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Trimble adds significant upgrades to aerial guidance system

Trimble has introduced significant new capabilities to its AgGPS(R) TrimFlight 3 system, which provides Global Positioning System (GPS)-based guidance for aerial applicators. All the new products are designed to offer AgGPS TrimFlight 3 users tools to increase the uniformity, effectiveness and overall productivity of aerial application projects. In addition, new software includes the capabilities needed to bid on USDA-APHIS boll weevil eradication contracts. The new capabilities include AgGPS ViewTrack software, the AgGPS Automatic Flow control option, Real-Time Weather information, and the AgGPS 23 Exterior Mount Lightbar. The AgGPS Trimflight 3 system was first introduced to the market in 2000. It helps professional agriculture aviators increase productivity and efficiency by using GPS-based guidance for aerial applications, mapping and record keeping.

Visit : http://www.trimble.com/press/index.htm

Positive Systems continues work with NASA

Positive Systems, a leader in digital aerial photography products and services, has been awarded additional funding to provide digital aerial photography services to NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center. The contract is funded through NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) Program for global Earth study and includes image acquisition and image processing of multi-spectral imagery covering approximately 675 square kilometres in the States of Oregon, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. Photographed with Positive Systems' ADAR System 5500, a four-band multi-spectral digital aerial photography camera, the imagery will be used for land cover applications and correlation with satellite sensors to study Earth science information, such as changes in the environment due to global warming. The imagery will then be processed with DIME™, Positive Systems' new image mosaicking, georeferencing and colour balancing software. The project is valued at approximately $300,000 USD.

Visit: www.possys.com

Coastal erosion: The first UK map

Scientists are compiling the first detailed map of Britain's receding coastline. A pilot project is underway at Filey on the northeast coast of England, where land is disappearing at a rate of 25 centimetres (10 inches) each year. A team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne is using aerial photographs from a microlight aircraft, satellite pictures, and advanced computer technology to build up a 3D model of coastal erosion in the area. Jon Mills, who is leading the project, said the information would be used to decide where to locate sea defences. According to Dr Mills "What we're doing is using satellite technology, digital aerial photography and ground-based global positioning systems to build the most accurate model ever of coastal erosion." The researchers will use the data to create a 3D computer model of a 13-kilometre (8-mile) stretch of coastline. By comparing the model with monthly satellite photographs provided by the European Space Agency, they hope to be able to predict when and where coastal erosion will occur. Coastal erosion is a huge problem worldwide. In the UK, work to improve sea defences costs millions of pounds each year. With the current measuring methods, experts are generally only able to provide annual estimates as to how much the coast is eroding. The new methods have the potential to be applied to the entire British coastline.

DMTI Spatial helps Maporama sizzle with top notch Canadian routing data

Canadian spatial solutions leader, DMTI Spatial, has teamed up with Maporama, the European leader in online cartography and geocentric information services, to launch Canadian street map routing data on its online mapping service. With the help of DMTI Spatial, Maporama has been able to bolster its world Internet mapping coverage, providing it with one of the most comprehensive mapping systems on the Web, PDAs and WAP phones. This alliance has fostered the integration of DMTI Spatial's new Canadian street map routing data set with Maporama's powerful routing engine to generate door-to-door itineraries.

Visit: www.maporama.com & www.dmtispatial.com

CellPoint and SiRF partner to provide GSM/3G operators

CellPoint Inc., a global provider of mobile location technology and services, and SiRF Technology, Inc., a leading developer of location technology based on global positioning system (GPS), have announced a strategic partnership to deliver a platform to GSM cell phone operators that provides highly accurate location information to cell phone users in any environment. With this agreement, SiRF's Assisted GPS (A-GPS/a) technology will be integrated with CellPoint's network-based Enhanced Cell-ID (E-Cell-ID) location platform technology, providing consumers and wireless network operators the best of both location-information systems. A hybrid of GPS and network-based technology offers constant, accurate location information anytime, anywhere: GPS technology can pinpoint location to within 5 to 15 meters; however, the satellite signals can be blocked in certain environments, such as inside buildings, while network-based systems, such as CellPoint's E-Cell-ID can supplement in these environments.

Visit : www.sirf.com & www.cellpoint.com.

Asia News

Malaysia To Launch e-Procurement Telecenters Nationwide

As part of Malaysia's RM270 million (US$71 million) e-government procurement project e-Perolehan, the Government will install a network of telecenters nationwide to target smaller sized suppliers, enabling them to trade online with all Government procurement centers.

e-Perolehan is one of the first and largest pilot applications under the e-government flagship applications of Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).

The telecenters facilitating the e-Perolehan project will help non-IT savvy suppliers perform online transactions such as submitting registration applications, providing catalog details or even getting connected to the Internet. Suppliers stand to save up to 50 percent in registration costs by using the system, according to Datuk Mohd Salleh Masduki, chief executive officer of project concession holder Commerce Dot Com (CDC).

Source: Asia.internet.com

`Amend I-T Act to include e-com cos'

THE Income-Tax Act will have to be amended in order to incorporate e-commerce companies not having a physical presence or a permanent establishment.

A member of the committee on e-commerce and taxation said that the CBDT has accepted the OECD's suggestion to abandon the permanent establishment definition from the I-T Act. Under the present legislation, the CBDT can impose tax on only those companies which have a physical presence in India.

The committee has suggested incorporation of necessary legal provisions in the I-T Act enabling e-commerce companies to file taxes in electronic mode. This would be done in tune with legislations on digital signatures as provided in the Information Technology Act.

The CBDT will also have to look into the role of Internet service providers and banks in e-commerce transactions.

Source: Business Line, 8 August 2001

C-DAC seminar on e-learning technologies

THE Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a scientific society working under the Ministry of Information Technology, is organising a two-day national seminar on E-learning and E-learning Technologies (ELELTECH INDIA-2001) on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The seminar was inaugurated by the Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, Mr R.R. Shah, on Tuesday.

According to the C-DAC Executive Director, Mr R.K. Arora, the aim of the two-day seminar was to create awareness in Internet pedagogy, e-learning technologies and to discuss the future directions in this area.

The seminar provides a common platform to share the experiences of experts working in this area and also to evolve the future strategies by bringing together scientists, technologists, academia, industry and the policy makers at the central and state governments, Mr Arora said.

Source: Business Line, 8 August 2001

Scientists to Explore North Pole

BEIJING,August 7-Xinhuanet-- Chinese scientists will make a renewed bid for information about the arctic environment when an expedition sets out at the end of January to explore the North Pole,according to China Daily.

The expedition will consist of 10 scientists and will take a new route to explore a region at high latitude within the arctic area, said Liu Shaochuang, a professor at the Remote Sensing Application Institute with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Studies of various subjects including remote sensing, mapping, kumatology, ecology and oceanography have been included in the draft research plan, he said. Spearheaded by Liu's institute, the trip will mostly be sponsored by internal sources but will also receive contributions from enterprises.

They plan to start from the Asian continent, span the Arctic Ocean along the longitude 90 degrees east and finally arrive at the North Pole, a route that has never been taken by Chinese expeditions before.

In 1995, Liu and a dozen Chinese scientists passed through the North Pole from the opposite direction, along the longitude 90 degrees west in Canada.

China started its research in polar regions at Antarctica in 1980s.

Source: Xinhua News Agency