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STORIES
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GIOVE-A navigation signal available to users; 'GIOVE-A Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document' released
"Following the launch of GIOVE-A on 28 December 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the transmission of the first Galileo signals from medium...
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 Prof. Michael Goodchild receives GITA's Lifetime Achievement Award
"Prof. Goodchild first encountered geographic information systems and computer mapping in the late 1960s, when it was a struggling high-end...
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GIOVE-A2 to secure Galileo programme
"ESA wishes to guarantee the continuity of the Galileo programme with the permanent presence of a spacecraft in orbit. This will maintain European...
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ESA and European Maritime Safety Agency sign agreement for strengthening framework for cooperation in maritime monitoring and surveillance
"Under this arrangement, EMSA will be supported by ESA on issues relating to the development of space technologies for maritime monitoring and...
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WORLD THIS WEEK
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Hyundai Heavy to build South Korea's first satellite launch pad
The Ministry of Science and Technology has been vowing to make the country one of the top-10 space powers by 2015, while neighboring...
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 Clark Labs to develop system for analyzing time series of remotely sensed images to infer changes in biodiversity and ecosystem function
Researchers at Clark Labs are exploring a range of image archives for the system, including the NOAA-AVHRR global images of Normalized...
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GITA presents Innovator Award, Excellence Award at its Annual Conference 30
The Innovator Award recognizes the unique and significant contributions of organizations that have used geospatial technology in the innovative...
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Power cooperatives in USA utilise technology from ESRI
While previous methods worked well for managing graphic data, Rushmore Electric wanted a more effective solution for maintaining facilities and asset...
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EDITORIAL
Is estimating the ROI of any venture, more so in the domain of geospatial information technology blinkered or easy as inserting your investments and expectations in a template? and viola... ROI! Well those nine out of ten upstarts who met a dusty death in the geospatial information technology arena are sure to wince. The standard answer from any successful entrepreneur about his pet GIT venture's ROI is ' It's equal to or even higher than the IT sector...' doesn't help the upcoming 'wet-behind-the-ears' entrepreneur. The task of clearing all the flotsam, gleaning the information out of the plethora of earlier works on the rather shied topic of ROI and adding to it their experiences has been attempted by GITA with the release of the 'ROI Workbook' – kudos!. Convergence of technology and commoditisation of GIT is slated to increase the acceptance of GIT and accelerate its deployment resulting in a more comfortable ROI in the coming years – said Dr. Munshi during Map World Forum. 'Geospatial professionals have only begun to recognise how far they still have to go in giving everyone access to basic spatial literacy...said Prof. Goodchild when he received the GITA Lifetime Achievement Award. The 'niche' is in this field of propagating 'spatial literacy'- any takers?
About two weeks ago, ENVISAT celebrated its 'end of nominal lifetime' after five years of non-stop operation. The ESA will fund the programme till 2010 the projected extended lifetime. A commendable effort on part of the designers of ENVISAT and the team that monitors its health 24*7. Today, quite a few remote sensing satellites have lifespans way beyond the planned. They continue transmitting data and earth stations continue gathering it. The question of redundancy or obsolescence is strangely never raised. Just another issue for the already raging debate on 'Data Surplus', and since we are at it, here's some interesting trivia – The longest lived imaging satellite is the European Space Agency's 'IUE' , about 18 years (January 1978 to September 1996) till it was switched off, though astronomers were still queuing for its data.
Dr. Hrishikesh Samant
hrishikesh@gisdevelopment.net
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 ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
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Powering Up: Community Information Systems, Marginalization and Empowerment
Jon M. Corbett
Community, Culture and Global Studies,
University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Canada
Jon.Corbett@ubc.ca
Peter Keller
Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Canada
pkeller@uvic.ca
Increasingly local communities and their intermediaries are using community mapping and digital Geographic Information Technologies (GITs) to communicate information to decision-makers. This information might be related to local spatial knowledge, traditional lands as well as community aspirations...
Surveying and Mapping Have Come A Long Way in Sri Lanka
Ananya Ghosh
GIS Development
ananya.ghosh@gisdevelopment.net
The British published accurate maps of the island colony titled 'One inch to 4 miles map of Ceylon' for the first time in 1840. By 1897, the foundation for 'topographical mapping' was laid down after the survey for the establishment of triginometrical stations for the Triangulation of Ceylon was completed. In 1924...
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CORPORATE
GIS applications developer MultiMedia Computer acquired by Intermap Technologies
"As a result of our historical relationship with Intermap, the seamless integration of MMC's applications into Intermap's product offerings should...
Envisat still going strong after five successful years
Results of ongoing research projects using data from Envisat, as well as other ESA satellites, will be presented at the 2007 Envisat Symposium in...
Pictometry receives new orders for its ChangeFindr software solution
Pictometry has received new orders for its ChangeFindr software solution that will encompass over 1.2 million land parcels at customer installations...
ESRI Canada and Geosoft collaborate to deliver solution for mining and geosciences
Teck Cominco Ltd, a world leader in the production of zinc and metallurgical coal, has become the first mining company to adopt the collaborative...
Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging joins GIS Development as Corporate Sponsor
With this tie up in place, GIS Development will provide Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging an access to reach out to a large audience worldwide for...
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NEW PRODUCTS
ImageStation Version 5.1 released by Intergraph
The user interface provides a centralized launch point for each application, and it acts as a common photogrammetry project information warehouse...
Leica Ortho Accelerator delivers enterprise-enabled digital orthophoto production system
Leica Ortho Accelerator (LOA) was developed to speed up the rate and accuracy with which digital...
IMAGINE DeltaCue and IMAGINE Subpixel Classifier 9.1 now available
“This simplified process enables both advanced and novice users the ability to highlight or identify...
PCI Geomatics completes Web Coverage Service testing from OGC for Web Coverage Server
"The WCS publishes geospatial information representing space varying phenomena, referred to as "coverages"...
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