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Farmers Get A Rapid View Of Pests

In Arkansas, farmers will check their fields for changes in moisture levels and forestry workers can examine forests for pest outbreaks with the click of a few buttons, thanks to new technology created by University of Arkansas researchers and housed on campus. RAPID-AmericaView, a first-of-its-kind cooperative project between U of A researchers, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Arkansas State Land Information Board, provides "same day service" conversion of Earth orbiting satellite data into easy to use, publicly available information that can be downloaded from the World Wide Web. The University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) has created a program to enhance the work of AmericaView, a USGS program designed to increase public access to geospatial data. Called RAPID (Real-time Acquisition and Processing of Imagery Data), the CAST program quickly translates raw data, taken from the Landsat 7 satellite and processed by the USGS, into usable information.

Applications in CADD innovate with ECW

The ground mapping and modelling company, Applications in CADD Ltd (AiC), have become the latest organisation to enhance their product offering through Earth Resource Mapping's patented ECW (Enhanced Compressed Wavelet) technology. AiC have been producing state of the art ground mapping and modelling software for over 15 years. AiC's latest offering, N4ce is a next generation ground mapping/modelling and design system for the windows environment. N4ce, which involved three years of R&D effort, takes survey data from a variety of sources such as field recorders and GPS receivers and creates advanced surface models and real time 3-D simulations. To meet consumer demand, AiC have incorporated the ECW technology within their product. This has enabled huge amounts of aerial photography to be combined with their core data in real time, a process previously unachievable due to excessive file sizes.

Visit: www.ermapper.com & www.appsincadd.co.uk

OpenLS day participation fuels OGC initiative

The Open GIS Consortium Inc. (OGC) hosted 41 representatives from 35 companies and organizations at a July 31st meeting addressing its upcoming Open Location Services (OpenLS) Initiative. Attendees of the event helped further define the requirements and scope of first activity, a testbed to develop fundamental interfaces and services to allow a wide variety of location solutions to interoperate. Response to a Call For Participation, issued in mid-July, has been brisk, with over 150 organizations downloading the document. That interest, combined with questions and discussion from attendees at the one-day meeting led to an updated Testbed Execution Scenario. Clarifications and the updated execution scenario, along with presentations from the meetings are available for review at www.openls.org. Submissions in response to the Call for Participation are due on Monday, August 13.

Visit: www.openls.org & www.opengis.org

Tadpole extends its utility customer base

Tadpole-Cartesia, a leader in field information systems for the world's utilities and a business unit of mobile computing and network infrastructure vendor, Tadpole Inc., has announced that it had won a further contract for its Conic GIS software. The contract, from British utility Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water plc, is subject to successful completion of a pilot and is valued at around $400,000. Scheduled for roll out across the utility in Q1, 2002, Tadpole's system will support the utility's drive to increase the number of tasks undertaken daily by its mobile workforces, enhance customer response and service, and reduce operational costs. Tadpole's Conic GIS software is a well-proven, robust field information solution for mobile workers in the energy industries and is widely deployed by utilities across Europe, North America and Asia. It enables mobile workers to receive job-related corporate-stored GIS data on handheld devices in the field such as the location of assets in order to undertake inspection, repair and maintenance tasks. Once a task is completed, job data is transmitted back to corporate databases from the field.

Visit: www.tadpole.com

Earth Resource Mapping supports journeys into space

Earth Resource Mapping has donated three Image Web Server licenses to Australia's major exhibition on space 'Journey's into Space: Quest for the Origins of Life', to open at the Australian National Museum, Canberra in December 2001. The exhibition is being planned to present Australia's past and present role in space research with emphasis on the contributions made by specialists in space industries. Earth Resource Mapping donated the Image Web Server licenses to Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES) and CSIRO, who will develop a stand-alone interactive touch screen kiosk for the exhibition. ACRES and CSIRO are collaborating to develop the kiosk that serves numerous high-resolution mosaic images of Australia. Earth Resource Mapping's Internet serving technology, Image Web Server, was chosen as the application to serve the high-resolution images because of its speed and Enhanced Compressed Wavelet (ECW) compression format.

