24^th - 30^th April 2001

ISRO plans met satellite in 2002  [ 30/04/2001 ]
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch a meteorological experiment satellite using GSLV some time next year. Dr Madhavan Nair, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), said that the satellite, with a payload of 950 kg, would be put on a geo-stationary orbit to provide information on weather, moisture content and other atmosphere-related matters.

First space tourist blasts off  [ 30/04/2001 ]
A Russian rocket lifted off flawlessly on Saturday from the Baikonur cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito, and two cosmonauts into orbit on their way to the International Space Station.

Mild quake rocks Delhi  [ 28/04/2001 ]
A mild tremor, measuring 3.8 on the Richter Scale shook Delhi, forcing residents of highrise buildings to rush out on Saturday morning. The quake struck at 0840 hours IST, accorindg to the Indian Meteorological Department in Delhi.

Earthquake Danger in Northeast Highlighted by New USGS Map  [ 28/04/2001 ]
ver 1,000 earthquakes have hit the Northeast over the last 360 years according to a new earthquake map and fact sheet soon to be unveiled by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Northeast States Emergency Consortium (NESEC). The map and companion fact sheet target public awareness of Northeastern earthquake hazards and will serve as valuable tools for public officials, citizens, engineers, and scientists who are working to minimize the effects of future Northeastern earthquakes.

Avis Introduces New Alpine Portable Navigation System At Five Key Airport Locations  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Avis Rent A Car and Alpine Electronics of America has announced that Alpine's new portable satellite navigation system would be available on a test basis to Avis customers renting most vehicles in the Avis fleet at five key airport locations in California, New York and Florida.

Picturesque Diamond Woods Golf Course Selects UpLink's Advanced GPS System  [ 27/04/2001 ]
At Diamond Woods Golf Club, where the stunning Cascade Mountains offer a mesmerizing backdrop, golfers now have another reason to look to the sky to enhance their golfing experience. This technological capability, which is made possible because each cart unit receives position data using a combination of GPS and wireless communication technology.

Spatial Insights unveils US Bank location and deposit databases  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Spatial Insights has announced the completion of a nationwide database of bank locations, attributed with deposit balance. Leveraging continually updated bank and savings deposit balance data, Spatial Insights geographically referenced and summarized more than 84,000 branches and offices of FDIC-insured institutions.

EuropebyAir Launches Interactive Planning Map  [ 26/04/2001 ]
EuropebyAir, the company that offers the most comprehensive intra-European flight pass, has launched a new, interactive map on the company's USA web site page. To use the map, Flight Pass customers simply scroll their mouse over the city they wish to depart from within Europe; instantly the map lights up and draws lines showing exactly where they can travel to with a $99 FlightPass.

Autodesk GenMap to manage the Electric Utility Industry  [ 26/04/2001 ]
Autodesk and its subsidiary Gentry Systems has announced Autodesk(R) GenMap, a GIS-based application for modeling, maintaining, and managing electric utility networks. Autodesk GenMap provides industry-specific functions, a library of standard electrical symbols, "click and drop" functionality, and a single point of entry for quickly and easily creating and editing connectivity network maps.

ArcGIS 8.1 Makes Prime-Time Debut on CBS's The District  [ 24/04/2001 ]
ArcGIS 8.1 has made its prime-time television debut Saturday, April 21 on The District, CBS's Saturday night hit crime drama. Using ArcGIS, The District dramatizes this new and growing problem of drug abuse and serves to educate millions of Americans about the risks it poses to our society. Throughout the episode, ArcGIS-generated maps appear including maps depicting drug use among 12th grade students

RSI & Agri ImaGIS Launch Web-based Agricultural Service  [ 30/04/2001 ]
RADARSAT International and Agri ImaGIS have announced that they have signed a commercial agreement to provide the North American agricultural industry with a web-based, crop vigor mapping service derived from LANDSAT 7 Earth-observation satellite data.

U.S. Wireless Developing Next Generation Cell Phone Location Solution  [ 30/04/2001 ]
U.S. Wireless Corporation has announced that it plans to support E-911 caller location for GSM carriers. The company's RadioCamera location system, which is available for CDMA, TDMA, AMPS and iDEN networks, enables wireless carriers to meet the demands of Phase II of the Federal Communications Commission's E-911 Mandate.

Trimble Puts GPS Mapping in Your Pocket  [ 28/04/2001 ]
Trimble has introduced a uniquely designed personal, pocket-sized GPS receiver for the mapping and GIS market. Developed to use with a number of popular handheld devices including pen-based or laptop computers, Pocket PCs, and Palm devices, the GPS Pathfinder Pocket receiver is rugged, compact and lightweight, making it easy to carry and use, while still providing the sophisticated results required by GIS professionals.

