Following GrafanaCon EU 2018 in Amsterdam, where Grafana 5.0 was officially launched despite weather challenges, Grafana Labs has been actively expanding its capabilities and community involvement. The company announced the acquisition of Kausal to enhance their work with Prometheus, and introduced new plugins like Instana for monitoring microservices, Moogsoft AIOps for rich reporting, and USGS Water Services for visualizing live sensor data. The latest Grafana 5.0.3 release includes features like provisioning dashboards via config files and compatibility updates for existing plugins. Grafana Labs is also expanding its team, welcoming new members and encouraging interested individuals to apply for open positions. The community is vibrant, with ongoing discussions and showcases of innovative uses of Grafana, such as a "Video Wall on Wheels" for dynamic dashboard displays.