Visit: www.ermapper.com

Asia News

Asian IT Products Exhibition Opens in Shanghai

SHANGHAI, August 8 (Xinhuanet) -- An Asian exhibition showcasing world information technology (IT) development opened Wednesday in this east China metropolis.

Over 500 IT enterprises from some 23 countries are attending the exhibition, CeBIT Asia, which displays information and telecommunications products, Internet technology, software and electronic products, among others.

During the four-day show, the participants will attend symposiums on trade cooperation between European and Asian enterprises, and the development of information technology in Asia, in a view to seeking business opportunities.

China is the world's largest potential market for IT and telecommunications products. It is predicted that within the next five years, China will become the world's second-largest IT market, next only to the United States, and by 2010, it will be the world' s largest.

Experts believe that Shanghai, as an economic and financial center of China, is not only a hotspot for foreign investment, but also an ideal platform for Asian IT exhibitions.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

SmartForce, Tata in e-learning tie-up

BANGALORE: US-based Internet education firm SmartForce and Tata Infotech on Wednesday launched an alliance to offer courses on the Web, aiming to earn revenues of $50 million by 2004.

The two companies will target companies, schools and colleges to offer information technology courses that involve online content, interaction with experts and tutors and chats with fellow students and peers.

Tata Infotech is part of the Tata group.

Glenn Nott, Director, Asia Pacific, for SmartForce, told a news conference that e-learning was not affected by the current technology slowdown, and was growing at a compounded 68.8 percent per year and forecast by the International Data Corp to reach $23 billion in 2004.

The Asia-Pacific region was expected to account for $418 million then, roughly half of it coming from India, he said.

Acquiring of skills "just in time", fast changing technologies and cost savings offered a strong scope for the e-learning business, he said.

SmartForce last month said it expected revenues of between $270 million and $272 million in 2001.

Source: The Times of India, 9 August 2001

China Prepares To Launch New Satellite To Study Oceans

China is in final testing and preparation to launch a new satellite dedicated to study ocean colours and phenomena. The launch may come as early as this month.

The Haiyang-1 (HY-1, Haiyang means "ocean") remote sensing satellite is the first in a new series of satellites that will make observations of ocean colours and conditions, with an emphasis on areas near China. The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) first disclosed the construction of the satellite in August last year.

Earlier this year during the extensive discussion and formulation of the current tenth five-year economic development plan, abbreviated the "10 5 Plan", the government confirmed its commitment to develop the HY satellite series.

The May 2001 issue of the Chinese-language monthly publication Aerospace China reports that although there is no clear indication of how many satellites in the series would be launched in the next five years, the "10 5 Plan" states that key technological breakthroughs would be required to equip the second satellite HY-2 to monitor the dynamical environment of oceans. This includes obtaining data on surface wind field, surface and wave heights, current flows and temperatures.

Source: www.spacedaily.com

ISRO experiment may throw light on ET life

PUNE ( PTI ): The recent discovery of extra-terrestrial micro-organisms entering Earth's atmosphere was likely to give a different dimension to the study of possible existence of life in outer space, according to renowned astronomer and director of Inter University for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Dr Jayant Narlikar.

Narlikar said on Wednesday that it can throw more light on not only how life could have originated in the Earth but also about possible existence of other life forms, if any.

The existence of extra-terrestrials entering Earth's atmosphere was established recently following an experiment funded by Indian Space Research Organisation with a grant of Rs 60 lakh, he said.

Scientists from different institutions, including Dr Narlikar, prof S Ramadurai from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Dr S Shivaji and Dr G S N Reddy from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Hyderabad, P Rajaratnam from ISRO together with professors David Lloyd and Chandra Wickramsinghe from University of Wales, Cardif had carried out the experiment.

The experiment involved sending a balloon on January 21, this year from TIFR's National Scientific Balloon Facility carrying a scientific payload with cryogenic sampler to sample the stratosphere high up in the space, he said.

The analysis had indicated that large amount of bacterial matter enters Earth's atmosphere every day, Narlikar said, adding the Cardiff group was confident of having detected living systems in these samples.

Source: Times Of India