14th September 2009 Vol 5 Issue 36   
 Top Stories  New Products Headlines Articles Events

   Editorial
The great firewall

The news about a ban on trading of Chinese topographic maps was doing rounds last week. The press release did not mention any specific reasons but simply said, "...topography maps titled "classified", published during the Culture Revolution (1966-1976)..." are banned. Going by the usual logic, it suggests that these maps may contain information detrimental to 'home land security'. Hold on - the maps were published in early and mid 70s. How good or really refined would these maps be from topographic information point of view? Also with gravity mapping satellites, the correction for datum variations has become far more refined than what was known forty years ago. So, the question is - what is actually being hidden?

These maps are prepared during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and are liable to have depicted the impact of prevalent political ideology in cartographic terms, which may today be frowned upon by the outside world. If it is just a face saving exercise, so be it. In matters of 'restriction of maps' we do have an interesting example where the NMO of a country enforces restriction on old maps of a certain vintage and later, that too on copies sold after a certain date. So, if you are one of those lucky chaps who bought a copy before the map got 'stamped' as restricted, you can use the offering quite openly. Surely hilarious, but not as bad as the great firewall and its implications on the development of geospatial in China.

  Hrishikesh Samant
hrishikesh@gisdevelopment.net
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Top Stories
Singapore’s unique history of multiple language usage among its citizens is particularly challenging for navigation system providers attempting to streamline their voice features. Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin and Tamil street names became part of the vernacular over time and eventually evolved into an English pronunciation, while maintaining many of their original characteristics...


One of the main drivers of the strong growth in LBS is the popularity of an impressive number of off-deck LBS applications available for a one-off fee on smartphone platforms, Apple’s iPhone is leading the way, followed by Blackberry, Nokia, and Android. Combined with the astonishing popularity of the new generation of GPS-enabled touch screen smartphones, this will continue to constitute the lifeblood of LBS in the coming years...

  Articles
A Desertification Impact on Siwa Oasis: Present and Future Challenges

Abo-Ragab Samy
Desert Research Center, Cairo, Egypt

Spatio-Temporal Design for Urban Planning
Ather Ashraf, Asif Ali, Salman Haider, Jahanzaib Sohail Rana, Muhammad Idrees
GIS Center, PUCIT, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
   New Products, Launches and Releases
SatNav device with worldwide maps
GALACTIO for real time dynamic navigation
Geospatial information centre git4infrastructure.org launched
Updated digital maps for Japan available
Discover GIS suite, latest version released
Space-Time Insight released geospatial solution for Oil and Gas
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    Global Headlines
Asia
PCTEL GPS antennas in GAGAN system
IIRS to use EDUSAT to interact with students
Xinjiang bans classified topography map trading
Africa
Kenya to benefit from laser mapping
Americas
Online mapping services help spot trends in crime
Online GIS data for firefighters
ASPRS approves guidelines for mapping services
USGS to track cause of ground sinking
Inmarsat BGAN to bring GIS data to remote wildfire teams
Appointments, Acquisitions and Contracts
NAVTEQ establishes a Global Production Centre at Mumbai
GeoEye extends agreement with NGA
MDA to provide RADARSAT-2 imagery to ESA
PCI Geomatics signs licensing agreement with NRCan
Education, Training and Events
Intergraph announces 2009 Carl Pulfrich Award
E-book “Essays on Geography and GIS, Vol. 2” free download
  Events
ISRS Symposium 2009
Nagpur, Maharastra, India
17 - 19 September 2009

SSC 2009
Adelaide, Australia
28 September - 2 October 2009

DGI CEE 2009
Prague, Czech Republic
29- 30 September 2009


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