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The Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, aims to replace its 20-year-old in-house system with a modern, paperless-capable Jury Management System.
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- A police spokesperson said the gift would "supercharge" a unit that in 2024 assisted in over 500 arrests and helped drive a 40 percent drop in auto thefts over a one-year period.
- Many San Franciscans have embraced the advancements as an overdue response to its stubbornly high rate of car break-ins and other property crimes.
What to Know
- Senate Bill 243 would create new reporting and audit requirements for operators of so-called "companion chatbots."
- The legislation, authored by Sen. Steve Padilla, was approved in a 28-4 vote and sent to the Assembly for review June 4.
What to Know
- The departments are in search of an information security analyst, an agile delivery manager and a modern development branch chief.
What to Know
- Under Executive Order N-22-25, many state workers are expected to return to physical offices as of July 1.
- A letter from a bipartisan group of lawmakers seeks to postpone the return until an impending audit is received and can be studied.
What to Know
- The incumbent will oversee building out the independent audit function of the first agency in the United States created for the sole purpose of protecting the privacy rights of consumers.
- Desirable qualifications include five or more years’ experience in conducting research, auditing, testing or forensics on systems that impact consumer privacy; and specialized technical expertise in technology research, technology policy, software engineering or security.
What to Know
- More than $2.3 million was allocated to upgrade the regional justice information system with AI tools, cloud migration, and enhanced infrastructure.
- Significant funding has been earmarked for toll tech upgrades, including $14.5 million for system maintenance and over $5 million for improved customer service.
- More than $1.8 million will be invested in transportation modeling, regional forecasting, GIS tools, and research tools.
"This shift means more employees can do specialized tasks that used to require experts," writes Steve Monaghan. "For example, creating detailed reports or maps often took an IT specialist. Now, an employee can describe what they need, and the AI agent does the rest."
What to Know
- The State Bar of California reportedly disclosed in April that some questions on the exam were the products of artificial intelligence — an assertion denied by Kaplan, the company that provided the test.
- The bar, which licenses nearly 200,000 practicing lawyers in California, says it will resume using questions from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, used by more than 40 states, for its next exam in July.
What to Know:
- Gov. Gavin Newsom wants the sprawling Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency split into a Housing and Homelessness Agency and a Business and Consumer Services Agency. The Little Hoover Commission largely agrees.
- A key goal is to bring more focus to the state's housing problems: availability and affordability.
- Newsom submitted the reorganization plan to the Legislature on May 5, and the commission must now submit its report to him and the Legislature by June 4.
What to Know:
- San Diego faces a $258 million deficit in the coming fiscal year, driving tough and programmatic shifts.
- The IT department’s proposed $139.4 million budget appears to be a slight increase over the previous fiscal year.
- Guided by its FY25–FY29 strategic plan, city IT is focusing on resilience, security, digital equity and service modernization.
What to Know:
- The instrument that makes it possible, known as an interrogator, enables seismic researchers to effectively hijack fiber-optic cables for use as thousands of seismometers.
- The interrogator’s level of detail could also help seismologists identify smaller, “hidden” fault lines and fractures in buildings and bridges that might be at risk during a large quake.
What to Know:
- LinkedIn, Chegg and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have disclosed their intentions to reduce staffing in the Bay Area.
- Employers added 1,600 tech jobs in the South Bay but slashed 1,200 tech positions in the East Bay and chopped 400 tech jobs in the San Francisco-San Mateo metro area.
- The puny increase in net tech hiring in the Bay Area was a reminder that rather than being the primary engine for Bay Area employment, the tech industry has become a drag on the region's job market.
The California Student Aid Commission is seeking a chief information officer, and the Department of Health Care Services is seeking a modern development branch chief.
What to know:
- Veritone signed an agreement with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office to provide its AI redaction software.
- The software, Redact, will help the sheriff’s office automatically blur or hide sensitive details in digital evidence.
What to Know:
- Santa Clara County’s 10-year Capital Improvement Plan outlines $8.6 billion in planned projects through 2035.
- The upcoming fiscal year includes $1.2 million for data center improvements.
- Despite a $70 million deficit, the county is investing heavily in tech, infrastructure and sustainability in the coming years.
The Environmental Protection Agency seeks an agency information security officer, and the Employment Development Department is recruiting for a system engineer specializing in Customer Information Control System (CICS) technology.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has issued a solicitation for technology, digital and data consulting related to its computer-aided dispatch system.
The San Francisco-based firm will use the technology to help the Department of Finance sift through reams of legislation and other documents to determine the financial impact of bills on the state budget.
During a tight budget year, lawmakers are reckoning with the need to improve the technology that government uses, which largely involves IT projects developed by contractors, while having to save dollars elsewhere.
The state insurance exchange is seeking a deputy chief information officer, and the fire agency is recruiting for an assistant information security officer.
Options for city-managed cloud infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service environments include Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud. The RFI was issued May 16, and responses are due by 5 p.m. June 5.
Contributed
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The story you are about to read is true; the names have been withheld to protect the innocent.
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