Integrated Spatial Information Solutions announces $2.1 million in new project awards  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Integrated Spatial Information Solutions's subsidiary PlanGraphics has received new contracts and bookings of $2.1 million for its second quarter ended March 31. Separately, PlanGraphics announced that it has been awarded a contract for a landmark aerial photography project for the Kentucky Office of Geographic Information.

Tele-Locator(TM) Dual System GPS Line Expands to Add Trunking Options  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Antenna Specialists, is expanding its Tele-Locator(TM) line of dual-system GPS antennas to include 3 dBd gain roof top mounting options for 800 and 900 MHz trunking. Model series ASP-1860TGPS combines active GPS location identification with broadband trunking for complete frequency coverage without tuning.

Intermap Announces Solution for Creating Digital Terrain Model  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Intermap Technologies has announced that it has released its first version of TerrainFit, software designed to create a Digital Terrain Model from a Digital Surface Model. TerrainFit has been shown effective in urban and rural areas. TerrainFit DTMs have been validated against airborne and photogrammetrically derived DTMs.

Graticule announce MapACE for high quality mapping on Windows CE devices  [ 27/04/2001 ]
Graticule has announced the development of MapACE, a software component library for high quality custom mapping on hand-held devices running Microsoft Windows CE. The MapACE library contains a rich suite of functions for handling raster and vector map data. It includes functions for import, display, pan, zoom, query map objects, edit, select map layers, distance metrics, linking to satellite GPS receivers and other core activities.

Z/I imaging introduces automatic Aerial Triangulation Application at ASPRS Convention  [ 26/04/2001 ]
Z/I Imaging Corporation has announced at the annual American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Conference the release of ImageStation Automatic Triangulation (ISAT) 2001, an exceptional product for aerotriangulation. ISAT 2001 will replace MATCH-AT in Z/I Imaging's product line.

Transforming Wireless Handsets into Virtual Remote Controls for fast delivery of LBS  [ 26/04/2001 ]
In an effort that would transform the digital wireless handset into a virtual remote control, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and GeoVector have announced plans to enable GeoVector's innovative pointing access technology on TI's open and programmable digital signal processor (DSP)-based OMAP(TM) platform for 2.5 and 3G wireless devices. The users of will be able to point at a street location such as a movie theater or restaurant, menus and more

Magellan MapSend Topo USA offers unmatched topographic capabilities for GPS Handhelds  [ 26/04/2001 ]
Magellan Corp. has announced a June 2001 release of MapSend Topo USA, the premier product designed to provide all-digital, interactive, fully searchable, topographic capabilities both on a desktop and in a GPS receiver. Whether at home, hiking, off-road driving or mountain climbing, MapSend Topo USA delivers instantaneous elevation data, vertical elevation profile graphs, waypoint and route creation tools, and more.

Comsearch Launches Online DataZone  [ 26/04/2001 ]
Comsearch has officially launched DataZone(SM), a repository of standardized reports, studies and data products for the telecommunications industry. Marketing, Business Development, Engineering or Sales professionals can order market intelligence reports, spectrum usage studies, and technical and GIS data directly from Comsearch's Web site to help them make informed business decisions.

Skyline selects Lizardtech's MrSID for viewing support inside Terrabuilder software  [ 26/04/2001 ]
LizardTech has announced the native support of its industry-leading MrSID image file format within Skyline's Terrabuilder software. Terrabuilder allows users to build and create 3-D backdrops for photo-realistic and geometrically accurate fly-by visualizations of geographic data, such as geographic terrain, vector data and aerial and satellite imagery, including MrSID image sets

MapInfo to deliver driving directions and maps on Motorola phones  [ 25/04/2001 ]
Motorola has announced an alliance with MapInfo AE Corporation to provide MapInfo 92s miGuide(TM), a location-based application that delivers maps and driving directions, on Java technology-enabled handsets by Motorola.

MultiGen-Paradigm Ships SiteBuilder 3D  [ 25/04/2001 ]
MultiGen-Paradigm, the leading developer of real-time 3D solutions, has announced at the International Training and Education Conference & Exhibition (ITEC), that the shipment of its newest software tool, SiteBuilder 3D(TM). SiteBuilder 3D is an extension to ESRI's popular ArcView(R) GIS desktop mapping program and provides users with a solution to quickly and easily visualize 2D GIS data in 3D.

