22nd May 2006 VOL.2 ISSUE 21     
30 million man days... the loss that the Megapolis of Mumbai suffered last year, due to monsoonal floods. It was very much avoidable if a proper disaster management plan was in place. The loss to life and property could have been a lot less. Inquries, committees, search, research, seminars and conferences were held on the aftermath of this tragedy. A few days ago and of course just a few days before the next onslaught of monsoon begins, a Mumbai city newspaper reported that the 'Municipal body has done away with its plans of setting up a GIS to identify the flood -prone areas in Mumbai city...', reasons - no maps at the required level of detail are presently available. One wonders if it is callousness or plain ignorance about modern mapping techniques that resulted in such a decision. At the other end of such apathy is the news about the development of a 'flying low and slow', small, inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicle to collect environmental data by an American university team - the outcome of enthusiastic, and well-intended and funded research.

If the governing bodies of some of the worlds' most populous cities keep procrastinating about the development and installation of GISs, putting forth reasons too absurd to be accepted in today’s time, what’s to prevent the loss of a few 100 million man hours and a few million more in lives every year... and we dread wars! So don't we need to mainstream GIS?

  Dr. Hrishikesh Samant
hrishikesh@gisdevelopment.net

WORLD THIS WEEK

ESA acquires and processes images sent by Japan's ALOS
EU court allows Galileo name for satellite system
Shanghai develops new orbiter tool for weathermen
Indian municipal body drops hi-tech plan to map flood-prone areas
Surveyors ease land title processing in Uganda
ARCADIS selected as an ESRI Business Partner of the Year
Researchers design and build a low-cost remote sensing tool for environmental studies
Tele Atlas’ voice enabled maps now available
 

TOP STORIES

DLR and EADS Astrium announce new Earth satellite mission

Following the official kick-off, development and manufacturing of the new German radar-satellite will now start at EADS Astrium's Friedrichshafen plant.


Microsoft releases MapCruncher

MapCruncher brings mashups to a whole new level by allowing developers to import entire maps to supplement the existing road and aerial imagery with detailed, application-specific information.


Japan's space agency to offer free ride for private satellites

The first private satellites will be launched with JAXA's gases observing satellite (GOSAT) in fiscal 2008. JAXA starts receiving applications for the first free launches from May 11 to Aug. 31.

EVENTS

GeoAlberta 2006
May 30 - June 1, 2006 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

BE Conference Europe
11-15 June 2006 Prague, Czech Republic

Intergraph 2006
12-15 June
Disney's Coronado Springs Resort
Orlando, Florida, USA

AGIT SPECIAL 2006 - Geoinformation for Development
July 5-7, 2006
Salzburg University

Coast GIS 2006
12 - 16 July
University of Wollongong,
Australia

ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
Will GIS find mainstream?

Kentaro Toyama
Assistant Managing Director,
Microsoft Research India, Bangalore
kentoy@microsoft.com

The first barrier to GIS going mainstream is simply to access comprehensive data. The data that potential users want must be accessible in a convenient form, and it must be complete, because a large audience will demand greater coverage…

Easy Access Coastal Information System

A. Sreejith, K.V. Thomas, K.O. Badarees
Marine Sciences Division
Centre for Earth Science Studies
Trivandrum, India
thomaskv@eth.in

Although coastal regulation zones have been demarcated, maps prepared and a digital database created for many coastal states, a Net-based Coastal Information System is lacking…
ANNOUNCEMENT

BOOK your free copy of 'LOCATION' - the bi monthly print magazine on positioning, navigation and timing.

Location 2006
2nd Annual International Conference on Positioning, Navigation and Timing.

CORPORATE

Microsoft, NGA sign deal on delivery of geospatial information applications

By continuing to explore visualization concepts and develop user-requested imagery-related services, NGA and Microsoft will collaborate to provide enhanced geospatial services to their respective customers.


Pictometry and Bradshaw Consulting Services form alliance

Under terms of the partnership agreement, BCS will be working with Pictometry's technical support team to enhance BCS' customer's integration of Pictometry technology to BCS supplied GIS solutions.


NEW PRODUCTS

BAE Systems launches Version 5.3 of SOCET SET

This new release provides additional sensor models and new features based on automatic tie-point measurement for multi-sensor triangulation.


Land Registry Ireland goes live with landdirect.ie

Landdirect.ie is the new generation of web services from the Land Registry, which extends and replaces the award-winning Electronic Access Service (EAS).


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