A new report on video analytics is available. The first Video Analytics in Public Safety (VAPS) Workshop was held last June in San Diego as a satellite workshop of the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Broadband Stakeholder Meeting. Prior to the workshop, focus group panels from different communities of interest prepared joint presentations regarding the state of the practice/art, challenges, issues, needs and ideas from their community's perspective.

Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communications System (LA-RICS) expects to complete construction on four LMR sites by the beginning of March, and three of those sites are under construction. In its monthly newsletter, LA-RICS said an additional seven LMR sites are targeted for completion in May.

Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and other companies invested $14 million in Neurala, a software company that invented The Neurala Brain, a deep learning neural networks platform that is making smart products such as toys, cameras and self-driving cars more autonomous, interactive and useful.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International received approval from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for an American National Standard (ANS) that identifies standard specifications for the exchange of emergency data.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai formed a new federal advisory committee to explore ways to accelerate deployment of high-speed Internet access nationwide.

A new study found that fulfilling the smart city promise will require integrating communications technology and increasing stakeholder engagement. Black & Veatch’s “2017 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report” addresses the interlocking pieces of the smart city ecosystem and their effects on public safety, quality of life and sustainability.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) invited applications to participate in the April auction of 700 MHz spectrum licenses, which means Australian public-safety agencies will likely not get access to 700 MHz dedicated spectrum for Long Term Evolution (LTE) services.

Teltronic, part of the Sepura Group, was awarded a $2 million contract to provide an emergency services TETRA radio communications network in Peru for the regional government of Madre de Dios, located in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest.

Jan. 19 marked the third of a series of five deadlines in Rivada’s pre-award protest of the contract award for the First Responder Network Authority’s (FirstNet) nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN). Several motions and other documents have been filed but are sealed under a protection order.

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) announced its 2017 federal advocacy priorities, one of which is First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) state plans.