Hiwire Chooses GeoPoint(SM) 2.0 for Streaming Media  [ 25/04/2001 ]
Quova, a leading provider of Internet infrastructure intelligence services to e-businesses, has announced that Hiwire has selected GeoPoint to offer targeted local advertising for streaming media. Hiwire will use GeoPoint to increase the accuracy of geolocation information for their customers at the DMA, city and zip code level.

OmniVision Announces 1.3 Mega-Pixel CMOS Image Sensors  [ 24/04/2001 ]
OmniVision Technologies has announced its new 1.3 mega-pixel (1280x1024) image sensors, designed for the digital still camera market where high-resolution output is required. The newest products are the latest in OmniVision's portfolios of image sensors. OmniVision additionally offers image sensor solutions for CIF (320x240), VGA (640x480) and SVGA (800x600) resolutions.

Trimble Information Services to offer location-based services  [ 24/04/2001 ]
Trimble has announced that it has formed Trimble Information Services, (TIS) to offer Internet location-based services for the mobile workplace. The new capabilities allow Trimble to leverage its existing wireless business by offering complete end-to-end fleet management solutions as well as address the emerging market for location-enabled phones and mobile devices.

Ipswitch's WhatsUp Gold 6.0 brings enhanced monitoring, mapping and reporting capabilities  [ 24/04/2001 ]
Ipswitch has announced the latest version of its network mapping, monitoring and reporting software, WhatsUp Gold 6.0. It is a featured element of Cisco Systems' newly introduced CiscoWorks for Windows, v6.0.

First Satellite-Based Global Inflight Email and Web Service launched  [ 24/04/2001 ]
Singapore Airlines and Tenzing Communications Inc. announced the launch of Tenzing's email and Web service on Singapore Airlines. This installation marks the beginning of a full fleet roll-out of the Tenzing Global service, which will enable Singapore Airlines passengers to send and receive email as well as browse Web content while in flight.

ESRI's ArcView 8.1 now shipping  [ 24/04/2001 ]
ESRI announced the release of ArcView 8.1. ArcView 8.1 maintains the base functionality of ArcView GIS 3.x and adds a host of improvements. New features include a catalog for browsing and managing data, on-the-fly coordinate and datum projection, metadata creation, customization with built-in Visual Basic for Applications, new geographic editing tools, support for static annotation and enhanced cartographic tools.

Vicrea Puts Maps on the Web with CARIS Spatial Fusion  [ 26/04/2001 ]
Vicrea Solutions has joined the CARIS Spatial Fusion Solution Provider Program to use CARIS' Java and C++ development toolkit, Spatial Fusion, for building and deploying Enterprise GIS solutions over the Internet.

SANZ Joins ESRI Business Partner Program  [ 24/04/2001 ]
SAN Holdings has announced that it has joined the Business Partner Program of ESRI of Redlands, California, the leading provider of GIS software applications. As an ESRI Business Partner, SANZ will provide its geospatial data appliance, "GEMS" to users of ESRI's ArcIMS software product and the Geography Network, enabling public and private sectors to spatially integrate and share geographic data.

Analytical Surveys completes sale of Colorado Springs office  [ 28/04/2001 ]
Analytical Surveys, Inc., (ASI) has announced it has completed the sale of substantially all the assets of its Colorado Springs, Colorado-based land mapping office. ASI sold the office to The Sanborn Map Company, Inc., for a total consideration of $9.0 million.

Solid Terrain Modeling gets a vice president marketing & licensing  [ 25/04/2001 ]
Solid Terrain Modeling (STM) has announced that the company has appointed Michelle Schmitz as vice president of Marketing and Licensing. STM is a developer of patent-pending 3-D physical terrain map and model manufacturing processes and proprietary physical image transfer and printing software for the 3-D mapping and modeling industry.

Garmin Names Manager of Investor Relations  [ 25/04/2001 ]
Garmin Ltd. has announced the appointment of John P. Mills as Manager of Investor Relations, effective April 1, 2001. Mr. Mills will be responsible for investor relations' functions and other financial duties for Garmin.

Keith Companies awarded an IDIQ contract by the National Park Service  [ 24/04/2001 ]
The Keith Companieshas announced that it has been awarded an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide surveying and mapping services in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington by the National Park Service.

Pennsylvania Governor Ridge Announces Environmental Education Grants  [ 25/04/2001 ]
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge announced 37 Environmental Education Grants, totaling nearly $300,000, to promote environmental stewardship and awareness. This year, the grants will help fund projects that cover teacher training on Pennsylvania's new Academic Standards for Environment and Ecology, land-use education, acid mine drainage education, watershed education, and general environmental education.