friendly and quickly connects people to the information they need.
“We have tried to map out every single park the city has. If you look at the map you can see the amenities at the park,” Shrestha said. “On the other side, you see where the park is located on the map. There is a description of the park along with images.”
Shrestha explained each park is plotted on a map with a green pin. After clicking the pin, the user is taken to the location of the park and its detailed description.
The park’s address is also displayed on the map with an embedded Google Map link. After clicking on it, users obtain driving directions to the location. The maps contain images of the amenities located at each park that can be expanded to a larger form.
Waxahachie currently has 18 parks spread out across the city and is continuing to add more. The city took steps to upgrade its existing parks with new features that visitors will enjoy, such as splash pads, walking trails, and new playground equipment.
Read full story at Waxahachietx.com…
first published week of: 09/24/2018
The public has at its fingertips more mapping information on the city’s website.
Geographic Information System Coordinator Adam Aull gave aldermen Tuesday a demonstration of the city's new GIS program.
Aull attended a GIS conference in San Diego in July.
“Our software is changing. They’ve come up with a whole new platform; just brand new infrastructure for it,” he said.
The city had been using the same platform for about 15 years.
Aull said it’s more integrated with the internet and the city’s internet software.
During the past few months he’s been working on the new interface for the public and city staff to access all of the city’s GIS data to help with data and information dissemination and workflows.
The gallery tab at the top of the page on the city's website allows quick access to all 100 applications the city has on the internet.
You can see the service here
Read full story at Commercial-News (Danville Illinois)…
first published week of: 10/29/2018
( Katie Collins/CNET)
The navigation app is launching a new flexible bus service, but says it's not setting itself up as a rival to Uber.
The wheels on the bus are going round to a new generation of flexible public transport, courtesy of Citymapper.
Citymapper has already dipped its toes into public transport with a trial bus service ferrying East London revellers along a single weekend route. The popular navigation app is evolving that idea with Smart Ride, which mixes a bus and taxi service.
Smart Ride travels a set route and stops along the way, like a bus. But it lets you book a seat, like a taxi.
This isn't the only combination of shared and taxi-style transport in the news today: Uber has just launched Express Pool in select US cities, which asks you to walk a bit further at the start and end of your journey in exchange for a streamlined ride and cheaper fares. But Citymapper denies that it's looking to compete with Uber, saying on Twitter the company has "more imagination" than that.
Read full story at Road Show…
first published week of: 02/26/2018
After years of hype, cloud-enabled government may finally be arriving. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to support that conclusion, from passing mentions at industry events all the way to the White House’s public strategy for government modernization. As of earlier this month, analysis by Bloomberg Government has put some more quantitative heft behind the claim by projecting record-setting cloud purchasing by the end of fiscal 2018.
This is exciting news for anyone tracking the industry for the last few years, especially in light of the numerous false starts and setbacks we’ve seen in government cloud adoption. Just as importantly, it points to new opportunities and new ways of approaching customers in the space.
Customers are going to be more open to cloud-based solutions than before and being able to offer technology in the cloud will be increasingly important to retaining business that you already have. Customers who were once open to on-premise deployments may begin to look elsewhere. Industry needs to be flexible enough to pivot accordingly.
With that in mind, here are some trends and opportunity areas in cloud for fiscal 2019:
Read full story at Government Cloud Insider…
first published week of: 11/05/2018
Big game hunters in Colorado can get an early start on — from the comfort of their homes. By going on-line to the Colorado Hunting Atlas, a special feature on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website, hunters can do some virtual scouting of areas they want to hunt.
Utilizing geographic information systems technology, the web site provides a huge amount of data useful to hunters including details about travel routes in national forests and on BLM lands, topographic information, big game migration routes, campgrounds, state wildlife areas, Parks and Wildlife offices and facilities, and more. Hunters can zoom in on specific areas and print customized maps for any area in the state. You can even enter GPS coordinates for a specialized view of an area of interest.
The web site allows hunters to look at topographic data and then switch to Google-photographs of the same area to get a sense of forest cover and what the ground actually looks like.
Read full story at Valley Courier…
first published week of: 10/01/2018
Columbus, Ohio, is procuring the operating system that will collect, analyze and share data for its multiple smart city efforts. The Smart Columbus Operating System is seen as a vital part of achieving what the city promised when it won the Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge in 2016.
The city describes the SCOS as “the heartbeat of the Smart Columbus Program.” Jodie Bare, the deputy program manager for Columbus and leader of the SCOC development, called it “the backbone” of the efforts. It's also been called “brains.”
Whatever body part it's compared to, the operating system will make other aspects of the city’s plan possible.
“Certainly there are data management platforms out there,” Bare told GCN. “But [none as] far reaching … serving up all the data needs of so many different projects and bridging data from both the public and private sector.”
SCOS will collect data from a variety of sources -- both public and private -- and provide a web interface or portal for internal and external use. It will also include analytics and visualization capabilities.
Read full story at GCN…
first published week of: 02/12/2018
Carroll Publishing has been collecting and validating government contact information and organizational charts for more than four decades. Now, it's opening that information up to developers via API.
Carroll Publishing, a long-standing directory of government officials and offices, has published its first API to allow developers to directly access the information.
The company, based in Bethesda, Md., has been collecting government data like organizational charts and contact information for 45 years. Consequently, its evolution has been the story of technological progress in the information age — once upon a time things were printed, and then it started giving people CDs, and then it set up a Web application.
Now, the company has given the modern developer their favorite toy: an application programming interface (API). From that, users can query a database with federal, state, county and local governments. Sally Swan, president and chief operating officer of Carroll Publishing, said the database has about 260,000 people in it, including 117,000 at municipalities. The API traffic is encrypted through HTTPS.
“The API allows them to just plug it right into their database and just do the front end, they don’t have to worry about the back-end maintenance,” Swan said.
There are a lot of people who are willing to pay for that kind of information — including technology companies that sell to government and government officials who have a hard time finding each other.
Read full story at GovTech…
first published week of: 12/03/2018
(By Phonlamai Photo)
How well will artificial intelligence balance the human concept of fairness?
Some of the best known examples of artificial intelligence are Siri and Alexa, which listen to human speech, recognize words, perform searches and translate the text results back into speech. But these and other AI technologies raise important issues like personal privacy rights and whether machines can ever make fair decisions. As Congress considers whether to make laws governing how AI systems function in society, a congressional committee has highlighted concerns around the types of AI algorithms that perform specific – if complex – tasks.
Often called “narrow AI,” these devices’ capabilities are distinct from the still-hypothetical general AI machines, whose behavior would be virtually indistinguishable from human activity – more like the “Star Wars” robots R2-D2, BB-8 and C-3PO. Other examples of narrow AI include AlphaGo, a computer program that recently beat a human at the game of Go, and a medical device called OsteoDetect, which uses AI to help doctors identify wrist fractures.
As a teacher and adviser of students researching the regulation of emerging technologies, I view the congressional report as a positive sign of how U.S. policymakers are approaching the unique challenges posed by AI technologies. Before attempting to craft regulations, officials and the public alike need to better understand AI’s effects on individuals and society in general.
Read full story at The Conversation…
first published week of: 10/22/2018